■SOCCER
Mourinho, De Rossi fined
Inter coach Jose Mourinho and Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi were both hit with fines for comments they made following this month’s match between the two clubs on Friday. Mourinho and Inter were fined 25,000 euros (US$34,000) each, while De Rossi and Roma were fined 20,000 euros. A decision on a punishment against Mario Balotelli, for gestures he made during the match after scoring a penalty, was deferred. Both Mourinho and De Rossi criticized the standard of officiating in Serie A following the game, while Balotelli was investigated for goading his opponents.
■SKI JUMPING
Teen’s victory makes history
Austria’s Gregor Schlierenzauer won the final World Cup ski jump event of the season in Planica, Slovenia, on Friday to become the first man in history to win 13 events on the circuit in one year. The 19-year-old, who had already secured the overall title, jumped 203m in swirling winds for a total of 196.1 points, just ahead of 32-year-old Polish veteran Adam Malysz (202.5m) and Russia’s Dimitry Vassiliev (200.5m). Schlierenzauer’s victory takes him ahead of Finnish great Janne Ahonen’s record of 12 victories in a World Cup season. The Innsbruck teenager has also set new records for both the number of podium finishes (19) and the amount of points (1938) achieved in a single season, beating the marks set by Germany’s Martin Schmitt.
■NORDIC SKIING
Germans win sprints
Germans Axel Teichmann and Claudia Nystad won sprint events at cross-country skiing’s World Cup finals on Friday, while Dario Cologna moved within three points of overall leader Petter Northug by finishing runner-up in the men’s race. Teichmann finished strongly on the 3.3km uphill course to finish in 8 minutes, 33.1 seconds. Cologna was just 0.2 seconds behind in second place to close in on Northug, who is trying to become the first Norwegian men’s overall champion since Bjorn Dahlie in 1999. Northug, who won three gold medals at the world championships last month, finished seventh in the freestyle sprint race. Nystad won the women’s 2.5km freestyle event in 7 minutes, 12.5 seconds, edging Charlotte Kalla of Sweden by 2.7 seconds.
■CYCLING
Austrian arrested for doping
Police in Austria have arrested an unnamed professional cyclist for allegedly supplying doping substances to other riders over an extended period of time. Public prosecutors in Vienna on Friday said a 32-year-old Austrian cyclist, who was only identified as “K,” was arrested on charges of systematically supplying others with banned performance-enhancing substances. Prosecutor Gerhard Jarosch said the cyclist was in custody, adding that the suspect had received the drugs through a pharmacist in Vienna. He did not specify the time period for the alleged sales.
■BOXING
Rock star’s son wins bout
The 14-year-old son of rock singer John Mellencamp has won his first bout in the Indiana Golden Gloves boxing tournament. Hud Mellencamp earned a 4-1 decision over Tate Sturgeon of Lafayette, Indiana, on Thursday night in a bout at Tyndall Armory in Indianapolis. Mellencamp boxes for the Indy Police Athletic League. His next fight will be April 16 against Cody Bennett of the Southpaw Boxing Club of Owensboro, Kentucky.
■SOCCER
WPS to allow ‘tweets’
In-game Twitter posts might be a technical foul of sorts in the NBA, but the new Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league is embracing the idea of having players use the social networking Web site during a game. The WPS will allow selected players to post “tweets” during its inaugural game between the Los Angeles Sol and Washington Freedom next Sunday, league communications director Robert Penner said. Depending on fan response, league officials are considering allowing players to tweet during games all season. They still must work out some of the details, including which players will tweet and when they’ll be allowed to do so; starters, obviously, likely would be limited to pregame, halftime and postgame. The league’s decision stands in sharp contrast to the NBA, where Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles reprimanded forward Charlie Villanueva for posting a tweet during halftime of last Sunday’s victory over Boston.
■BASEBALL
Yankee tickets not cheap
If you want to buy a front-row seat at the new Yankee Stadium for an individual game, the list price of a ticket is US$2,625. Individual game sales for the first season of the US$1.5 billion ballpark start on Tuesday and the Legends Seats that ring the infield start at US$525 a game, the New York Yankees’ Web site said. Those seats cost US$500 to US$2,500 as part of full season tickets and they include food and soft drinks. The cheapest tickets are the bleachers in the outfield at US$14. The Yankees said last summer that they had sold 3,500 of 4,300 premium seats as part of season plans, but sales slowed when the recession intensified. Across town at the Mets’ new Citi Field, where individual game sales began last weekend, top tickets are priced at US$295 to US$695.
■FOOTBALL
Former QB dies in Greece
A former NFL quarterback who failed to show for sentencing on drunken driving charges in the US nearly four years ago has been killed in a car crash in Greece, Pennsylvania authorities said. A Chester County detective said authorities had initially been skeptical about reports of William “Jeff” Komlo’s death in a crash last weekend. But acting Chief County Detective Jim Vito said the State Department used fingerprints to confirm the victim was indeed the 52-year-old fugitive. In July 2005, Komlo failed to show for sentencing on two drunken driving convictions. He had also failed to show for an unrelated hearing two months earlier. Komlo was also under investigation for fires at homes in Pennsylvania and Florida. Komlo played for the Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers between 1979 and 1983.
■ICE HOCKEY
‘The General’ dies, aged 83
Former Czechoslovakia coach Jaroslav Pitner, who helped mastermind emotionally charged wins over the Soviets in the 1960s, has died at the age of 83, his former club Dukla Jihlava announced on Friday. “The General of Ice Hockey” coached his countrymen between 1966 and 1973, taking them to the world title in Prague in 1972. Under his leadership, the Czech team also earned silver at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble and bronze in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo. Pitner’s greatest achievement was the development of a defensive system that allowed Czechoslovakia to record historic victories over their rivals the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia beat the Soviet team 2-0 and 4-3 during the 1969 World Championships in Stockholm, the year after the USSR had sent troops into Czechoslovakia.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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