■ Soccer
Draw set for Jan. 15
The draw for the 2004 Asian Cup finals will be made on Jan. 15 in Chongqing city in southwest China, the Asian Football Confederation said on its Web site. A total of 16 teams will enter the draw for the finals which will be played in China for the first time from July 17 to Aug. 7. Hosts China and defending champions Japan will be joined in the hat by 14 qualifiers -- Uzbekistan, Thailand, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Oman, South Korea, Iraq, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Turkmenistan. The 16 teams will be divided into four groups of four teams with the seedings announced at a later date, the AFC said. Chongqing is one of the four host cities for the Asian Cup finals, along with Chengdu, Jinan and Beijing.
■ Football
Hawaii edges Houston
Michael Brewster's eight-yard touchdown run in the third overtime sent Hawaii to a 54-48 victory over Houston in a Hawaii Bowl game that ended with an ugly fight at midfield. Shortly after Hawaii stopped the Cougars on fourth down in the third OT Thursday, several scuffles broke out with some players swinging helmets at each other and throwing punches. Coaches and police broke up the brawl after several minutes, and both teams finally headed to their locker rooms. It was a wild ending to a thrilling game. Houston (7-6) took advantage of a major clock management mistake by Hawaii (9-5) to tie it at 34 with 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter. After the Warriors blew a chance to run out the clock and missed a short field-goal attempt, Houston's Vincent Marshall caught an 81-yard touchdown pass from Kevin Kolb to tie it.
■ Basketball
Bryant `a little' scared
Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant said in a televised interview that he sometimes becomes distracted or scared as he fights a felony sexual assault charge. "You're just ... living in a nightmare and just can't really wake up out of it," Bryant said in the interview, broadcast Thursday on television network ABC at halftime of the Houston Rockets-Lakers game. Houston won, 99-87. Bryant, 25, is charged with attacking a 19-year-old employee at a Colorado resort in June. He has said the two had consensual sex. Asked if he has trouble keeping his mind on basketball during games, Bryant said: "Sometimes it wanders and I have to try to bring myself back to center. It's human nature, I guess." He said he is sometimes "a little bit" scared. "If you can't control, you just kind of have to let it go. And at times that can be extremely difficult but, you know, you do it," he said.
■ Soccer
Ferdinand speaks up
Former England striker Les Ferdinand revealed Thursday how the prospect of ending his distinguished career on a low after West Ham's relegation from the Premiership last season prompted him to delay his retirement. Ferdinand, who has since joined Leicester, said: "It was a bitter pill for me to swallow personally and we are doing everything at Leicester to make sure that doesn't happen. That was what made me decide to carry on for another season. That was the turning point for me because I was undecided to be honest whether to play again this season. But I didn't really want to end my career with relegation. I would have been sitting at home all this season thinking `what if' and I decided to give it another go."
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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