MOTORSPORT
Electric series set for 2022
A new electric road car-based series on Wednesday announced plans to launch in 2022. Formula E has pioneered city-based electric single-seater racing, but SuperCharge managing director Rob Armstrong said that “the need for road car-based electric motorsport is becoming more and more compelling.” The plans outlined in a videoconference envisaged eight events in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. Eight teams would compete using 16 cars powered by a battery producing 500 kilowatt, 670 brake horsepower and capable of reaching 100kph in 2.5 seconds, organizers said. The circuits would be ultra-short, about 1km in length, and the races lasting about six laps with features including a water gantry and 2.5m high jump.
SOCCER
Club offers fans virus tests
A leading Slovak soccer club is to provide free COVID-19 tests for its fans prior to a top league match on Sunday, in a bid to meet strict anti-pandemic measures, it said on Wednesday. “We have decided to provide all season ticket holders with free COVID-19 testing 12 hours prior to the match against SK Slovan,” DAC 1904 Dunajska Streda owner Oszkar Vilagi said in a video message. Dunajska Streda lead the table and on Sunday meet second-placed SK Slovan Bratislava.
ATHLETICS
Runner decries ruling
The women’s 400m Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo on Wednesday criticized World Athletics after the doping suspension of Salwa Eid Naser was overturned. The 22-year-old Naser was provisionally suspended in June and charged with failing to meet “whereabouts” criteria, but the World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal on Tuesday overturned the decision, saying that the circumstances surrounding one missed test “would have been comical were the consequences not so serious.” Naser, who runs for Bahrain, beat Bahamian Miller-Uibo in the World Championships, held in September and October last year, by running the third-fastest time in the history of the event. Between January and April of last year, Naser had failed three times to fulfill her whereabouts obligations, World Athletics said. “I cry foul play and believe there is a deeper explanation of how World Athletics ... allowed this to carry on,” Miller-Uibo wrote on Instagram. “We need to ensure that in athletics, we the athletes are not competing against any administrators whose only goal is for athletes to run faster, jump further and throw further at any cost.”
FOOTBALL
Bills seeks mafia trademark
The mafia is becoming legitimate in Buffalo, New York, — the Bills Mafia that is. The Buffalo Bills last week filed an application to trademark fans’ adopted nickname in preparation to launch a series of branded merchandise and apparel. Bills Mafia first became popular in 2011, and for years was considered taboo by the franchise and NFL because of its connotation of organized crime. Rather than acknowledge the nickname, the team would go out of its way to avoid its mention. Bills Mafia had also been mischaracterized on social media, which focused on the team’s rowdier, table-breaking fans, while overlooking the charitable work done on behalf of the nickname over the years.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier