■BASEBALL
Man charged with murder
Prosecutors charged a 22-year-old man with three counts of second-degree murder on Friday after a car crash that killed Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others. The 22-year-old Adenhart was a passenger in a car that police said was struck by a minivan driven by Andrew Thomas Gallo early on Thursday. Adenhart had pitched six shutout innings against the Oakland Athletics only hours before the crash. It was only his fourth game in the major leagues. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said Gallo was speeding and that he had an excess blood alcohol level almost three times the legal limit when he ran a red light and struck the car carrying Adenhart and three others.
■BASEBALL
Rodriguez back in training
Alex Rodriguez is to resume baseball activities tomorrow, more than a month after hip surgery. Major League Baseball’s highest-paid player has been working out in Colorado, where he had the operation on March 9. New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said on Friday that Rodriguez has been swinging a broom for the past few weeks and slowly increasing his workload. Girardi doesn’t expect Rodriguez to return to the Yankees before the middle of next month. “In my mind, I’m still thinking May 15 — five weeks away. That’s my thought process,” Girardi said. Rodriguez will travel to the team’s minor league complex in Tampa, Florida. “We expect him to be there on Monday and doing all baseball stuff, hitting, throwing, running, just continuing his rehab. So far it’s went very well and you just hope there’s no setbacks and he continues to progress.”
■CYCLING
Contador retains lead
Spain’s Alberto Contador of Astana retained the overall lead of the Tour of the Basque Country after Italian Marco Pinotti of the Columbia team landed Friday’s fifth stage. Pinotti saw off his rivals in the 169km ride from Guenes to Zalla to win in 4 hours, 15 minutes, 56 seconds as he handed his team a second straight win following Swiss Michael Albasini’s on Thursday. Pinotti had 19 seconds in hand as he romped to the line, leaving Briton Ben Swift (Katusha) and Italian Francesco Gavazzo (Lampre) to lead home the peloton in his wake. Contador holds onto his overall lead, 8 seconds ahead of compatriot Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel) and Australian Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto).
■RUGBY UNION
Singapore may get games
Japan is to bid to host the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups with a proposal to play the matches in 10 Japanese cities as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, a report in the Straits Times said yesterday. If Japan wins the bid, Singapore would host five matches, the report said. Japan is to formally submit the proposal to the International Rugby Board on May 13 and it is expected to announce its decision on July 28.
■FENCING
Baldini's appeal rejected
Italian Andrea Baldini’s appeal against a six-month ban for failing a doping test at last year’s European Championships in Kiev was rejected on Friday. “Andrea Baldini has committed a violation of anti-doping rules and is hence suspended from competition for six months,” the International Fencing Federation said in a statement. Baldini, who at the time of his positive test for banned diuretic furosemide was world No. 1, had been provisionally banned on Sept. 4 and as his ban will run from that date he has been free to compete from March 4.
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
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
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
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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