SOCCER
Hooligans bust into hospital
A doctor said a dozen soccer hooligans invaded the delivery room of a Buenos Aires hospital, hoping to avenge the death of a gang member killed in a fight with a rival faction. Marcelo Struminger, president of the doctor’s association at Santojanni Hospital, said on Thursday gang members associated with the Argentine club Nueva Chicago raced through the delivery room and other parts of the hospital on Wednesday looking for the whereabouts of a rival hooligan known as “Aldo the Paraguayan.” He is believed to have been involved in the death on Wednesday of Agustin Rodriguez, who was killed in a fight between his faction — known as Los Perales, — and the rival faction Las Antenas. Soccer-related violence has plagued Argentina for years, with nonprofit group Let’s Save Football estimating that almost 260 people have died in such incidents since 1924.
RUGBY UNION
Shoddy plane delays team
Toulouse endured the worst possible start to their European Cup trip to England when the emergency exit door on their low-cost flight came loose, their players said. The French side were on their way to Gloucester at about midday on Thursday when players and staff became increasingly nervous about their Danube Wing Airlines craft. “Leaving for Gloucester on a Slovakian company’s plane, not very reassuring. Wish me luck,” backrow forward Yannick Nyanga wrote on Twitter. “The emergency door opens with just a single touch,” he added a few minutes later. “We are losing the door of the plane ... I think we’ll have to change the company,” winger Vincent Clerc wrote. The team eventually left France about four hours later on an Airbus supplied by their sponsor.
YOUTH OLYMPICS
WWII bomb ruins ceremony
Thursday’s medals ceremony for the Winter Youth Olympics had to be rescheduled after a World War II bomb was found nearby, organizers announced. “Due to the discovery of an aerial bomb from World War II during construction works at Bozner Platz, today’s victory ceremony at Medals Plaza has been rescheduled to tomorrow,” the organizers said in a statement. The winners of the men’s giant slalom and biathlon mixed relay events had been due to receive their medals at the specially setup Medals Plaza in the old city of Innsbruck. Bombs left over from World War II and gone unnoticed for almost 70 years are regularly discovered during construction work in Austria, but are usually defused without causing any damage or injuries.
LACROSSE
Players top drug-use list
Men’s lacrosse players were the biggest illicit drug users among athletes competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) 23 sanctioned sports, according to a survey by the governing body. They led all other sports in the use of amphetamines, anabolic steroids, cocaine, marijuana and narcotics, according to the NCAA’s quadrennial survey, which included 20,474 responses from athletes for the 2009 school year. Since the last survey in 2005, college athletes have increased their use of drugs including alcohol (83.1 percent, up from 77.5 percent), cigarettes (15.5 percent from 14.6 percent), marijuana (22.6 percent from 21.2 percent) and spit tobacco (17.4 percent from 15.7 percent). Men’s lacrosse players led the way in drug use by a wide margin among specific teams. The survey found 48.5 percent of lacrosse players used marijuana, ahead of soccer players at 29.4 percent and wrestlers at 27.7 percent.
Five-time champion Novak Djokovic on Saturday tumbled out of the Indian Wells ATP Masters, falling in his first match to lucky loser Botic van de Zandschulp as two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz advanced. “No excuses for a poor performance,” 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic said after 37 unforced errors in a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 defeat. “It doesn’t feel great when you play this way on the court,” he said. “But congratulations to my opponent — just a bad day in the office, I guess, for me.” Djokovic is just the latest in Van de Zandschulp’s string of superstar victims. He
Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday held their nerve to beat Liverpool 4-1 on penalties and reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after their tie finished one-apiece on aggregate, while Bayern Munich saw off Bayer 04 Leverkusen to complete a 5-0 win over both legs. Lamine Yamal and Raphinha fired Barcelona into the next round as the Catalans bested SL Benfica 3-1, and Inter booked a last-eight meeting with Bayern by seeing off Feyenoord 2-1. At Anfield, Ousmane Dembele netted the only goal of the night as PSG bounced back from Liverpool’s late winner last week to force the tie to extra-time and penalties. Maligned
Taiwanese badminton player Lin Chun-yi had to settle for silver in the men’s singles at the Orleans Masters in France on Sunday after losing in the final to his French opponent. The 25-year-old Lin, ranked world No. 14, lost to Alex Lanier 13-21, 18-21 in a match that lasted 42 minutes at the Palais des Sports arena. It was the first time that the two players were facing each other in their professional careers. In the opener, Lin was slow to warm up, which gave the 20-year-old Lanier an opportunity to take an early lead with seven consecutive points. Despite
Taiwan’s Lin Chun-yi on Wednesday inflicted a first-round defeat on former badminton world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen at the All England Open. Lin came out of top after a back-and-forth first game before Axelsen dominated the second, but the Dane was not able to keep that form in the decider as Lin reeled off six points in a row on the way to a 21-19, 13-21, 21-11 victory. “If I don’t play my best, everyone can win against me,” said Axelsen, the world No. 4. “Today’s opponent played a fantastic game; it was disappointing, but that is how it is.” “I just tried
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