■ SOCCER
Bordeaux send warning
Yoann Gourcuff led Bordeaux to a 4-0 thrashing of Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday night to open this year’s league program on a high and give a warning to French league leaders Lyon. Bordeaux now lie just a point behind the seven-time reigning champions after controlling a match that was peppered with classy goals to inflict PSG’s first defeat since losing to Rennes at the end of November. Souleymane Diawara opened the scoring when he got on the end of a Gourcuff free-kick after 10 minutes to glance home a header leaving PSG keeper Mickael Landreau no chance. Fernando Cavenaghi beat defender Zoumana Camara to a Mathieu Chalme long ball to fire home left-footed inside Landreau’s right hand post in the 35th minute. From then on, it was all Bordeaux who rounded off the scoring in the 70th and 87th minutes through Gourcuff and Fernando, though PSG’s Stephane Sessegnon had hit the post midway through the second half.
■RUGBY UNION
Tongan dies of heart attack
A Tongan rugby player, recently married and the father of two young children, died from a heart attack during a French third division match on Sunday. The 28-year-old Perigueux flanker Feao Latu collapsed just 15 minutes into the top-of-the-table match at Cahors and was pronounced dead at hospital, emergency services said. “It’s dreadful. We are completely shocked. All the players and all of the rugby family here have lived through a drama today. It’s hard to accept,” Perigueux club president Michel Macary said. Latu complained of feeling unwell in the 17th minute when Cahors had scored a try. While the players waited for the conversion, Latu fell to his knees and signaled to the bench and the club doctor for attention. Around a thousand spectators witnessed the drama at the Lucien Desprats Stadium in Cahors, with the match eventually called off.
■SOCCER
Players won’t be celebrating
Japan coach Takeshi Okada issued a bizarre ban on three of his players from attending their “coming-of-age” ceremony yesterday. Okada refused to release the trio from training for the traditional ceremony for those who have reached 20 — the mark of adulthood in Japan and a day observed with a national holiday. “There’s no need for them to go to a coming of age ceremony,” Okada said. “I’m not going either.” Cerezo Osaka midfielder Takashi Inui, his club teammate Shinji Kagawa and Oita Trinita midfielder Mu Kanazaki have all been told they cannot leave Japan’s training camp in Kyushu. Twenty is also the legal age for drinking in Japan, a fact that will not be lost on Okada after several embarrassing drink-related incidents involving Japanese players in recent years. “Football is more important,” said Inui after hearing he would not get the chance to dress up. “I want to get as much as I can out of this camp.”
■GOLF
Hansen edges out McLardy
Anders Hansen birdied the final hole on Sunday to finish at 15-under 269 and beat Andrew McLardy by one stroke at the Johannesburg Open. The Dane shot a five-under 66 at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club East Course to hold off McLardy, who finished second for the second time in three years after a 68. Hansen had six birdies, including four straight from the sixth hole. Two-time US Open champion Retief Goosen (74), who started the final round just one shot behind, had nine bogeys — six on the back nine. But he entertained the crowd with a 240-yard albatross on the 18th.
■BASEBALL
Braves to sign Kawakami
The Atlanta Braves have reached an agreement to sign Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami subject to a medical, Major League Baseball said on its Web site (www.mlb.com) on Sunday. The 33-year-old right-hander spent the past 11 seasons as one of the top pitchers in Japan’s Central League, the Web site said, adding that the physical examination was scheduled to take place on Monday. Kawakami had a 9-5 record with a 2.30 earned run average with the Chunichi Dragons this past season, although he missed almost three weeks in September with a back strain.
■SKIING
Herbst wins in Adelboden
Austria’s Reinfried Herbst won the men’s World Cup slalom race in Adelboden, Switzerland, on Sunday, seeing off compatriot Manfred Pranger and Germany’s Felix Neureuther. France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange, who finished ninth, retains the lead in the discipline, while Austrian Benjamin Raich, 11th on the day, remains atop the overall World Cup standings. Herbst, 30, won in 1 minute 42.95 seconds to edge Pranger by 0.18 seconds and Neureuther by 0.32 seconds. Raich had seemed poised for glory after he stood second following the opening run, but fell away on the second race, while Grange was unable to find the form that brought earlier successes at Levi in Finland and Zagreb.
■BOBSLED
Angerer leads team to win
Karl Angerer of Germany led his four-man bobsled team to its second World Cup victory of the season on Sunday. Angerer and his squad of Andreas Udvari, Alex Mann and Gregor Bermbach had the fastest second run to win the Koenigssee race with a combined time of 1 minute, 37.84 seconds. Edwin van Calker of the Netherlands was second, 0.09 seconds behind, while Germany’s Andre Lange and Latvia’s Janis Minins tied for third, another 0.01 seconds back. Alexsandr Zubkov of Russia finished sixth to maintain his lead in the overall standings with 821 points. Lange is second on 803, with Minins third on 760.
■ATHLETICS
Runner dies aged 26
Police say they are investigating the death of German 800m runner Rene Herms, who was found dead in his apartment at age 26. Police confirmed a Bild newspaper report on Sunday that Herms was found dead on Saturday morning in his apartment in the eastern town of Lohmen. Police say the cause of death was unclear, but spokesman Bernd Kopke was quoted by Der Spiegel magazine as saying there were no indications of a suicide or a crime. Herms was a five-time German champion and reached the 800m semi-finals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
■SUMO
Asashoryu triumphs again
Grand champion Asashoryu won his match and the admiration of the cheering crowd yesterday after defeating Kotoshogiku at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, temporarily silencing calls for an early retirement. Asashoryu, despite a failure to take control of Kotoshogiku’s belt, gripped his opponent tightly from both sides and twisted him down to the dirt surface, wrapping up with a slap on the back. Under-fire Asashoryu added a much needed second win at Ryogoku Kokugikan for a 2-0 record. The top maegashira is winless. Asashoryu sat out part or all of the last three tournaments because of injuries to his elbow and knee. The 28-year-old has won 22 Emperor’s Cup’s but is nowhere close to being as dominant as he was a few years ago.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
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