■ Doping
Victor Conte pleads guilty
BALCO founder Victor Conte pleaded guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering charges in a deal with prosecutors, making it much less likely that top athletes such as Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery may be forced to testify about alleged doping. Two other men charged with Conte also were expected to plead guilty Friday to reduced charges, a law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity. A fourth man, athletics coach Remi Korchemny, delayed accepting any plea agreement. Conte, who founded the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, was charged with illegally distributing performance-enhancing substances to more than 30 of the biggest names in athletics and American football and baseball. He faced a maximum of 20 years in prison for the money laundering charge and five years for the conspiracy charge.
■ Auto racing
F1 fans to get refunds
Many fans who attended the boycotted US Grand Prix last month in Indianapolis, Indiana will automatically receive full refunds. The race's return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway is less of a certainty. Michelin and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced Friday that those with Speedway ticket accounts for the race will have their refunds processed automatically without needing to submit or sign any documents. Individual ticket buyers and holders of ticket stubs will have three weeks beginning Aug. 8 to submit claims. Michelin also confirmed it would buy 20,000 tickets for the 2006 race -- assuming it takes place. Speedway president Joie Chitwood said track officials were still considering whether to host Formula One's only US race for a seventh year. "At this point in time I can't confirm there will be a 2006 United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis," Chitwood said. Chitwood said he was worried about a reoccurrence of last month's fiasco.
■ Golf
Chudy generates upset
Tiffany Chudy upset defending champion Tseng Ya-ni 4 and 2, in the semifinals of the US Women's Amateur Public Links in Kansas City, Missouri on Friday. Chudy had five birdies and just one bogey at the Swope Memorial Golf Course to eliminate the 16-year-old from Taiwan. Chudy will play Eun Jung Lee of South Korea in the 36-hole final on Saturday. Lee defeated Jane Rah, 14, 5 and 4, in the other semifinal. Tseng took the first hole with a birdie, but bogeyed four holes, putting Chudy 3-up after 11. "It was an OK round, but not my best round," Tseng said through an interpreter. "I'm a little bit disappointed. Tiffany played very solid golf."
■ Sumo
Asashoryu dominates ring
Grand champion Asashoryu overpowered Tosanoumi for his seventh win Saturday to sweep to the top of the standings as the only undefeated wrestler at the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament. In the day's final bout, the 24-year-old yokozuna from Mongolia pummeled Tosanoumi with his trademark thrust and slaps that sent the fourth-ranked maegashira tumbling to the ground and rolling out of the ring. Tosanoumi remained winless with seven losses. Behind Asashoryu in the rankings were Kokkai, Iwakiyama, Wakanosato and Hakuho with six wins and one loss each. The win was Asashoryu's 24th straight.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
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