■ SOCCER
Frings ruled out until 2008
German international midfielder Torsten Frings will be out for the rest of the year after aggravating the same knee injury which kept him out for three months at the start of the season. The 30-year-old Werder Bremen star faces another lengthy spell on the sidelines after a scan revealed he had damaged the same right knee ligaments he ruptured at the beginning of July. Frings -- capped 66 times and the scorer of nine international goals -- will miss Germany's remaining Euro 2008 qualifier games against Cyprus and Wales later this month.
■ BASEBALL
Torre joins LA Dodgers
Joe Torre was hired on Thursday to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers, taking the job two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees. The most successful manager in Major League Baseball playoff history, Torre signed a three-year, US$13 million contract. The Dodgers finished fourth in the National League's West Division this season and have only one playoff victory since winning the 1988 World Series under Tom Lasorda. Torre will be introduced at a news conference on Monday at Dodger Stadium. He succeeds Grady Little, who resigned on Tuesday after two seasons and with a year remaining on his contract.
■ SOCCER
World Cup draw announced
The draw for the second round of qualification for Asian teams for the 2010 FIFA World Cup has paired Hong Kong with Turkmenistan while Syria, who are the highest seeded team in the second round, take on Indonesia. ASEAN champions Singapore play AFC Challenge Cup champions Tajikistan and Thailand were drawn against Yemen. The teams will play each other at home and away with the opening fixtures on Friday and the return legs on Nov. 18. The winners will progress to the third round where they will join Iran, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and 11 other sides who received a bye after earning first round victories.
■ FOOTBALL
Scandal-hit coach resigns
A California high school coach resigned on Thursday amid accusations that he was involved in improperly recruiting players from American Samoa. Franklin High School head coach Tom Verner sent in his resignation letter to the Stockton Unified School District after local sports authorities dealt the school's football program the so-called "death penalty," a sanction that will prohibit the school from fielding a football team until 2010. It is believed to be the harshest punishment in the history of high school sports in the US, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Local sports authorities allege an assistant coach working for Verner improved the team's standing by improperly recruiting more than a dozen players from American Samoa and offering them housing in Stockton, 80km south of Sacramento.
■ SOCCER
Boozing players banned
Four leading South Korea players were banned from the national team for a year by the Korean Football Association yesterday for drinking and cavorting in a brothel during this year's Asian Cup. The players -- Middlesbrough striker Lee Dong-guk, captain Lee Woon-jae, Kim Sang-sik and Woo Sung-yong -- were named in news reports as drinking until the early hours at a Jakarta brothel the day before a 2-1 loss to Bahrain in July. Lee Woon-jae must also serve 80 hours of community service, with the other players to perform 40 hours.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
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