BOXING
AIBA ranks Chen world No. 1
Taiwanese female boxer Chen Nien-chin has been ranked No. 1 by the International Boxing Association (AIBA) in the welterweight category (69kg) with a score of 1,357.5 points. A member of the Amis community, the 21-year-old Hualien County native has been hailed by local media as the “Amis Bellona” and “boxing queen.” She excelled last year, winning gold medals at the Ulaanbaatar Box Cup, the World University Boxing Championship and the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. Chen said she participated in many women’s boxing competitions with her coach last year, many of which required her to fly long distances and to get ready to fight with almost no time to prepare. Despite all the hard work, the idea of giving up never occurred to her, Chen said, adding that she just keeps challenging herself. Chen has this year already won the Golden Girl Championship in Sweden and the Bocskai Memorial Tournament in Hungary, and was runner-up at the Strandja Memorial in Bulgaria. The AIBA women’s world champion said that her ultimate goal is to compete at next year’s Tokyo Olympics, where she hopes to win a gold medal for Taiwan.
CRICKET
Wellington Test rained out
Rain yesterday continued to blight the second test between New Zealand and Bangladesh, with the second day’s play abandoned without a ball being bowled. The first day’s play was washed out after persistent heavy rain fell in Wellington, but the weather had cleared enough yesterday to suggest the possibility of some play in the scheduled final session. However, light rain continued to hamper the work of the groundskeepers to prepare the Basin Reserve, and while the covers were removed and both teams went through warm-ups, the umpires decided the conditions were not going to be conducive to play. The forecast for tomorrow does not look any better, with further light showers expected throughout, with fine weather not due until on Monday afternoon. Hosts New Zealand lead the three-match series 1-0 after an innings and 52-run victory inside four days in the first match in Hamilton.
FOOTBALL
NFL lists proposed changes
After rule changes significantly reduced the success rate of NFL teams succeeding at recovering onside kicks last season, a proposed rule change would allow teams one opportunity per game to regain possession a different way. The proposal, from the Denver Broncos, was one of nine announced by the league on Friday. Seven of the other eight proposals involved widening the use of replay, and the other deals with overtime possessions. The Broncos’ idea is to give a team a chance to remain on offense after a score in the fourth quarter. The team would run a play from its own 35-yard line and would have to pick up 15 yards to keep the ball. If it fails, the defense takes over. The Washington Post, citing statistics from Elias Sports Bureau, said teams that attempted an onside kick last season recovered only four, while the receiving team recovered 49. That success rate of 7.5 percent was down markedly from 21.7 percent (13 of 60) one year earlier. Rule changes require the approval of 24 owners, who typically rely on the NFL competition committee to explore the ideas first. The overtime-related proposal, from the Kansas City Chiefs, would be to mandate that each team gets a possession. Currently, if the receiving team scores a touchdown on its first possession of overtime, the opponent never gets possession.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier