RUGBY LEAGUE
Streaker sent to jail
A man who disrupted the final match of the State of Origin rugby league series in Australia by running naked onto the field for a dare was jailed for three months on Thursday. New Zealander Wati Holmwood was sentenced for streaking in front of 83,000 stadium fans and a television audience of 4.2 million during the final moments of July’s Origin decider in Sydney. His lawyer argued for a non-custodial or suspended sentence, but magistrate Christopher Longley imposed a jail term for the flasher, who also streaked during a club rugby game in 2011. Holmwood, 33, pleaded guilty to entering a playing field without authorization and willful and obscene exposure in public, in breach of two good behavior bonds handed down for earlier offenses. In addition to the jail term, Holmwood, described as being of “limited” intelligence in court, was fined A$2,000 (US$1,800). His solicitor, Will Tuckey, said Holmwood would appeal. “This is a gentleman with complicated needs, he’s had a great deal of media attention,” Tuckey told the court. “It would be hard to find a person who was particularly offended on that night.”
SOCCER
Nigel Pearson charged
Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson was charged with improper conduct by the Football Association (FA) on Wednesday after last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at home to Charlton Athletic. “It is alleged the Leicester City manager’s language and/or behavior following the end of his side’s fixture at Charlton Athletic on 31 August 2013 amounted to improper conduct,” the FA said in a statement. Pearson said some of the decisions of referee Darren Deadman “beggared belief” after Leicester’s Matty James was sent off for dissent and a foul on keeper Kasper Schmeichel was not spotted. He was given until 5pm GMT today to respond to the charge.
RUGBY UNION
Arnold banned for biting
Australian Rory Arnold was given a seven-match ban on Wednesday for biting an opponent during a Currie Cup match last weekend. The suspension rules him out of the rest of the South African rugby competition this season unless his Griquas team reach the final. Debutant Arnold was red-carded 62 minutes into a 40-20 loss to the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday after opposition hooker Ethienne Reynecke showed the referee bite marks on his arm and the television match official said Arnold was responsible. Wagga Wagga-born Arnold, 23, pleaded not guilty. Judicial officer Peter Ingwersen found Reynecke’s initial reaction telling, as he instinctively complained to the referees.
SOCCER
Kace sparks controversy
Albanian soccer international Ergys Kace on Wednesday deleted his Facebook page after causing an uproar in the Greek press with a picture he posted featuring the name of a Kosovan militant group. The 20-year-old midfielder for Greek club PAOK had posted a picture in which he was wearing a T-shirt printed with “UCK,” the Albanian abbreviation for the ethnic-Albanian paramilitary organization the Kosovo Liberation Army. Before erasing his Facebook account, Kace apologized saying the T-shirt belonged to a friend. “Those who know me know my character and know that I do not [support] the UCK. I respect Greece,” Kace wrote. The Thessaloniki club did not issue a statement, but team officials have told the Greek press that they feel the case is closed. The UCK sought the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Switzerland’s Riola Xhemaili on Thursday scored a last-gasp goal to salvage a dramatic 1-1 draw with Finland that sent the joyous hosts through to the quarter-finals at Euro 2025, and heartbroken Finland home. Switzerland, who needed only a draw to advance based on goal-difference, finished second in Group A behind Norway to go through to the knockout round for the first time and are to face the winners of Group B, which would be world champions Spain as things stand. “I think we set ourselves a goal on the pitch, to write history, to go into the knockout stages, which we’ve never
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