■RUGBY UNION
Minister wants SA apology
South Africa’s sports minister said the country’s rugby union federation should apologize to Maoris in New Zealand for excluding them from tours during the apartheid era for being non-white. Makhenkesi Stofile wrote a letter, published on Sunday in New Zealand’s media, saying the South African and New Zealand rugby governing bodies should say sorry “for the folly of those who came before them.” Maoris were not allowed to tour with All Blacks teams in 1928, 1949 and 1960 because South Africa wouldn’t allow non-whites to play against the Springboks. Stofile said an apology could not harm anyone who accepted that racial prejudice was an injustice. The federation said it had “taken careful note” of Stofile’s comments and would make a statement today.
■JUDO
Doping blamed on pork
The coach of Chinese Olympic judo champion Tong Wen has blamed a surfeit of pork chops for her positive test for a banned substance. Tong, the women’s 78kg gold medalist at the 2008 Olympics, has been banned for two years and stripped of last year’s world title after testing positive for clenbuterol. Coach Wu Weifeng, however, said China’s well-documented food safety problems were responsible for the first positive test by a Chinese Olympic champion. “She trained in Europe for a while and was sick of European food so we gave her a lot of pork chops when she returned home to prepare for the 2009 world championships in Rotterdam,” she told the Beijing Youth Daily. Wu said clenbuterol, which is used to treat breathing disorders, rising blood pressure and for oxygen transportation, was a cheap chemical often illegally used as an additive to feed pigs in China. China’s leading backstroke swimmer, Ouyang Kunpeng, who was banned for life ahead of the Beijing Olympics after a positive test for clenbuterol, also said he had eaten too much roast pork while at a barbecue with friends before the test.
■SOCCER
Australia completes FIFA bid
Australia has finalized its bids for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups after winning support from the country’s other major sports, officials said yesterday. The bids, which will be handed to soccer’s world governing body on Friday, were completed after haggling over stadium use and disruption affecting both rugby codes and Australian Rules football. The National Rugby League, Australian Football League and rugby union signed a memorandum of agreement over the weekend entitling them to continue their seasons during any World Cup and to compensation for vacating stadiums. Thirty kangaroo leather-bound “bid books” detail in 760 pages technical information and argue Australia’s case for hosting one of the tournaments, along with annexe sections totaling some 84,000 pages.
■OLYMPICS
Diving champion dies at 81
Mexico’s top Olympic-medal recipient has died at the age of 81. His wife said Olympic diver Joaquin Capilla died of natural causes on Saturday and was buried on Sunday. Carmen Capilla said she was by her husband’s side at the time of his death. In the 1948 Games in London, Capilla, then 19, won a bronze medal for platform diving. Four years later in Helsinki, he won a silver medal, again for platform diving. In 1956 in Melbourne, Australia, he took home a bronze medal for springboard diving and a gold for platform diving. He later taught diving in Mexico City, inspiring a new generation of competitors.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
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