BASKETBALL
Bulls’ Rose named MVP
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose ended LeBron James’ two-year reign as the NBA’s most valuable player on Tuesday when he became the youngest winner of the league’s highest individual honor. Rose led the Bulls to the best record in the NBA this season. The 22-year-old All-Star, taken with the first overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, is the first Bulls player to capture the honor since Hall of Famer Michael Jordan claimed the last of his five MVP awards in 1998. Rose averaged a career-high 25 points and 7.7 assists this season while guiding the Bulls to a 62-20 record that earned them the top seed in the playoffs.
TENNIS
Williams’ stalker charged
A man was charged with stalking Serena Williams after police said they caught him trying to enter the star’s gated neighborhood. Palm Beach Gardens police said 40-year-old Patenema Ouedraogo told officers he was going to Williams’ home on Monday night “because he loves her” and “he knows the feelings are reciprocal.” A lawyer for the 13-time Grand Slam singles champion said he had recently obtained a restraining order after Ouedraogo tried three times to contact the player. Police said neighborhood security guards stopped Ouedraogo as he walked in several minutes after Williams’ sister, Venus, returned home. According to the police report, Serena Williams’ lawyer, Malcolm Cunningham, got a restraining order to keep Ouedraogo away from Williams after he followed her to a meeting with her agent in Los Angeles last October. Cunningham told police Ouedraogo also posed as Williams’ assistant while she was at the Home Shopping Network in Tampa, Florida, this year, gaining access to her dressing room before he was escorted from the building. Ouedraogo also followed Williams to a radio interview in Florida last month, the lawyer said.
HORSE RACING
Toby’s Corner cut from Derby
Wood Memorial winner Toby’s Corner has been scratched from Saturday’s Kentucky Derby after developing an unspecified injury to his left hind leg. Trainer Graham Motion detected a problem with the son of Bellamy Road on Monday and shipped the colt from his training center in Fair Hill, Maryland, to the New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, for evaluation. “After what was a perfect work on Sunday, we weren’t 100 percent happy with him yesterday,” Motion told the Steeplechase Times on Tuesday. “He had a lameness in his left hind, we had him looked at here and then we sent him to New Bolton. At this point, there’s nothing obvious that’s causing the lameness.”
RUGBY UNION
Armitage suspended again
London Irish and England fullback Delon Armitage received his second suspension of the season on Tuesday — just over a month after coming back from an eight-week suspension. The 27-year-old, who missed the whole of this year’s Six Nations for pushing an anti-doping officer, was banned for three weeks for striking Northampton flyhalf Stephen Myler in the Premiership clash on April 23. His ban, imposed after he pleaded guilty at a disciplinary hearing in London on Tuesday, take effect from yesterday until Monday next week and then from May 24 to June 6. The ban has been split as London Irish cannot qualify for the playoffs. It means Armitage will miss sixth-placed Irish’s final league game away to leaders Leicester on Saturday and also England’s match against the Barbarians at Twickenham on May 29.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
More than 180 years of horse racing came to an end in Singapore on Saturday, as the Singapore Turf Club hosted its final race day before its track is handed back to the Singaporean government to provide land for new homes. Under an overcast sky, the air-conditioned VIP boxes were full of enthusiasts, socialites and expats, while the grounds and betting halls below hosted mostly older-generation punters. The sun broke through for the last race, the last-ever Grand Singapore Gold Cup. The winner, South African jockey Muzi Yeni, echoed a feeling of loss shared by many on the day. “I’d
PREDICTION: Last week, when Yu’s father made a wrong turn to the former champions’ parking lot, he said that his son could park there after this year With back-to-back birdies on the 18th hole, Kevin Yu fulfilled his driving range-owning dad’s prediction that he would win the Sanderson Farms Championship and become Taiwan’s third golfer to claim a US PGA Tour title. The Taoyuan-born 26-year-old, who represented Taiwan in the Olympic golf at Paris, saw off Californian Beau Hossler in a playoff at the Country Club of Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday. Having drained a 15-foot putt to claw his way into the playoff, Yu rolled in from five feet on the first extra hole, ensuring he joined Chen Tze-chung (LA Open in 1987) and Pan Cheng-tsung (RBC
LeBron James and eldest son Bronny James claimed a piece of NBA history on Sunday after making their long-awaited first appearance alongside each other for the Los Angeles Lakers. The duo appeared together at the start of the second quarter in the Lakers’ 118-114 preseason defeat to the Phoenix Suns in Palm Desert, east of Los Angeles. While LeBron James impressed with 19 points in just 16 minutes and 20 seconds on court before sitting out the second half, Bronny found the going harder with zero points in just over 13 minutes on court. The younger James attempted just one
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