■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.
BUMRAH WATCH: Captain Jasprit Bumrah left the SCG for scans for back spasms and although he returned to the ground, there was no word on if he would play Rishabh Pant’s blistering counterattack yesterday capped a chaotic second day of the fifth and final Test between Australia and India, with 15 wickets falling and the star bowler of the series leaving the Sydney Cricket Ground with an ambulance escort. Yet the Border-Gavaskar trophy still remains very much in the balance as India reached 141-6, holding a 145-run lead over Australia with three days remaining. “Low-scoring games like this, it just heightens the pressure within it, so long way still to go,” Australia coach Andrew McDonald said. “There’s gonna be plenty of cricket, so we’ll see what happens.” Australia were bowled out for
Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan yesterday dumped defending champions Germany out of the United Cup with world No. 2 Alexander Zverev sidelined by an arm injury barely a week away from the Australian Open. The upset in Perth sent the Kazakhs into the semi-finals of the 18-nation tournament. In Sydney, women’s world No. 2 Iga Swiatek led Poland into the last eight by winning a rematch of her 2023 French Open final against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. Britain also progressed to the quarter-finals with Katie Boulter’s dominant 6-2, 6-1 victory over Australia’s Olivia Gadecki enough to guarantee they won their group. The US and
HAT-TRICK PREP: World No. 1 Sabalenka clinched her first win of the season, as she aims to become the first woman in 20 years to win three Australian Opens in succession Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz yesterday all clocked impressive wins as tennis powerhouses Italy and the US surged into the quarter-finals of the mixed-team United Cup. World No. 3 Gauff swept past Croatia’s Donna Vekic 6-4, 6-2 to avenge a loss at the Paris Olympics, while Fritz took care of Borna Coric 6-3, 6-2 in searing Perth heat. That was enough to put the Americans — last year’s winners — into a last-eight clash with China today, while Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan today are to meet defending champions Germany, led by Alexander Zverev, in the other Perth quarter-final. In Sydney, the in-form
Five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek yesterday beat Elena Rybakina in straight sets to take Poland into the final of the mixed-teams United Cup with victory over Kazakhstan. Last year’s runners-up face the US today for the title in Sydney after they beat the Czech Republic in the other semi-final. “This win makes me really proud,” Swiatek said after seeing off Rybakina 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 to give Poland an unassailable 2-0 lead in the tie. It was a statement of intent from the world number two with the first major of the year to start on Jan. 12. “It is perfect preparation for the
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