■SOCCER
FIFA throw Ethiopia out
Ethiopia were kicked out of the World Cup by FIFA on Friday after a power struggle within the game in the African nation failed to be resolved. FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, said that all four matches played by Ethiopia to date in African zone Group 8, as well as the results of those matches, are now canceled. The group now comprises three teams — Morocco, Mauritania and Rwanda. Ethiopia had won two matches in the group and had garnered six points. “The Bureau of the Organizing Committee for the FIFA World Cup has decided to exclude the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) from the preliminary competition with immediate effect,” a statement said.
■CRICKET
Hampshire win to go top
Hampshire went to the top of the English county championship on Friday with an innings and 122-run victory over Surrey which left The Oval giants looking doomed to relegation. Surrey, who were 171-7 overnight, were all out for 210 as spinners Liam Dawson (2-32) and Imran Tahir (4-29) cleaned up. The home side were forced to follow-on and were dismissed for just 148, with Dimitri Mascarenhas claiming 4-13. Chris Tremlett and James Tomlinson shared the remaining six wickets to help Hampshire to the top of the table.
■SAILING
Dutch complete line-up
Dutch team Delta Lloyd has become the eighth entry in the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race which starts in Alicante in eastern Spain on Oct. 4, the organizers said on Friday. The team will be sailing the winning boat from the last edition of the event held in 2005-2006 and its international crew will be skippered by Ireland’s Ger O’Rourke, the recent winner of the Fastnet Race, they said in a statement. The boat has been completely rebuilt and refitted during the last few months to bring it in line with the demands of this year’s event. The team will compete against two boats from Team Ericsson of Sweden, two boats from Telefonica of Spain, US side Puma Ocean Racing, Green Dragon Team of Ireland and China and Team Russia.
■RUGBY UNION
De Villiers apologizes
The black coach of the world champion Springboks apologized on Friday for saying the job should be given back to “the whites.” Peter de Villiers, the first black to guide the South African national senior team, made the remark last week after a report linked him to an alleged sex blackmail threat. A Johannesburg newspaper claimed De Villiers was told a video showing him having sex with a woman in a car park would be released if an unnamed Springbok was dropped. De Villiers, who replaced World Cup-winning coach Jake White this year, reacted by claiming the blackmail rumor was part of a “racist plot” and that he “would give his job back to the whites.”
■CRICKET
Pakistan invite West Indies
Pakistan are confident the West Indies will provide some much-needed international opposition by agreeing to play two Test matches in November, a senior official said yesterday. Pakistan have struggled to find opponents after the eight-nation Champions Trophy, due to be held this month in Pakistan, was postponed after some countries refused to attend because of security concerns. “We have invited West Indies to come and play two Tests immediately after the one-day series they play against us in Abu Dhabi in November,” said Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
■HOCKEY
Canadiens acquire Lang
The Montreal Canadiens acquired veteran forward Robert Lang from the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday in exchange for a second round pick in the 2010 entry draft. The well-traveled Czech is joining his seventh NHL team. He has recorded 234 goals and 635 points in 875 regular season games over 14 seasons. The 37-year-old center had 21 goals and 54 points last season for the Blackhawks. “This is a young team with a lot of talent and I’m looking forward to bringing some added experience,” Lang said on the Canadiens’ Web site. Lang has also been a fixture on the Czech national team playing in four Olympics, winning gold at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games and a bronze in Turin.
■SHOOTING
Olympian Rhode loses gun
Olympic gold medalist shooter Kim Rhode is offering US$5,000 for the return of her shotgun, which she says was stolen from her truck while she was buying shoes for her wedding. Rhode, a skeet shooter, says she left the gun in a silver case in her truck on Thursday when she went into a Lake Elsinore store to pick out shoes. She returned to find a window broken and the gun missing. Rhode says she’s used the gun for 18 years and it is irreplaceable. The 29-year-old shooter won gold medals in the 1996 and 2004 Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2000 Games and a silver medal at last month’s competition in Beijing.
■TAEKWONDO
USA files complaint
USA Taekwondo filed a protest with the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Friday, seeking changes in the sport’s judging protocols in the wake of American Steven Lopez’s disputed quarter-final loss in the Beijing Olympics. Lopez was the two-time defending Olympic champion heading into Beijing and a favorite to win a third. He wound up with a bronze. His loss to Italy’s Mario Sarmiento came after he had a point deducted because of a series of penalties. The federation says judges failed to follow the sport’s rules by refusing to watch video of the match after the result was protested.
■TENNIS
Gasquet bashes Gabashvili
Top-seeded Richard Gasquet of France rallied to defeat Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-1 on Friday to advance to the semifinals of the BCR Open Romania. Gasquet will play sixth-seeded Carlos Moya, who also came from behind to beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 in an all-Spanish match that lasted more than two-and-a-half hours. Moya, who reached the 1996 final, served 10 aces. Also, last year’s champion Gilles Simon of France defeated countryman Florent Serra 6-2, 6-3.
■FOOTBALL
Kaczur ‘dealer’ pleads guilty
A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to charges that he sold about 300 Oxycontin pills to New England Patriots lineman Nick Kaczur. The charges against Daniel Ekasala were based on three transactions between the men in May that were secretly recorded by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Ekasala pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court. He faces a maximum of nearly five years in prison at sentencing in December. Kaczur is not named in court records but has been identified as the cooperating witness by Bernard Grossberg, Ekasala’s lawyer. Grossberg says Kaczur went undercover for the federal agency after he was stopped for speeding in New York and was caught with Oxycontin pills. The drug charges were put on hold if Kaczur stays out of trouble for six months.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
The Major League Baseball World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan. People milled around local train stations yesterday morning in Tokyo as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees. The 30-year-old is a national hero in Japan whose face adorns billboards and TV adverts all over the country. Ohtani this year became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and