■FORMULA ONE
Hamilton stripped of third
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was stripped of his third-place finish from the Australian Formula One Grand Prix yesterday for giving misleading evidence to race stewards. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was reinstated to his original third-place finish by the stewards, while Hamilton and McLaren were excluded from the results and receive no points. The sport’s world governing body FIA reopened the investigation yesterday into the circumstances under which Trulli passed Hamilton during a safety car period in Melbourne on Sunday. The hearing interviewed both drivers and teams, and heard new evidence which included radio transmissions between teams and drivers in Melbourne, as well as technical data from the race. After deliberating for several hours, FIA released a statement which said Hamilton and McLaren “acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards.’’ In Melbourne, Trulli was penalized 25 seconds after a post-race hearing, dropping him from third to 12th place. His reinstatement to third now gives him six championship points and puts Toyota second in the constructors’ championship with 11 points, after teammate Timo Glock finished fourth.
■CYCLING
Coach and doctor banned
Canadian Olympic cyclist Genevieve Jeanson was handed a 10-year suspension and her coach and doctor were given lifetime bans in Ottawa on Wednesday for administering performance-enhancing substances. The penalties were imposed following an investigation by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) after Jeanson admitted during a television interview in 2007 that she used the banned blood-booster EPO (erythropoietin) throughout her career. The CCES found that coach Andre Abut and doctor Maurice Duquette had directly administered the EPO to Jeanson, including during the early part of her career while she was still a minor.
■FOOTBALL
Player charged over death
Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth was charged on Wednesday with killing a pedestrian last month while driving drunk in Miami. An arrest warrant charging Stallworth, 28, with drunk driving manslaughter was filed in the March 14 accident that killed 59-year-old Mario Reyes. If convicted, Stallworth would face a maximum 15-year prison sentence. Stallworth’s blood-alcohol level after the crash was .126, well above Florida’s legal limit of .08, a blood test showed. A Miami Beach police report said Reyes was not on a crossing on busy MacArthur Causeway when he was struck by the Bentley driven by Stallworth. The construction crane operator was trying to catch a bus home after finishing his shift around 7:15am. The report also quoted Stallworth as saying he flashed his lights at Reyes in an attempted warning and that Stallworth was driving about 80kph in a 65kph zone.
■ICE HOCKEY
Maple Leafs incur fine
The Toronto Maple Leafs were fined US$500,000 and stripped of a fourth-round draft pick by the NHL on Wednesday because of how they handled the signing of Swedish defenseman Jonas Frogren. Frogren, who has been on the injured list since early last month, had been under contract to a Swedish Elite League club before joining Toronto. The transaction apparently went around the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement.
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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