■ CRICKET
IPL to be staged abroad
The lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held abroad this year as the government says it can not provide security at the same time as national elections, an official said yesterday. “Due to the attitude of the government that it cannot provide security for the tournament, we are forced to take a decision to move the IPL out of India,” the country’s cricket chief Shashank Manohar told reporters. “A final decision on the venue will be announced in two to three days.” South Africa and England are the two countries being considered as the likely venues, an IPL source said.
■ DOPING
Lab has bad news for cheats
A German lab said on Friday it has developed a new test for gene doping that should be ready for use at the 2012 London Olympics. Gene doping, the practice of using genetic engineering to artificially enhance athletic performance, is believed by many to be the next frontier in drug cheating. “The test is ready to be used. For sure we could go ahead with testing for gene doping at the 2012 Olympics in London and probably a lot sooner,” said Mario Thevis, a researcher who helped developed the test. The test was developed at the Cologne Sports College, one of Germany’s leading anti-doping institutions, and still needs to be approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency. “The proof is watertight, the procedure solid,” Thevis said. “Since we have a substance foreign to the body, the test is even more reliable.”
■ MARATHON
Kipsang triumphs in Tokyo
Kenya’s Salim Kipsang won the Tokyo Marathon yesterday in two hours, 10 minutes and 27 seconds, beating out Japan’s Kazuhiro Maeda and Kensuke Takahashi. Japan claimed the top three women’s spots, with Mizuho Nasukawa taking first at 2:25:38 ahead of Yukari Sahaku and Reiko Tosa. Kipsang, who won the Paris marathon in 2005, said he was pleased with his performance in difficult conditions, which saw the field battling a strong headwind. Maeda’s second-place finish at 2:11:01 qualified him for the world championships later this year in Berlin as the top Japanese finisher. “The pace was too fast for me at 30km, so I had to run alone against the strong wind. I hadn’t expected to finish top among Japanese runners, so I’m really happy about it,” he said. Takahashi came third at 2:11:25.
■ BOXING
Klitschko still champion
Vitali Klitschko retained his WBC heavyweight title with a ninth-round TKO of Juan Carlos Gomez on Saturday. The 37-year-old Klitschko twice put the Cuban defector on the canvass, in the seventh and ninth rounds, before referee Daniel Van de Wiele stopped the fight with 1 minute, 11 seconds left in the ninth round. Gomez was trying to become the first Cuban heavyweight world champ. Klitschko was making the first defense of the title he reclaimed by stopping Samuel Peter last October.
■ BOXING
Dunne wins title in Dublin
Bernard Dunne of Ireland knocked Panama’s Ricardo Cordoba out in the 11th round to capture the WBA super-bantamweight title on Saturday in Dublin. In a fight which had six knockdowns, Dunne put the defending champion down with a left hook in the third round, but Cordoba came back to floor the Irishman twice in the fifth. Dunne took control of the fight from the sixth and put Cordoba down three times in the 11th until the Panamanian finally failed to make the count.
■ BADMINTON
England withdraws players
England withdrew two players from this week’s India Open badminton tournament because of security concerns, Indian media reported on Saturday. Organizing secretary Punnaiah Choudhary told the Indian Express that Carl Baxter and Rajiv Ouseph, seeded 11 and 12, had pulled out of the event in Hyderabad. “The communication stated that they were advised by the Foreign Office to withdraw,” Choudhary said. Security fears in the Indian subcontinent have increased following an attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team bus in Lahore, Pakistan, earlier this month, and last November’s militant attacks in Mumbai. World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei will head a field that includes former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat and former all England champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim.
■ RUGBY UNION
Baxter to miss matches
New South Wales Waratahs prop Al Baxter will miss up to four Super 14 rugby matches after suffering a calf strain in a loss to the Canterbury Crusaders, the club said yesterday. The injury was a recurrence of the problem that kept the Test prop on the sidelines earlier this season, Waratahs coach Chris Hickey said. “We’d expect him to be out for around a month, but depending on how his rehab goes maybe sooner,” Hickey said.
■ ICE HOCKEY
NHL suspends Ben Eager
The National Hockey League’s disciplinary committee slapped Chicago forward Ben Eager with a three-game suspension on Saturday. The 25-year-old Canadian was suspended for delivering a high, hard check to the head area of an Edmonton player during a 5-4 loss to the Oilers on Friday. The suspension was handed down by the league despite a decision by two on-ice referees not to call a penalty on the play. It was the second three-game ban for Eager this year. He was also suspended during the league’s exhibition season. This time he delivered a blow to the head of Edmonton’s Liam Reddox halfway through the final period. Reddox left the game and did not return.
■ SPORTS CAR RACING
Audi wins Sebring again
Audi introduced a new car with the same old winning results in the 12 Hours of Sebring in Sebring, Florida. Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello, who now have a combined total of 12 victories in the sports car classic at Sebring International Raceway, outdueled a Peugeot shared by Franck Montagny, Sebastien Bourdais and Stephane Sarrazine on Saturday in a battle of diesel-powered prototype sports cars. It is Audi’s ninth win in the endurance race in the past 10 years — a string broken only by Porsche’s victory last year — and the third time in that stretch that Audi has won in the debut of a new car.
■ BIATHLON
Bjorndalen extends lead
Norway’s legend Ole Einar Bjorndalen extended his lead in the World Cup overall standings on Saturday when he won the men’s pursuit in Trondheim, Norway, for his 88th career win. Germany’s Andrea Henkel triumphed in the women’s event. Bjorndalen, who holds the record for the most world championship wins with 14, finished the 12.5km race in a time of 33 minutes, 36.3 seconds with two penalties, ahead of Austria’s Simon Eder with Tomasz Sikora of Poland third. With four events remaining in the season only Sikora can threaten Bjorndalen’s overall lead. Henkel achieved her 16th World Cup victory by completing the 10km course in 30 minutes, 8.8 seconds.
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
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
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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