ATHLETICS
AIU suspends Daniel Wanjiru
Kenyan Daniel Wanjiru, the winner of the 2017 London Marathon, has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU). The AIU on Tuesday said on its Web site that a charge had been issued against Wanjiru for “use of a prohibited substance/method.” Under anti-doping rules, the 27-year-old cannot participate in any competition until a hearing has taken place into the allegation. Wanjiru won the 2016 Amsterdam Marathon, and has finished eighth and 11th in the past two London marathons. Last year, Kenyans Asbel Kiprop, Cyrus Rutto and Abraham Kiptum were all given four-year bans, while Vincent Kipsegechi Yator received the same ban earlier this month. Wilson Kipsang, a former marathon world record holder and bronze medalist at the 2012 London Olympics, was provisionally suspended in January for whereabouts failures and tampering with samples. Kipsang’s management company denied the case involved the use of doping and tampering with the doping test.
SOCCER
Yu fired over license plate
Chinese Super League champions Guangzhou Evergrande dismissed Yu Hanchao and the international winger faces 15 days in police custody after he was spotted altering the license plate on his Mercedes 4x4. Guangzhou, who are managed by Italian FIFA World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro, said that the 33-year-old had “severely violated” the club’s strict disciplinary code. Police in the southern city fined Yu 5,000 yuan (US$708), added 12 points to his license and are to hold him for 15 days in “administrative detention.” Footage on Tuesday emerged of the 59-capped Yu, who has scored nine goals for China, appearing to change a letter “E” on his license plate to “F” for reasons that were not immediately clear. “Guangzhou traffic police found an illegal traffic safety act of using a modified vehicle number plate,” police officials said in a statement on a microblog. “After investigation and evidence collection by Guangzhou traffic police, the perpetrator surnamed Yu admitted the illegal facts.” Yu has won the Chinese Super League five times with Guangzhou and lifted the Asian Football Confederation Champions League trophy.
SWIMMING
Group sorry for ‘zoom-bomb’
Scottish Swimming has apologized to its community after an online training session with its elite athletes was crashed by a “zoombomber,” who subjected about 300 participants to “disturbing content” on Tuesday. The event was hosted on video conferencing application Zoom, which has faced a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and “zoombombing” — uninvited guests gaining entry and disrupting proceedings. “At the end of last week we shared information about the workout across social media platforms, asking those interested in participating to log into a link that was shared publicly this morning,” Scottish Swimming said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the link was ‘zoombombed’ with disturbing content shared with circa 300 people that had signed in to the event... At a time when the aquatics community was pulling together and supporting one another so positively, it’s upsetting to have a minority cause upset and distress during the lockdown.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later