Fri, Mar 27, 2009 page19

• Sports Briefs

  • AGENCIES
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  ■AUSSIE RULES

  Adelaide beer ban ends

  The time-honored tradition of drinking a beer in your seat while watching a sporting event is coming to Adelaide’s main Australian Rules football stadium, ending a 35-year-old ban. Local officials helped get the prohibition overturned by citing the global economic crisis. On Sunday, for the first time since its gates opened in 1974, AAMI Stadium (formerly Football Park) will join all other Australian Football League venues in allowing spectators at the Port Adelaide versus Essendon match to drink beer in their seats. Previously, spectators had to drink beer in designated bar areas inside the stadium.

  ■SOCCER

  Kenyans lose their kit

  Sales of Kenya replica kits are set for a boost after the national team’s kit went missing days ahead of a World Cup qualifier against Tunisia. Nairobi’s Standard newspaper reported yesterday that officials would have to go out and purchase replica jerseys from the shops after three sets of kit and 2,000 soccer balls went missing from the Kenyan soccer association’s stock. Football Kenya’s technical director Patrick Naggi told the newspaper there was no time to order a new set of kit from the team’s sponsors and there was no option but to buy from the shops. Kenya host Tunisia in Nairobi tomorrow as the final phase of the African qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup finals begins.

  ■CURLING

  China make playoffs

  Wang Bingyu edged Sweden’s Anette Norberg 8-7 yesterday to confirm China’s place in the playoffs at the women’s world championship. Wang, who leads the 12-team competition with a 9-1 win-loss record, scored three in the first end. Norberg — the two-time world and Olympic champion — made three straight ends to take a 4-3 lead. But Wang replied with a deuce in the fifth and a steal of two in the sixth for a 7-4 lead, which the Chinese never relinquished.

  ■SOCCER

  Training session abandoned

  South Africa’s national team turned up for a training session on Wednesday, only to find they had been lined up to act in a television commercial no one had told them about, the South African Press Association reported. The 2010 World Cup hosts, preparing for friendly international against Norway tomorrow, were scheduled six months ago to make an ad for their sponsors, but neither the coach nor his team had been told by officials. South Africa’s Brazil coach Joel Santana, now a 10-month veteran of the vagaries of soccer administration in Africa, had to be coaxed into agreeing to abandon his planned session and instead allow his players to be turned into temporary actors. “We will not use this situation as an excuse if we lose to Norway,” assistant coach Jairo Leal said.

  ■CYCLING

  Valverde wins sprint finish

  Alejandro Valverde of Spain won a sprint to take the third stage of the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon cycling race, while Levi Leipheimer retained the overall lead. Valverde covered the 157km mountain stage in 3 hours, 28 minutes, 16 seconds, to edge Spanish pair Ruben Plaza and Javier Moreno, who both finished with the same time. Leipheimer maintained a 16-second advantage over Astana teammate Alberto Contador with an overall time of 8 hours, 33 minutes, 26 seconds after both riders finished in the pack of riders who all received the same time as Valverde.
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