SOCCER
Unique punishment served
A German player who told a female referee “women have no place in men’s football” during a second-division match found himself officiating a girls’ game on Saturday. Fortuna Duesseldorf 1895’s Kerem Demirbay had to apologize to German FA (DFB) referee Bibiana Steinhaus for his comments and was banned for five games, two of which would be suspended. However, his club lodged an appeal and came up with an unusual punishment of their own. “This is what happens at Fortuna when a young player makes a mistake,” Fortuna posted on their Facebook page with pictures of Demirbay refereeing a match between two junior girls’ teams — albeit in his normal clothes.
BASEBALL
Giants sign Samardzija
The San Francisco Giants have signed right-hander Jeff Samardzija to a five-year deal, the team announced on Saturday, as the big name pitching merry-go-round continued in Major League Baseball. With David Price joining the Boston Red Sox, John Lackey apparently finding a new home at the Chicago Cubs and Zack Greinke reportedly moving to the Arizona Diamondbacks, it has been a boom week for free agent pitchers. The Lackey and Greinke acquisitions have not been officially confirmed by their respective new clubs, but have been reported by multiple media outlets.
SWIMMING
Phelps claims third victory
US swim star Michael Phelps roared home to win the 200m butterfly and claim his third victory in as many days at the US Winter National Championships on Saturday. The 18-time Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the event clocked 1 minute, 56.11 seconds as he continues his preparations for an Olympic comeback next year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Chase Kalisz finished 1.01 seconds back in second while Dakota Hodgson was third in 1:59.09, three seconds slower than Phelps at the King County Aquatic Center in Seattle, Washington.
ALPINE SKIING
Vonn’s streak continues
American Lindsey Vonn continued her domination at Lake Louise with a victory in Saturday’s Alpine Skiing World Cup women’s downhill race, her 17th triumph at the Canadian layout. A day after winning the first downhill of the World Cup season, Vonn captured the second in 1:50.43 — 0.07 seconds faster than her winning time on Friday. “Today I tried to limit my risk, but at the same time my skis were so fast and the light was really flat and also it was a little more bumpy today, that I was kind of hanging on for dear life,” Vonn said. Swiss Fabienne Suter was second in 1:51.48 with Austrian Cornelia Huetter third in 1:51.59.
ALPINE SKIING
Hirscher secures win
Four-time defending World Cup overall men’s champion Marcel Hirscher of Austria won his first Cup Super-G race on Saturday, edging fellow giant slalom specialist Ted Ligety in difficult weather conditions. Hirscher won in 1:06.9 with home-snow Americans completing the podium; Ligety next in 1:07.23 for only his second Super-G podium and Andrew Weibrecht third, 0.03 seconds behind Ligety. It was the 32nd career World Cup triumph for Hirscher and it came on the same Beaver Creek layout where he won combined and team titles at this year’s World Championships as well as a 2011 World Cup giant slalom title.
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
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
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
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