BASEBALL
Monkeys top KT Wiz, Eagles
Taiwan Series champions the Rakuten Monkeys yesterday beat South Korea’s KT Wiz of the KBO League 6-3 in the final game of the Asia Professional Baseball Exchange Series in Taoyuan. The three-day series of exhibition games, designed to showcase South Korean and Japanese baseball to a Taiwanese audience, started on Friday with the KT Wiz playing Nippon Professional Baseball’s the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, with the game ending in a 1-1 tie after nine innings at Rakuten Taoyuan Baseball Stadium. In Saturday night’s Rakuten faceoff, the Monkeys topped the Eagles 3-1, while their Japanese counterparts brought out their Taiwanese stars to play with compatriots, including Yang Po-hsiang on second base and fellow Taitung County native Sung Chiao-hao, who pitched for Taiwan in the 2017 and 2023 World Baseball Classics.
Photo: CNA
BASEBALL
Baseball legend honored
The Chinese Taipei Baseball Association on Friday congratulated baseball legend Sadaharu Oh, a citizen of the Republic of China (ROC), on receiving Japan’s prestigious Order of Culture at the age of 85. Japanese Emperor Naruhito on Monday last week presented Oh with the honor, making him only the second baseball player to receive the award. Oh, whose Chinese name is Wang Chen-chih, was recognized for his outstanding contributions to sports development over his illustrious career. Association chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr in a statement congratulated Oh and said he had invited the legend to visit Taiwan at the end of February next year with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks for exhibition games that would serve as warm-ups for the World Baseball Classic. Oh is chairman of the Hawks. Koo also invited Oh to hold special coaching sessions with Taiwan’s team ahead of the world tournament, which Oh apparently accepted as long as his health permits, the association said. The world career home run record holder with 868 homers, Oh is the fourth Japanese athlete and the second baseball player to receive the Order of Culture since its establishment in 1937. Born in Japan in 1940 to a Japanese mother and Chinese father, Oh has lived in Japan all his life, but holds ROC citizenship. Oh has turned down multiple opportunities to become a naturalized Japanese citizen in accordance with his father’s wishes.
RUGBY
Australia dominate Ashes
After a 22-year wait for a rugby league Ashes series, England fans had hoped home advantage would give them a fighting chance of challenging their Australian counterparts. Instead, a series whitewash only highlighted the gap between the old foes. A first successive Ashes series whitewash since 1986 was sealed with a comprehensive 30-8 Australian victory in the final test at Headingley on Saturday, another occasion when England were vastly inferior. England supporters sang “you’re getting sacked in the morning” in the direction of coach Shaun Wane as the match wore on, with a World Cup to come next year. “I don’t believe, I know I am” the right man to lead England into the Rugby League World Cup, Wane told reporters. “The only people who I want on my side are the players and the staff, and I know I’ve got that.”
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
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