OLYMPICS
China names swim squad
China would send 11 swimmers implicated in a major doping scandal to next month’s Paris Olympics, after the country on Tuesday named its squad for the Games. Twenty-three Chinese swimmers tested positive for the prescription heart drug trimetazidine — which can enhance performance — ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Games, it emerged in April. They were not sanctioned after the World Anti-Doping Agency accepted the argument of Chinese authorities that the positive tests were caused by contaminated food. This month the New York Times reported that three among the 23 swimmers, including two going to Paris, had also tested positive for a different banned substance, clenbuterol, in separate cases in 2016 and 2017. US swimmer Lilly King on Friday last week called the most recent revelations “disappointing and frustrating.” “You know, when we put everything on the line ... everything that we do to compete with a level playing field, it’s extremely frustrating to not have faith that others are doing the same thing,” she said.
GOLF
PGA gives Woods exemption
Tiger Woods would be able to gain entry to all PGA Tour signature events after the circuit’s policy board on Tuesday voted to grant him a special exemption due to “exceptional lifetime achievement.” The move would give Woods access to the Tour’s eight signature tournaments, all of which award large prize money and extra points in the FedEx Cup standings despite possessing smaller fields than standard events.
ATHLETICS
Johnson starts new league
US athletics great Michael Johnson on Tuesday announced the launch of a new track league that would include the “best of the best” competing in four elite meetings every year from 2025. Johnson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist turned commentator for the BBC, said Grand Slam Track would debut in April 2025 with two three-day meetings in the US and two international stops, with prize money of about US$3 million on offer at each meeting. One US venue would be Los Angeles, host city of the 2028 Olympics, Johnson said. “People love racing. People want to see the best of the best, and at the core of Grand Slam Track is the best of the best athletes, only the fastest, competing head to head against one another four times a year,” he said. The meets would feature track races only, no field events, divided into categories of short sprints, long sprints, high hurdles, low hurdles, middle distance and long distance, with men’s and women’s races in each category.
SOCCER
Asian league offers US$12m
The winners of the new Asian Champions League Elite would pocket a minimum of US$12 million, the Asian Football Confederation said yesterday in a major boost to club soccer in the region. The competition, which starts with a preliminary round in August, is at the heart of a major revamp of club soccer across the continent and involves 27 clubs from 12 nations including Japan, South Korea, Australia and Saudi Arabia. The first prize is a threefold increase from the sum won by Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates last month in the final edition of the Asian Champions League under its previous format.
A seven-year-old horse had to be euthanized on Friday after breaking its back on the final fence of a Grand National steeplechase race that it won despite sustaining the serious injury. It follows the death of four horses at the Cheltenham Festival last month — including one after the prestigious Gold Cup. Gold Dancer was competing in the Mildmay Novices’ Chase during Ladies Day at Aintree’s Grand National Festival. The horse managed to cross the finish line approximately four lengths ahead of runner-up Regent’s Stroll. “The winner of our second race of the day, Gold Dancer, was pulled up after
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
OBJECTIVE REACHED: ’Now for us, it’s about getting healthy, making sure everybody is ready to go, and we can ramp up,’ the Atlanta Hawks’ C.J. McCollum said after the game The Atlanta Hawks on Friday secured an NBA playoff berth with a 124-102 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers as the Boston Celtics locked up the Eastern Conference second seed with a lopsided win of their own. C.J. McCollum scored a game-high 29 points for the Hawks, who came into the contest at sixth in the East and still in danger of falling into the play-in tournament that would see the seventh-through 10th-placed teams battle for the last two playoff berths in each conference. Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Jalen Johnson scored 18 points apiece, and Dyson Daniels added a triple-double of 13
Taiwanese “boxing queen” Chen Nien-chin today won the women’s 65kg division final at the Asian Boxing Elite Championships in Ulaanbaatar, securing Taiwan’s first gold medal in that weight class at the tournament. Chen defeated North Korea’s Hwang Hyo Sun 4-1, after the two were tied through the first two rounds. Chen won bronze in the 66kg division at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
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