SOCCER
CONMEBOL head picked
South America’s graft-tainted soccer confederation on Tuesday picked a new leader and vowed to vote as a bloc for FIFA’s new president, urging unity in cleaning up scandals plaguing both organizations. In a unanimous vote, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) chose Paraguay soccer association head Alejandro Dominguez as its new president, as three former heads face US fraud indictments. It has yet to name the candidate whom its 10 member federations will back to take over as head of FIFA, after the suspension of Sepp Blatter for ethics violations. Like FIFA, CONMEBOL is looking to clean up its image after a scandal that saw its headquarters in Paraguay searched this month by investigators probing alleged bribes. All 10 soccer heads from CONMEBOL’s member countries voted for Dominguez to serve as its new leader until 2019, serving out the remainder of arrested predecessor Miguel Angel Napout’s term.
ATHLETICS
Qatar bids investigated
Qatar’s bids for the 2017 and 2019 world athletics championships have been referred to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ethics commission for investigation of bribery allegations, the head of Britain’s track and field federation said on Tuesday. The 2017 championships were awarded to London, which defeated a rival bid from Doha, Qatar. Doha subsequently beat Barcelona and Eugene, Oregon in the vote for the 2019 worlds. The IAAF said the Qatar federation asked IAAF president Sebastian Coe to refer the 2017 bid to the ethics board. It was not aware about an investigation into the successful 2019 bid, stemming from a 2014 vote. However, in November last year, the IAAF ethics commission suspended the Kenyan track and field leader Isaiah Kiplagat, who was accused of receiving two cars from the Qatar Athletics Federation as “an apparent gift” between 2014 and last year. The 2017 case will assess allegations made by UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner during a radio interview earlier this month that “brown envelopes” were handed to members of the IAAF council ahead of the vote in 2011 for the 2017 worlds.
BASEBALL
MLB seeks London game
Major League Baseball wants to showcase the sport in London and is working toward playing its first regular-season game in the English capital next year, the league said on Tuesday. MLB, which has opened its season in a non-traditional market abroad seven times, would not confirm specific details mentioned in a report on its Web site that stated any games in London are expected to be part of a mid-season trip. “We are very interested in playing there, and we’re working hard on that one,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in the report. “I don’t think it will be an opener because of the weather issues. It would be later in the season.”
ICE HOCKEY
Horcoff given 20 game ban
Anaheim Ducks forward Shawn Horcoff on Tuesday was suspended for 20 games for violating the terms of the NHL’s performance-enhancing substances program. Horcoff acknowledged his mistake in a statement issued by the NHL Players’ Association. He said he tried an unspecified treatment to speed up his recovery from an injury last autumn. “Although I was unaware that this treatment was not permitted under NHL rules, that is no excuse whatsoever,” Horcoff said.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
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