CRICKET
Malwade blazes in Taipei
Ninad Malwade blazed a 21-ball 47 as the Taipei-based PCCT hammered the Hsinchu Titans by 43 runs at the T10 Annual Taiwan Cricket tournament at Taipei’s Yingfeng Cricket Ground yesterday. PCCT had already qualified for today’s semi-finals, but were not to be denied an undefeated run through their four matches in Group B. Today they are to play the Taipei Indians, who yesterday beat Super 11 to deny the Taipei-based side that semi-final spot. In the first match yesterday, the Raging Bulls beat the Titans by 35 runs to seal second place in Group B and a semi-final against Group A’s top team, the undefeated Formosa Cricket Club. The other teams to be eliminated were the Taipei-based Dragons and ICC in Group A, and the Taichung Warriors and the Taiwan Stars in Group B.
OLYMPICS
Russia ban might be eased
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is considering a return to competition of Russian athletes who do not support the country’s invasion of Ukraine, IOC president Thomas Bach said on Friday. The IOC in February issued guidance to sports governing bodies to remove Russian and Belorussian athletes from competition. Belarus has been used as a staging ground for Russia’s invasion. “It is not about necessarily having Russia back. It’s about having athletes with a Russian passport who do not support the war back in competition,” Bach told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Here comes our dilemma: This war has not been started by the Russian athletes, but we saw that some governments did not want to respect anymore the autonomy of international sports,” he said. “This is why we’ve had to take these protective measures to be at least still a little bit in the driving seat and not lose all autonomy,” Bach said. “And this is why, on the other hand, we also have to see, and to study, to monitor, how and when we can come back to accomplish our mission to have everybody back again, under which format whatsoever.”
CRICKET
Azam equals T20 record
Babar Azam equaled India star Virat Kohli’s record of the fastest man to 3,000 runs in cricket’s shortest format as Pakistan scored 169-6 in the sixth Twenty20 international against England in Lahore on Friday. The Pakistan skipper, who hit an unbeaten 59-ball 87 for his 27th half century, reached 3,000 T20 international runs in 81 innings as he anchored the home team’s total after they were sent in to bat. Azam hit Richard Gleeson for a six to join Indian duo of Rohit Sharma (3,694 runs in 140 matches) and Kohli (3,663 in 108), New Zealand’s Martin Guptill (3,497 in 112) and Ireland’s Paul Stirling (3,011 in 114) in the milestone. Azam hit three sixes and seven boundaries and added 48 for the fourth wicket with Iftikhar Ahmed (31) and 47 for the third with Haider Ali (18). However Azam’s milestone was overshadowed when England’s Phil Salt smashed a robust career-best 41-ball 88 not out to help his team thrash Pakistan by eight wickets. The England opener clobbered three sixes and 13 fours in the third fastest half century by an England batter in the shorter format to help his team chase down a target of 170 in just 14.3 overs.
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