The Star Online: Sports
The Star Online: Sports |
- UCI set to make ruling on Armstrong
- Serena seeks to cap remarkable comeback year
- Gainey's sparkling 60 wins McGladrey Classic
| UCI set to make ruling on Armstrong Posted: 21 Oct 2012 07:01 PM PDT GENEVA - International Cycling Union (UCI) officials were set to announce their decision about the fate of Lance Armstrong on Monday, with their own credibility and that of the sport under fire. The UCI is to reveal whether or not it will impose a life ban on Armstrong and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles on the basis of a US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report - or reject the findings. USADA went public earlier this month with 1,000 pages of evidence and testimony, including statements from 11 former Armstrong teammates, that were used to issue punishments in August when Armstrong refused to contest charges. "The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen," USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said. "Lance Armstrong did not merely use performance-enhancing drugs. He supplied them to his teammates. He was not just a part of the doping culture on his team. He enforced and re-enforced it." On the eve of a decision that could spell doom for his tattered legacy, Armstrong spoke for about 90 seconds to a record 4,300 bikers at the Livestrong Challenge charity benefit, a 100-mile (160-kilometer) race in his hometown of Austin, Texas. "I've been better, but I've also been worse," Armstrong told the riders. "Obviously it has been an interesting and difficult couple of weeks." If UCI decides to reject USADA's findings and punishments, USADA would be able to appeal that decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Since the evidence was revealed, sponsors have fled Armstrong and he was forced to resign as chairman of the Livestrong cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997 over concerns his tarnished reputation could hurt the cause. "To spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career, I will conclude my chairmanship," he said. Cycling is also feeling the fallout. Rabobank, a Dutch bank and a pro cycling team sponsor for 17 years, has backed out following the Armstrong scandal. "We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport," Rabobank board member Bert Bruggink said. "We are not confident that this will change for the better in the foreseeable future. What the USADA showed us is that international cycle racing is not only sick but (it is) also at the highest level within cycling." That could be seen as taking aim at UCI president Pat McQuaid, who has been criticised for failing to see the extent of doping within the sport. Dutchman Hein Verbruggen, McQuaid's predecessor who departed in 2006, was running the UCI during Armstrong's golden era - a time when USADA's report says Armstrong and teammates evaded doping tests simply by hiding at times. Armstrong's Tour triumphs from 1999 through 2005 helped lead cycling beyond the Festina doping scandal of 1998, which featured revelations of rampant abuse of banned drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO). Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme has said he does not want to award titles to other riders for 1999-2005 if Armstrong is stripped of the victories. Armstrong, who overcame testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs to achieve cycling stardom, inspired more than $500 million in donations to Livestrong and pushed other cancer survivors to battle the condition. "When we started this organization 15 years ago, if you told me that little organization, that little idea, would raise half a billion dollars, would have touched two and a half million lives around the world, I would have said you are crazy," Armstrong said. "But those are all true. That's what happened." No charges were filed against Armstrong from an 18-month US federal probe that ended earlier this year. Evidence from that case was not given to USADA. But Armstrong could face court cases from former sponsors who accepted his assurances his legacy was not aided by banned substances. USADA's probe found all but one podium finisher during Armstrong's Tour reign has been directly linked to doping, helping to spark a mix of opinions even from Sunday's Livestrong Challenge riders. "I think he's probably guilty," said Jenni Stephenson, 32, of Houston. "Regardless of whether he cheated or not, if they were all cheating, he still won," said Catherine Young, a 50-year-old bike shop owner. - AFP |
