■BASEBALL
Waipahu win world series
Tanner Tokunaga smacked two homers and Iolana Akau added a solo blast as the boys from Waipahu, Hawaii, defeated Matamoros, Mexico, 12-3 in the Little League World Series final on Sunday. Waipahu were also helped by three Matamoros errors. Two Waipahu runs were scored on passed balls and another came in on a bases-loaded walk. But the Matamoros’ line-up was loaded with dangerous hitters, so the lead wasn’t safe until reliever Christian Donahue got Fernando Villegas to ground out to short-stop, giving the US their fourth straight win. In the third-place game, Tsuyoki Setoguchi scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning to lead Tokyo to a 4-3 victory over Lake Charles, Louisiana.
■CRICKET
Hayden ruled out of series
Veteran opener Matthew Hayden has been ruled out of Australia’s one-day series against Bangladesh in Darwin because of injury. The three-match series starts on Saturday and Hayden had been named in Australia’s initial 14-man squad despite the fact he was still recovering from an Achilles injury suffered during the Indian Twenty20 Premier League. The series was to have provided preparation for the Champions Trophy, but with that tournament now delayed, the Australians decided against trying to hurry him back into action. Team officials announced Hayden would not play at a team training camp yesterday, with the Australians scheduled to fly to Darwin today. Hayden’s withdrawal means Australia will be without three of their big guns for the series. Australian captain Ricky Ponting is recovering from wrist surgery and Brett Lee will miss the series for personal reasons, the star pace man dealing with the collapse of his marriage.
■CRICKET
West Indies win Tri-Series
West Indies captain Chris Gayle top-scored with a swashbuckling 110 not out to lead his team to a seven-wicket victory over the host nation in the Canada Cup Tri-Series final in King City, Ontario, on Sunday. The left-hander struck 14 fours and six sixes in only 77 balls as the title favorites cruised to 181 for three in reply to Canada’s 179 all out in 46.5 overs. Gayle recorded his 16th century in one-day internationals to set up a commanding win for the West Indies with 22.3 overs to spare. Canada, beaten by 49 runs when the two teams met in the round-robin stage on Friday, lost wickets at regular intervals after being asked to bat first. Opener Rizwan Cheema provided the only significant resistance with a whirlwind 61 off 45 balls, while fast bowler Jerome Taylor led the West Indian attack with three for 33 in 6.5 overs.
■OLYMPICS
Chavez acts after failure
Venezuela’s poor performance at the Beijing Olympics moved Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to order the national oil company to start helping to train athletes. Venezuela’s delegation of more than 100 athletes won only a bronze medal in Beijing — an effort that prompted harsh criticism from the local media. Chavez told Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) on Sunday to “open an office of competitive sports” and asked the company’s president, Rafael Ramirez, to meet with members of Venezuela’s Olympic squad “to analyze the sports situation.” PDVSA has already expanded its activities far beyond petroleum production to include food distribution, social welfare management and building housing. Dalia Contreras Rivero won a bronze in women’s taekwondo in Beijing.
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
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
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
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
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