ARCHERY
Taiwanese wins bronze
Taiwan’s Chiu Yi-ching yesterday won a bronze medal in her first Archery World Cup event, the women’s individual recurve, in Gwangju, South Korea. The 18-year-old defeated compatriot Kuo Tzu-ying 6-2 in the bronze medal match, after losing in the semi-finals to Lee Gah-yun of South Korea 6-2. Kuo, 19, earlier defeated Taiwanese Olympian Lei Chien-ying 6-5 in a one-arrow tiebreaker, but was shut out by top seed South Korean Choi Misun, who went on to win gold. Kuo and Chiu are both representing Taiwan on the World Cup tour for the first time this year. The men’s recurve team of Olympian Tang Chih-chun, newcomer Su Yu-yang and 19-year-old Tai Yu-hsuan was ousted by the US 5-4 in the second round.
SOCCER
Mbappe stays at PSG
Kylian Mbappe on Saturday said he was “very happy” to stay at Paris Saint-Germain after the club announced that the World Cup winner was rejecting Real Madrid to remain in France until 2025. “I am very happy to stay in France, in Paris, in my city,” Mbappe told supporters on the Parc des Princes pitch before he marked his new deal with a hat-trick in PSG’s 5-0 win over Metz in their final Ligue 1 match of the season. La Liga president Javier Tebas said that the massive financial resources of PSG’s Qatari owners persuaded Mbappe to stay in France. “What PSG is doing by renewing Mbappe with large sums of money ... after posting losses of 700 million euros [US$738.9 million] in recent seasons and having a wage bill of over 600 million euros, is an INSULT to football,” Tebas wrote on Twitter. La Liga said in a statement that it was launching an official complaint “to UEFA, the French administrative and fiscal authorities,” and the EU.
SOCCER
Violence mars Greek Cup
Crowd violence and tear gas on Saturday marred the Greek Cup final, where Panathinaikos made a first-half penalty hold up to beat PAOK 1-0. Penalty-scorer Aitor Cantalapiedra was allegedly hit in the hand by a chunk of cement thrown from the crowd. Only 43,000 tickets were sold for the 70,000-seat Athens Olympic Stadium to keep apart fans from both clubs. Despite that, Panathinaikos fans attempted before the final to get close to PAOK fans, and spilled onto the track around the field. Riot police forced them back using tear gas, and PAOK supporters threw flares at the retreating Panathinaikos fans. In Croatia, police opened fire with live ammunition during clashes on a highway with hundreds of soccer fans returning from a match in the capital, Zagreb, authorities said. Two fans and about a dozen police officers were injured, but none in life-threatening condition, they said.
HORSE RACING
Early Voting wins Preakness
Early Voting on Saturday validated a gutsy decision to skip the Kentucky Derby and aim for the second leg of the Triple Crown, by holding off hard-charging favorite Epicenter to win the Preakness, rewarding trainer Chad Brown and owner Seth Klarman for their patience. Early Voting stalked the leaders for much of the race before moving into first around the final turn and finished one-and-one-quarter lengths ahead of Epicenter, who was second. “We thought he needed a little more seasoning, the extra rest would help him,” Klarman said. “And as it turned out, that was the right call.”
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