ATHLETICS
Judge shelves drugs case
An Italian judge on Thursday shelved a criminal investigation into former Olympic race walking champion Alex Schwazer, citing evidence that his urine samples were altered. Schwazer was banned for eight years in 2016 after a retest of a doping sample showed positive traces of steroids. The Italian was forced to miss the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. However, Walter Pelino, the preliminary investigation judge in Bolzano, dismissed legal proceedings. “The preliminary investigation judge believes that it has been established with a high level of credibility that the urine samples taken from Alex Schwazer on Jan. 1, 2016, were altered with the aim of making them positive, and therefore obtaining the suspension and the discrediting of the athlete,” Pelino wrote in an 87-page document detailing the dismissal of the case. Pelino also strongly criticized the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and World Athletics, then known as the IAAF. “They operated in a totally self-referential manner, not tolerating outside checks to the point that they were producing false statements,” Pelino said. “There is strong evidence of the fact that in trying to impede the scrutiny of the so-called crime, a series of crimes were committed.” WADA said in a statement that it had “grave concern” with Pelino’s comments and that it would not rule out further court action.
SOCCER
Mbappe threat alleged
Agitated and in the heat of competition during a Champions League match, Paris Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe possibly threatened Barcelona defender Jordi Alba. The Marca daily and other media have posted a video online of Mbappe apparently saying: “In the street, I’ll kill you.” The incident between the two players occurred during PSG’s 4-1 win against Barcelona on Tuesday. Alba moved toward Mbappe after the PSG forward pushed Barcelona defender Sergino Dest in front of goal while play was stopped in the first half. The players then started trash-talking. It is not totally clear in the video what Mbappe is saying, although it appears that the native French-speaker tried to say: “In the street, I’ll kill you” in Spanish.
BADMINTON
Qualification date moved
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) yesterday said that Tokyo Olympics hopefuls would have until June 15 to secure qualification for the Games after a number of World Tour events were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Malaysia Open, which was initially scheduled for March 31 to April 4, has been pushed back to May 25 to 30, while April’s Malaysia Masters has been postponed until further notice. The Singapore Open has also been pushed back by two months and will now be held from June 1 to 6. “In securing new dates for the Malaysia Open and Singapore Open, BWF confirms the Indonesia Masters 2021 and Indonesia Open 2021 have been postponed also,” it said in a statement. Rankings at the end of April should have been the cut-off to decide which players would be at the Tokyo Games, due to begin on July 23. However, the BWF’s Race to Tokyo standings are now to close on June 15, with the Singapore Open serving as the last tournament for qualification.
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
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 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
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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