MARTIAL ARTS
Brazilian jujutsu champ shot
Brazilian jujutsu great Leandro Lo, an eight-time world champion, was fatally shot in a Sao Paulo club on Sunday, his family’s lawyer said. An off-duty police officer has been arrested for allegedly shooting the 33-year-old champ, after turning himself in to the authorities, local media reports said. Lo was out with friends for a concert at the Clube Siria when the attacker approached their table and began making threatening gestures with a bottle, lawyer Iva Siqueira Junior said. Lo, who won a record five International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation world titles, pinned the man to the ground, before Lo’s friends helped them both up and urged the attacker to leave, Siqueria said. “At that exact moment, the guy allegedly turned around, pulled out a gun and shot Leandro in the head,” he said. Lo was rushed to a hospital, but was pronounced brain dead, he added. A Sao Paulo court ordered the 30-year-old suspect detained for 30 days pending further investigation, newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported.
BASEBALL
Rose dismisses questions
Pete Rose on Sunday dismissed questions about his first appearance on the Philadelphia Phillies’ field since the franchise scrapped 2017 plans to honor him because of a woman’s claim she had a sexual relationship with MLB’s hit king when she was a minor. “It was 55 years ago, babe,” Rose told a female baseball writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Rose had no trouble reminiscing about the 1980 World Series champion Phillies team that was honored before Sunday’s game. After initially getting booed lightly, the 81-year-old received a standing ovation from fans when he walked onto the Citizens Bank Park field for the first time since he received a lifetime ban from the MLB in August 1989. Rose’s already stained reputation suffered another blow in 2017 when the Phillies called off a planned induction into the team’s Wall of Fame because of the sexual misconduct accusations. The woman, identified as Jane Doe in 2017, said Rose called her in 1973, when she was 14 or 15, and they began a sexual relationship in Cincinnati, Ohio, that lasted several years. Rose brusquely responded to the reporter’s question before the game — and later apologized to her following Sunday’s ceremony after initially saying: “Will you forgive me if I sign 1,000 baseballs for you?”
BASKETBALL
Bird says goodbye to Seattle
The day set aside to honor Sue Bird and her career with the Seattle Storm was on Sunday slightly soured when the Las Vegas Aces pulled away late for an 89-81 win, but nearly all of the sold out crowd stayed to hear her speech commemorating her 20 years in the city. “I don’t really have that ‘Mamba Out’ moment,” Bird said, referencing Kobe Bryant’s retirement speech. “I just want to say I love you, thank you so much and I’ll see you in the playoffs.” The result of the game did not take away from the three hours where Storm fans, WNBA fans and the city of Seattle said thank you to Bird for her career as the face of the franchise. The largest crowd in Storm history packed Climate Pledge Arena to honor Bird for her career as one of the best female basketball players. “I’m not going to lie, it kind of sucks to lose my last game. But you know what, I lost my first game too. So it’s OK,” Bird joked with the crowd after the final buzzer.
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying on Saturday crashed out of the BWF All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, with South Korea’s Se Young-an denying the world No. 3 Tai a chance at a fourth All England title. In a replay of their semi-final showdown last year, the world No. 2 Se again beat Tai, saving four match points in a thrilling deciding game to prevail 17-21, 21-19, 24-22. Tai won the women’s singles title in Birmingham in 2017, 2018 and 2020. In the three times the two superstars faced each other prior to Saturday, Tai, 22, had only come out on top once, when
California-born Lars Nootbaar had never played for Japan before the World Baseball Classic, but he has become so popular in his adopted country that sales of pepper mills have shot up in tribute to his trademark celebration. The 25-year-old outfielder — the first player born outside Japan to represent the country at the tournament — mimics twisting a pepper mill after each hit to show he wants to “grind out” a win for his team. The celebration has become a smash hit during Japan’s games in Tokyo, with Nootbaar’s teammates jumping on the bandwagon and fans bringing pepper grinders to the stadium. Nootbaar
LAST ONE STANDING: The world No. 3 was the only Taiwanese left in the tournament, while there were upsets in the men’s singles and the women’s doubles Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Thursday defeated Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-19, 21-12 to reach the quarter-finals of the BWF All England Open in Birmingham. Tai, the world No. 3, needed only 40 minutes to close out the round-of-16 matchup at the Utilita Arena. In the opening game, the Taiwanese shuttler established an early 10-5 cushion, before an aggressive Ongbamrungphan fought her way back into the tie, winning nine straight points to take a 10-14 lead. The pair traded the lead to bring the scores to 18-19, but Tai held her nerve to close out the first game. After a 2-2 tie early in
When Taiwan lost to Cuba 7-1 at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Sunday, it was an opportunity missed. A win would have sent the team to the quarter-finals in Tokyo. Instead, the loss gave Taiwan a 2-2 record, the same as the other four teams in Pool A, but they finished last because of tiebreakers. So, was the team’s performance a success or a failure? The 2-2 record would suggest somewhere in between, but two baseball experts, National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU) associate professor Kung Jung-tang and veteran commentator Tseng Wen-cheng, gave Taiwan’s WBC performance a resounding thumbs-up. “The team’s offensive showing was
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