CYCLING
Shutdown extended to June
Cycling’s shutdown was on Wednesday extended until June due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that French one-week stage race the Criterium du Dauphine would be postponed, organizers said. However, the Tour de France, scheduled to start in Nice on June 27, remains on schedule. The Criterium was to have started in Clermont Ferrand on May 31, with the only remaining key Tour de France warm-up race not yet postponed being the Tour de Suisse. The Criterium is organized by Amoury Sports Organisation, which also runs the Tour de France. “The priority is the health of the nation,” group president Christian Prudhomme told reporters. “For now the Tour de France dates remain the same.” International Cycling Union president David Lappartient made the announcement of the extended suspension. The governing body said that it is preparing a new potential calendar taking into account different scenarios and would present it in the coming weeks.
OLYMPICS
Beijing studies Tokyo delay
Organizers of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games said that they would conduct a “detailed assessment” of the effects on their plans of the decision to postpone the Tokyo Games to next year. Beijing Games organizers said in a statement carried by Xinhua news agency that they were in close communication with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ensure that the “special situation” is handled properly. The IOC and local organizers last week agreed to push the Tokyo Games back a year because of the pandemic. The revised dates for Tokyo are July 23 to Aug. 8 next year. The Beijing Games are scheduled to open on Feb. 4, 2022. Although the Summer and Winter Olympics would now be held within six months of each other, Beijing organizers said that their preparations are on target and they have no plans to delay events. “We believe the Summer Games in Tokyo and the Winter Games in Beijing will both be a success,” the statement said. Beijing was awarded the games in 2015, beating Almaty, Kazakhstan, in the voting to become the first city to have been awarded both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
SOCCER
Bayern fine Jerome Boateng
Bayern Munich have fined defender Jerome Boateng for leaving the Munich, Germany, “without permission,” an act in breach of the strict rules of confinement imposed due to the pandemic. TVO reported that the 31-year-old had on Tuesday left the city to visit his sick son and was involved in a minor road accident. “Bayern defender Jerome Boateng left Munich yesterday without permission from the club,” the German champions said in a statement. “Boateng has transgressed the guidelines issued by the club by being too far away from his home… These guidelines govern the behavior of the FC Bayern players in the current situation in line with government directives on restrictions on movement and the recommendations of the health authorities.” Bayern did not specify the amount of the fine, which was being donated to local hospitals. “I know it was certainly a mistake not to inform the club of my journey, but at the time, I was only thinking about my son,” Boateng told Bild. “He was not in good health. If a son calls his father, then of course I will go, whatever the time of day.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier