BASKETBALL
Obama bemoans dispute
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday said billionaire NBA owners and millionaire players should think of their fans, bemoaning the labor dispute which has axed the start of the season. Obama, a hoops enthusiast, also warned that labor stoppages like the one that shuttered the NBA could take some time to get over. The president, appearing on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, compared the situation to the recent labor row in the NFL, which was solved before regular season games were canceled. “We should be able to figure out how to split a US$9 billion pot so that our fans, who are allowing us to make all of this money, can actually have a good season,” he said, paraphrasing the conversation between NFL players and owners. “I think the owners and the basketball players need to think the same way,” he said. “I’m concerned about it. I think they need to just remind themselves that the reason they are so successful is because a whole bunch of folks out there love basketball.”
BASKETBALL
Ibaka signs with Real Madrid
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka has signed a two-month deal to play for Real Madrid, while the NBA lockout continues. The 2.07m Ibaka will join the Spanish club immediately, filling in for the injured Novicka Velickovic. Ibaka has averaged 8.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.9 blocked shots in two seasons for the Thunder. He previously played for Spanish clubs L’Hospitalet and Ricoh Manresa before moving to the NBA in 2009. He is the second NBA player to join Madrid after Dallas Mavericks guard Rudy Fernandez.
CYCLING
Australia’s Ball banned
Three-time Australian Paralympic cycling representative Gregory Ball has been banned for two years after testing positive for the banned steroid stanozolol. Ball tested positive for the anabolic agent during the Australian Track Cycling Champions at which he set a world record in the men’s C1 kilometer time trial. All results achieved by Ball at the championships have been overturned. The ban, imposed by Cycling Australia and acknowledged yesterday by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, has been backdated to the date of Ball’s provisional suspension, and will expire on March 9, 2013. Ball is therefore ruled out of consideration for the Australian team to next year’s London Olympics.
BASEBALL
Clemens wants fees back
Former pitching star Roger Clemens on Tuesday asked a US federal judge to make the US government pay for some of his legal tab in his steroids case after a mistrial was declared because of a miscue by prosecutors. Clemens asked that Judge Reggie Walton order the government to pay for his legal fees and expenses incurred between June 25 and July 14, arguing the prosecutors wasted time and money to resolve the allegations. In July, the judge declared a mistrial in the opening days of the trial because prosecutors showed jurors a video clip that included material he had explicitly banned from the trial unless the information was brought up by the defense team. Clemens was indicted last year for perjury, making false statements and obstruction over his testimony to the US Congress in 2008 in which he denied ever taking steroids and human growth hormones. “The court can and should make the government, the party responsible for the need for a second trial, pay for the waste and loss incurred in connection with the first one,” Clemens’ lawyers said in a brief motion.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
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