SWIMMING
Taiwan wins open water gold
Taiwan’s Teng Yu-wen on Saturday won gold in the women’s 10km race at the Asian Open Water Swimming Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, while compatriot Cho Cheng-chi clinched silver in the men’s 10km event. Teng swam 2 hours, 7 minutes, 27 seconds to win the team’s first open water gold and the first Taiwanese woman to win in the event. She earlier finished fourth in the women’s 5km on the first day of the championships. Cho, who won silver in 2017 and 2019, was leading after 5km, but was edged out by Japan’s Taishin Minamide in the last 400m to lose by 0.3 seconds. Cho also won bronze in the men’s 5km event.
RUGBY
NZ win Rugby Championship
A relieved Ian Foster yesterday said he was satisfied after his All Blacks side took “a very different journey” to retain their Rugby Championship crown by winning their last three matches following a stuttering start to the campaign. New Zealand beat Australia 40-14 in Auckland on Saturday, then had to wait about eight hours to be confirmed champions when South Africa failed to record the landslide win they needed against Argentina in the final match of the four-nation southern hemisphere tournament. South Africa had needed to score three more tries and 40 more points than the Pumas, but managed neither in a 38-21 victory. It gave the All Blacks the championship on 19 points, one ahead of the Springboks, the 2019 World Cup winners. Australia were third on 10 points with Argentina a point further back. “I’m very satisfied,” Foster told reporters in Auckland, having stayed up to watch the South Africa match early yesterday morning in New Zealand. “We did it the hard way, but we put ourselves in with a chance last night and it was enough.”
CHESS
FIDE rebukes Carlsen
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) last week rebuked world champion Magnus Carlsen for abruptly conceding an online game against Hans Niemann, while adding it shared the Norwegian’s concerns surrounding cheating. Carlsen on Monday last week resigned after just one move against American Niemann, who lags almost 200 Elo points behind him, at the Julius Baer Generation Cup this week, just days after he left an over-the-board tournament following a loss to the same opponent. The surprise defeat and Carlsen’s subsequent withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis sparked a furor of comments and allegations that the 19-year-old Niemann had cheated, including from American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. It was Carlsen’s first defeat with white pieces in a classical game since he lost to Levon Aronian in October 2020. Niemann denied any wrongdoing. FIDE on Friday said it was its duty to protect the integrity of chess given recent events involving the two players, but added: “We strongly believe that there were better ways to handle this situation.” It said it was prepared to task its Fair Play Commission with a thorough investigation of the incident once adequate initial proof is provided. “We share his deep concerns about the damage that cheating brings to chess,” it said. Niemann had previously been banned from chess.com for cheating online, having admitted he had not played fairly in noncompetitive games on the Web site in his youth.
Taiwan’s participation in the Olympic Games has been a story of politics as much as sports, with the name it has competed under since 1984 — Chinese Taipei — drawing as much attention as its athletes. However, with the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad set to begin in Paris on Friday, the exploits of Taiwan’s athletes past and present who have won 36 medals since the country’s debut in Melbourne in 1956 deserve a nod. Many of Taiwan’s medal winners have gained considerable name recognition, but only two have achieved legendary status — Maysang Kalimud and Chi Cheng, the only medal winners
Canada women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman on Wednesday said she would step away from the team’s opening game against New Zealand at the Paris Olympics in the wake of a drone scandal. New Zealand complained to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit after it said drones were flown over closed practice sessions earlier in the week. As of press time last night, Canada, the defending Olympic champions, were set to open the Paris Games against New Zealand in Saint-Etienne. In the fallout of the complaint, two staff members — assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joseph Lombardi — were sent home, the
Shohei Ohtani on Sunday hit a 473-foot (144m) home run as the Los Angeles Dodgers went deep six times in a 9-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux, Austin Barnes and Jason Heyward also connected as Los Angeles swept the three-game series. “Going into the break, we weren’t playing good baseball, and then to come out fresh against a really good ball club and to play the way we did — the offense came to life,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. It was the 25th time the Dodgers launched at least six homers in a game
Conventional wisdom dictates that the average retirement age for elite female players in the intense and physically demanding sport of badminton is well under 30 years old. Five female shuttlers are set to turn that on its head when they make their fourth Olympic appearances at the Paris Games, a feat never accomplished before. Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying, 30, Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon, 29, Belgium’s Lianne Tan, 33, and Hong Kong’s Tse Ying Suet and Canada’s Michelle Li, both 32, are to compete for Olympic glory at Porte de La Chapelle Arena from Saturday to Aug. 5. “These achievements get missed because they’re women,” said