■BOXING
‘Human punchbag’ wins
Boxing’s biggest loser avoided a 257th defeat when Peter Buckley won his last bout on points against Matin Mohammed in Birmingham, England, on Friday. Fighting before his home fans, the 39-year-old super-featherweight took his tally of victories to 32 in his 300th pro fight with a 40-38 decision at the end of the four-round contest. Billed as the worst loser in boxing, Buckley has been fighting virtually once a week, and once lost 88 contests in a row. He also has 12 draws on his record, the last being against Mohammed on Oct. 5 in Nottingham. This was his first victory since a decision over Joel Viney in October 2003.
■BASEBALL
Boston keep Wakefield
Boston exercised an option on pitcher Tim Wakefield on Friday, keeping the veteran knuckleballer on for next season as fellow Red Sox pitchers Curt Schilling and Bartolo Colon filed for free agency. The 42-year-old is on a deal that gives Boston the option to renew his contract on an annual basis at US$4 million per year. In his 14th year with the Red Sox, he had a moderate record of 10 wins and 11 losses with an earned run average of 4.13. He is second in club history with 1,797 strikeouts and has 164 wins for Boston, 28 behind Roger Clemens and Cy Young, who share the team lead with 192. Wakefield struggled in the fourth game of the American League championship series, giving up three homers and five runs, lasting only 2-2/3 innings as Tampa Bay won 13-4.
■ICE HOCKEY
Valentenko suspended
The Montreal Canadiens suspended Pavel Valentenko without pay on Friday after he left the minor league Hamilton Bulldogs to sign a three-year contract with Dynamo Moscow. Valentenko was in the second year of a three-year, entry-level deal with the Canadiens but opted to sign with Dynamo at the urging of his family, the player’s Ottawa-based agent Rolland Hedges said. The Canadiens made no further comment, but an NHL spokesman said the league has raised the issue with the International Ice Hockey Federation. Valentenko will also need clearance from the Russian Hockey Federation before he can play for Dynamo in their Continental Hockey League, Hedges said. He said Valentenko did not want to return to Russia, but he supports his entire family on his ice hockey earnings and was unable to do that on an American Hockey League salary. The NHL was without an agreement with the Russian federation on player transfers and the two sides remain at odds over last summer’s signing of Nashville Predators forward Alexander Radulov to a three-year contract with Russian club Salavat Ufa.
■BASKETBALL
Celtics hold on to Rondo
Reigning NBA champion Boston exercised a contract option on Friday to keep point guard Rajon Rondo for a fourth season. The 22-year-old, who helped the Celtics defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in last season’s NBA Finals, will make about US$2.9 million in the 2009-2010 season. The campaign will be the option year of his contract. Rondo averaged 10.6 points, 5.1 assists and 1.7 steals last season, his second season with the Celtics. Against the Lakers in the best-of-seven championship series, Rondo scored 9.7 points and added 6.7 assists a game as the Celtics won in six games. Rondo scored 14 points, grabbed six rebounds and passed out five assists on Tuesday as the Celtics defeated Cleveland in their 2008-2009 season opener.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
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