■ BoxingVargas overcomes Joval
Former two-time world junior middleweight champion Fernando Vargas (on right in the above photo) won a unanimous 10-round decision Saturday over Raymond Joval of the Netherlands. Judges scored the fight 98-92, 96-94 and 97-93 for Vargas, who fought for the first time in 15 months. The crowd of 9,332, the largest for a boxing card in Corpus Christi, Texas, loudly supported the former champ. Vargas, 27, who had been nursing a lower back problem, hadn't fought since he stopped Tony Marshall in the seventh round in December 2003.
He showed little sign of rust and controlled the fight from the outset.
■ Hockey
Asian action heats up
Chris Yule and Kiyoshi Fujita both scored midway through the third period yesterday to lead Kokudo to a 5-2 win over the Nippon Paper Cranes in the inaugural Asia League ice hockey championship. Playing before 1,816 spectators at Higashifushimi Arena in Tokyo. The Nippon Paper Cranes won the first game of the best-of-five series in Sapporo by a score of 2-0 but Kokudo came back to win the second and third games by scores of 6-4 and 2-1. The Asia League is made up of four teams from Japan, two from China and one each from Russia and South Korea.
■ Cycling
British do well in US
Victoria Pendleton beat Russia's Tamilia Abassova in two straight rides to win the women's matched sprint and give Britain two of four titles awarded Saturday at the Track Cycling World Championships in Carson, California. Pendleton, who nearly left cycling after a disappointing effort in the 2004 Olympics, gave Britain its third gold and fifth medal of the four-day competition at the ADT Event Center. She had winning runs of 12.184 and 12.284 seconds. Australia's Anna Meares beat older sister Kerrie in the last of three races for third place. Britain's Steven Cummings, Robert Hayes, Paul Manning and Christopher Newton won the men's team pursuit, finishing in 4:05.619, an average speed of 56.62kph. The Netherlands was second in 4:09.971. In the women's pursuit final, Katie Mactier of Australia defeated compatriot Katherine Bates. Mactier led throughout and was timed in 3:38.720, an average speed of 49.371kph.
■ Horse racing
Young jockey gets killed
A 16-year-old apprentice jockey was dragged to his death by a runaway horse at a race meeting at Riverton on New Zealand's South Island on Saturday. Sam McRae, who had been riding for four months, was dragged 900m when he fell from his horse, Queen's Evidence, and his foot became trapped in a stirrup. He died of head and chest injuries, Riverton Racing Club chief stipendiary steward Stewart Ching said. Other jockeys in the 1,100m race were unable to stop McRae's startled mount until the field had entered the finishing straight. "That's the most horrific thing I've ever seen," senior jockey Terry Moseley said. The accident happened in front of thousands of racegoers at the popular Easter holiday weekend meeting.
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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