South Korea captured the gold medal and capped a perfect and improbable Olympic run with the country’s biggest win yet in international baseball, a 3-2 victory over defending champion Cuba last night in the championship of the Beijing Games.
Far from flashy and just plain steady all tournament long, the South Koreans (9-0) pulled off an impressive win over the mighty Cubans in what will long be remembered as an upset in baseball’s last Olympic hurrah for at least eight years.
Reliever Chong Tae-hyon got Yuliesky Gourriel to ground into a 6-4-3 double play with the bases loaded to end it after a drama-filled ninth inning.
Cuba (7-2), the perennial world powerhouse and lone representative from baseball-crazed Latin America in the eight-team Olympic field, dropped only two games in China — both to the first-time gold medalists.
The other favorite going into the Olympics, Japan, lost 8-4 to the US earlier yesterday, giving the Americans the bronze.
South Korean reliever Chong Tae-hyon got Yuliesky Gourriel to ground into a 6-4-3 double play with the bases loaded to end it after a dramatic ninth inning.
Lee Seung-yuop gave his team the lead on a two-run homer in the first inning and Lee Yong-kyu added an RBI double in the seventh, helping South Korea become the first unbeaten Olympic baseball champion since Cuba in 1992 and 1996.
The Cubans loaded the bases in the ninth against South Korea starter Ryu Hyun-jin, who allowed Hector Olivera’s leadoff single and walked Fredrich Cepeda one out later. Alexei Bell drew a walk and South Korean catcher Kang Min-ho vehemently argued the call before being ejected by home plate umpire Carlos Rey Cotto of Puerto Rico. Kang angrily threw his mask, a ball and then his glove into the dugout.
South Korea skipper Kim Kyung-moon then sent Chong to the mound to face Gourriel, who chopped an 0-2 pitch for a grounder to shortstop Park Jin-man. The South Koreans erupted in a pile of red and white on the mound, throwing their manager into the air before taking a victory lap around Wukesong Stadium while waving flags.
Cuba wanted nothing more than to leave with another Olympic title, but now must instead turn its attention toward next spring’s second World Baseball Classic. The Cubans lost to Japan in the final of the inaugural event in 2006.
Baseball comes off the program for the 2012 London Games and there’s no guarantee it will return in 2016 despite the campaigning of the sport’s international federation and support from Major League Baseball.
Lee Yong-kyu’s seventh-inning double came off the Cubans’ best reliever, Pedro Lazo — the same pitcher who had thrown three scoreless innings during a 10-2 rout of the US team on Friday.
Lee Young-kyu pumped both arms at his sides after reaching second, then threw his hands into the air in delight calling for more noise from his cheering countrymen in the right-field seats.
Lazo was done and manager Antonio Pacheco put Cuba’s hopes on the shoulders of Luis Rodriguez.
For the South Koreans, this victory provided a big bonus, as 14 of their players had already secured a medal and an exemption from mandatory military service with Friday’s 6-2 semi-final victory over Japan. By law, the South Korean government exempts male athletes who earn any medal in the Olympics from the approximately two years of required duty.
Michel Enriquez hit a solo homer in the bottom of the first and he was the only Cuban to reach base against the imposing Ryu until Alfredo Despaigne’s two-out double in the fifth. Bell connected for a solo shot in the seventh.
Cuba was trying to win its fourth Olympic gold in the five baseball tournaments dating to 1992 in which baseball has been a medal sport.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
RSS