BASKETBALL
Taiwan makes U-18 final
Taiwan on Friday secured a spot in the final of the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Busan, South Korea, after the US edged the hosts in earlier in the day. Taiwan are second in the standings with three wins and one loss, behind the US with 4-1. Taiwan and Canada were to play the last game of the super round yesterday, while Taiwan are to play the US in the final today.
ICE HOCKEY
Women picked to officiate
The NHL for the first time selected four female officials to work on the ice at prospect tournaments this weekend. Katie Guay and Kelly Cooke were selected as referees, while Kirsten Welsh and Kendall Hanley are to work on the line, the league announced on Friday. It is to be the first time women have officiated at the pre-training camp prospects tournament level. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman previously said he envisions a woman officiating at the league level, without providing a timeline. Guay is the most experienced of the four, having refereed women’s games last year at the Winter Olympics.
RUGBY UNION
Chester Williams dead at 49
Chester Williams, the left winger in South Africa’s side that won the 1995 World Cup, died on Friday, aged 49, a relative said. It is believed that Williams had a heart attack in Cape Town, where he lived and worked as a rugby coach. Williams was the only black player in the World Cup-winning side that defeated New Zealand 15-12 after extra time at Ellis Park. Williams died less than two months after the death of James Small, the other winger on the team. “The news of Chester’s passing is devastating and hard to believe, as he was still young and seemingly in good health,” South Africa Rugby president Mark Alexander said. “Chester was a true pioneer in South African rugby and his performances at the World Cup in 1995 will forever be etched in the hearts and minds of our rugby public.”
CLIMBING
Man defeats elevator
It might not match the feeling of winning a world championship, but Polish climber Marcin Dzienski’s feat of racing and defeating an elevator up 23m will certainly have given him a lift. The 2016 world champion who is regarded by many as one of the top speed climbers, took 12.12 seconds to achieve the feat as part of a Red Bull event in Warsaw. Few would have given Dzienski a fighting chance in the man-versus-machine battle up six floors, but the 26-year-old defied all expectations to climb up a specially designed wall and pip the elevator in a close contest. Dzienski, who honed his skills as a youngster scaling apple trees in his grandfather’s orchard, is raising awareness about sport climbing, which is to make its Olympic debut next year.
RACING
Correa in induced coma
Juan Manuel Correa is in an induced coma in a London hospital after suffering complications following a crash in which Anthoine Hubert was killed at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. Correa, 22, broke his legs and sustained a spinal injury when he crashed with Hubert during a Formula Two race. Correa, grandson of former Ecuadorian president Rodrigo Borja, was moved to London from a Belgian hospital, where he underwent four hours of surgery. The racer’s parents, Juan Carlos and Maria Correa, said in a statement: “On his arrival to London, Juan Manuel was diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome” and had fallen into acute respiratory failure before being put into an induced coma.
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