RUGBY UNION
Stormers remain unbeaten
The South Africa-based Stormers maintained their unbeaten record in Super Rugby this year, beating the Lions 33-30 in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Stormers were trailing 30-26 nearly two minutes after the final hooter, but kept the ball alive and worked an opportunity for center Ruhan Nel to score a dramatic match-winning try in the last play of the game. In Buenos Aires, hooker Julian Montoya scored three tries as the Jaguares rallied from 24-12 down at halftime to beat the Queensland Reds 43-27.
RUGBY LEAGUE
Folau has winning debut
Former Wallaby Israel Folau scored two tries on his debut for the Catalans Dragons in Saturday’s 36-18 Super League win over the Castleford Tigers. Folau, 30, who joined the French side on Jan. 28, crossed after just six minutes having caught a high kick. Dragons coach Steve McNamara said that the team were not letting controversy over Folau distract them. “The plan all along was to get Israel on the field and give him time. I understand the headlines, but let him play, let him get on the field and we’ll understand the person a little more after that,” McNamara told a post-match news conference. Folau was sacked last year by Rugby Australia after a social media post that said “hell awaits” homosexuals and other groups. Some people inside the ground waved rainbow flags to protest Folau. “People are judging him on a headline,” McNamara said. “When I sign a player I look at him from a football perspective, then I work out what type of person he is. Is he a good person? Is he a good player? Will he add value to the team on and off the field?” Folau’s name was cheered when it was read out on the sound system before the game at the Stade Gilbert Brutus. The Dragons were investigating claims that stadium security asked them to not fly the flags. The Dragons said it was not their policy to ban rainbow flags.
OLYMPICS
Twitter accounts hacked
Twitter on Saturday said that an official Twitter account of the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) media account had been hacked and temporarily locked. The accounts were hacked through a third-party platform, a Twitter spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement, without giving further details. “As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners to restore them,” the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the IOC separately said that it was investigating the potential breach. La Liga soccer club Barcelona’s account faced a similar incident, Twitter said later. “FC Barcelona will conduct a cybersecurity audit and will review all protocols and links with third-party tools in order to avoid such incidents,” the club said in a tweet after the hack.
ATHLETICS
Pole vault record set
Sweden’s Armand Duplantis on Saturday set a world pole vault record of 6.18m at an indoor meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, adding 1cm to the record he set in Poland this month. Duplantis cleared the bar with something to spare and won a world-record bonus check of US$30,000. The record of 6.16m set by French vaulter Renaud Lavillenie had stood since 2014 until Duplantis broke it in Torun on Feb. 8.
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