■ BASKETBALL
Oden out for season
Greg Oden, the top pick in this year's NBA draft, will likely miss his first season with the Portland Trail Blazers after surgery on his right knee on Thursday. Doctors found cartilage damage during an exploratory procedure, and team physician Don Roberts performed microfracture surgery to repair the damage. "There are things about this that are positive for Greg. First of all, he is young. The area where the damage was is small and the rest of his knee looked normal," Roberts said in a statement. "All those are good signs for a complete recovery from microfracture surgery."
■ CRICKET
Dravid quits captaincy
Prolific middle-order batsman Rahul Dravid has offered to step down as captain of India's cricket team, a report said yesterday. Dravid, 34, told the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) that he should not be considered for the captaincy for the Test series in Australia in December, the Press Trust of India news agency said. He met BCCI president Sharad Pawar on Thursday and expressed his desire to quit the captaincy, saying he wanted to concentrate on his batting. He pledged to support his successor. Dravid has scored 9,492 runs in 112 Tests and 10,534 runs in 327 one day internationals.
■ CYCLING
Petacchi wins 12th stage
Italian cyclist Alessandro Petacchi won his second straight stage of the Spanish Vuelta on Thursday, and Denis Menchov retained the overall lead. Petacchi, who rides for Team Milram, won the 176km 12th leg in 3 hours, 41 minutes, 1 second, with Lampre-Fondital's Daniele Bennati of Italy second and AG2R Prevoyance rider Aliaksandr Usov of Belarus third, both with the same time. "It's my second straight and this one is for the whole team, because nobody else helped us shorten this leg," Petacchi said. "We did it ourselves ... and we had to work hard for it."
■ SOCCER
Irish probe plane bust-up
Northern Ireland's soccer association said on Thursday it was investigating a reported fight between its own players following Wednesday's 2-1 defeat in their Group F Euro 2008 qualifier against Iceland. Local media said two players had exchanged blows as they boarded their flight from Reykjavik on Thursday morning and that other squad members had intervened to break them up. The Irish Football Association (IFA) declined to comment beyond saying it was aware of the situation and would investigate.
■ SOCCER
Scolari in left jab furor
Another bad result and an ill-considered left jab could spell the end of Portugal's romance with coach Luiz Felipe Scolari. Tempers flared after the Portuguese were held to a 1-1 draw by Serbia on Wednesday in a European Championship qualifier, the team's second straight draw in Lisbon. When Portugal winger Ricardo Quaresma and Serbia's Ivica Dragutinovic squared up to each other after the final whistle, Scolari intervened. TV pictures showed the Serb slapping away the Brazilian's arm. In reply, Scolari aimed a left-handed punch at Dragutinovic. Scolari said he didn't make contact. Dragutinovic said the punch brushed his cheek. "I don't know what the pictures show but I didn't touch him, I didn't even bump up against him," Scolari said.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
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