SOCCER
Official charged over attack
Former Sporting Lisbon president Bruno de Carvalho, suspected of ordering an attack on the club’s players in May last year, is to go on trial along with 43 others charged in the case, a Lisbon court announced on Thursday. The court deemed that there was sufficient “evidence to the practice of crimes” against those under investigation, the indictment said. “They have all been accused. We did not expect this decision,” defense lawyer Miguel Matias said. Shortly before Sporting lost last year’s Portuguese Cup final to Aves, about 50 fans invaded the training center and attacked the squad, beating some players. No motive has yet to be established, although De Carvalho is accused by the prosecution of being behind it.
POKER
Record buy-in tourney starts
A tournament featuring a £1 million (US$1.21 million) buy-in — a record, according to organizers — started in London on Thursday, with 54 players from around the world competing for the £19 million first prize. Eleven players are to walk away with winnings at the three-day Triton Million event. Participants are to pay an additional £50,000 entry fee that would go to charity, organizer Triton said. The tournament was designed to have a balance of recreational poker enthusiasts and top professionals, Triton Poker Series touring director Luca Vivaldi said. Professional player Jason Koon from the US said that he would try to exploit some of the recreational players, “but against the tougher competition, poker players play more of a defensive strategy where we just try not to be exploited.”
GOLF
Olesen arrested for assault
Danish star Thorbjorn Olesen was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a passenger during a first-class flight from the US to London, British media reported on Thursday. Olesen allegedly molested a sleeping woman before urinating in the aisle and then getting involved in an abusive tirade with crew on a British Airways flight from Memphis, where he had competed in the St Jude Invitational last weekend, the Sun reported. Olesen, a member of this year’s European Ryder Cup team and a five-time champion on the European Tour, needed to be calmed down by fellow player Ian Poulter. A European Tour spokesman told the Daily Telegraph: “This is an active police matter and therefore we have no comment.”
SOCCER
Arsenal sign winger Pepe
Arsenal have broken their transfer record to sign winger Nicolas Pepe from Lille OSC as they try to return to the Champions League. The 24-year-old Ivory Coast international is moving to the English Premier League in a transfer deal worth a reported 80 million euros (US$88.8 million). Pepe’s move, announced on Thursday, eclipses the £55 million (US$66.71 million) spent on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in January last year as Arsenal add another attacking option. “Signing a top-class winger has been one of our key objectives in this transfer window and I’m delighted he’s joining,” Arsenal manager Unai Emery said. “He will add pace, power and creativity.” Arsenal will be playing in the Europa League again after losing in that league’s final to Chelsea and failing to finish in the Premier League’s top four.
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