BASKETBALL
Antetokounmpo stays on
Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo on Tuesday ended speculation about his future after agreeing to a new long-term deal reported to be the biggest in NBA history. Antetokounmpo, who would have been able to enter free agency next year, said in a statement on Twitter that he had agreed a five-year deal with the Bucks. “This is my home, this is my city,” the 26-year-old two-time NBA MVP said. “I’m blessed to be able to be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for the next five years. Let’s make these years count. The show goes on, let’s get it.” ESPN reported that Antetokounmpo’s contract extension was worth US$228 million. The deal allows an opt out after four years. ESPN said that the contract was the biggest in NBA history, eclipsing the US$206.8 million five-year deal agreed between Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017.
FORMULA ONE
Frank Williams hospitalized
Frank Williams, who built the Williams team into a dominant Formula One force in the 1980s and 1990s, is in a stable condition after being admitted to hospital, the team announced late on Tuesday. The 78-year-old established the team in 1977 and went on to win nine constructors’ world championships and seven drivers’ titles, although the most recent triumphs came in 1997. “Sir Frank Williams has recently been admitted to hospital where he is currently in a stable condition,” the team said in a statement. “Frank’s medical condition is a private matter and therefore the family will not be releasing any further details at this time.”
SOCCER
Dortmund win for new coach
Borussia Dortmund’s new caretaker coach Edin Terzic on Tuesday made a winning start after club captain Marco Reus netted a late winner to seal a 2-1 victory at Werder Bremen. The 38-year-old Terzic replaced Lucien Favre, who was sacked on Sunday less than 24 hours after a 5-1 thrashing at home by VfB Stuttgart. “It’s always important to come back with a win after such a brutal defeat,” Reus told Sky. “After a change of coach, the team knows it has let itself down. We were up against it and hopefully we have got ourselves on the right track.” Terzic has a contract for the rest of the season and inspired Dortmund to their first win in four league games, while Bremen now have four straight defeats. “It was important we showed a reaction,” Terzic said. “We lost a few balls in areas where we can’t afford to do that, so there are lots of things to work on.”
SOCCER
Players taking a knee booed
Cambridge United manager Mark Bonner has criticized fans of the League Two (fourth-tier) club who booed as players took a knee as part of English soccer’s anti-racism stance before their home game against Colchester United on Tuesday. “It shines a light on our club for all the wrong reasons,” Bonner told reporters after Cambridge’s 2-1 victory. “What was a really good night for us on the pitch was overshadowed by a real small minority that decide to boo in a moment when we’re reflecting the values that everyone at our club believes in,” he said. “What’s most encouraging is the vast majority drowned them out quite quickly with an applause and reflected the values of our club much better.”
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