| Serena seeks to cap remarkable comeback year Posted: 21 Oct 2012 05:37 PM PDT ISTANBUL - Serena Williams may silence some of her remaining critics if she caps a tremendous comeback year by regaining the title at the WTA Championships which start at the Sinan Erdem arena on Tuesday. Having won Wimbledon and the US Open, and an Olympic singles gold medal for the first time in the last few months, Williams is unofficial favourite to deny top-seeded Victoria Azarenka and second-seeded Maria Sharapova at the women's tour's season-end event. The 31-year-old Williams has achieved all this despite the blood clots in her lungs which endangered her life and contributed to a 12-month absence during 2010 and 2011. Nevertheless dissent has been articulated, notably at the influential magazine Sports Illustrated, at suggestions that the American legend should win the WTA Player of the Year award for a third time in five years. Williams' commitment to the tour is being questioned again after she missed two of this year's four premier mandatory tournaments - Indian Wells in March and Beijing last month. Inevitably these absences have brought reminders of withdrawals which caused criticism in previous seasons. As the WTA's four-year roadmap campaign places special emphasis on player commitment - to avoid upsetting spectators and sponsors - Williams' non-appearances may be regarded as relevant. The roadmap has helped the tour's prize money to rise 51 percent, its player participation to improve 34 percent, and the achieving of record attendances and television coverage at some tournaments. It may therefore also be a significant statistic that Azarenka, the world number one, the Australian Open champion, and the WTA Championships' top seed, has a superior record of matches played (75) and victories totalled (67) this year. However, Williams, who has won 43 of her last 46 matches, struck a humble note after her startling recovery, claiming she now has "a whole new perspective on her life and career." Certainly Williams has made a huge difference to the profile of women's tennis, but she does not have enough time left to climb back to become the year-end world number one. Who gets that accolade will be decided over the next few days by Azarenka, who has been the ranking-topper for most of the year, and Sharapova, the former number one who achieved a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open in June. Azarenka only needs to win two group matches to finish top, but if the Belarusian were unaccountably to win only one of these three round-robin encounters, Sharapova could snatch it away from her by taking the title. Although the Russian celebrity remains the world's highest paid woman athlete, with an estimated annual income of $28 million, she has only won the WTA Championships once before, eight years ago during her breakthrough season aged 17. Williams has won it twice, but the 23-year-old Azarenka's best so far is last year's runners-up position after losing a three-set final to Petra Kvitova. Azarenka has also lost 10 of her 11 meetings with Williams, including at Wimbledon, the Olympics and the US Open this year, though she may take encouragement from having led 5-3 in the final set during the New York final. In Sunday's draw, Azarenka gained an early chance to make up for her heartbreaker in the US Open final when Williams was drawn into her round-robin four, the Red Group, along with Li Na and Angelique Kerber. This left Sharapova with a slightly less difficult looking quartet, even though the White Group includes Kvitova, as well as Agnieszka Radwanska and Sara Errani. For the first time in the WTA Championships' 40-year history, the players come from eight different countries. Kvitova, the former Wimbledon champion, is Czech, Radwanska, the Wimbledon runner-up, is Polish, and Li, the former French Open champion, is Chinese. The two debutants, Kerber, a Wimbledon semi-finalist, and Errani, the French Open runner-up, are German and Italian respectively. - AFP |
| Gainey's sparkling 60 wins McGladrey Classic Posted: 21 Oct 2012 05:36 PM PDT SEA ISLAND, Georgia - Tommy Gainey couldn't quite reach golf's magic number of 59 - but a sparkling 60 was good enough to give him a first US PGA Tour victory at the McGladrey Classic on Sunday. Gainey nabbed eight birdies and holed out from a greenside bunker for eagle on the par-five 15th en route to a 10-under 60 that gave him a 16-under total of 264 and a one-shot victory over David Toms. A birdie at the last would have made Gainey the sixth player in PGA Tour history to record a 59. He hit his approach inside 20 feet but his birdie attempt came up short. Nevertheless Gainey trailed by seven shots entering the final round and his comeback matched the second-biggest for a victory on the tour this season. Gainey's round included seven successive threes from the 11th - four of them birdies and one of them his eagle. He had to wait more than two hours to see if his lead would stand up. "Got a long way to go," Gainey said as he walked off the 18th green, with the overnight leaders yet to make the turn. When it was all over, Gainey was a little emotional. "It's been a hard year for me and finally, we got it right," said the 37-year-old with an unconventional swing and the nickname "Two Gloves" for his habit of wearing gloves on both hands. "I get bashed all the time about my swing," Gainey acknowledged, but added: "The only thing that matters is right before impact on the downswing." Toms and Jim Furyk both made late runs, Toms finishing with a 63 for 265. Furyk, still trying to erase the taste of America's Ryder Cup defeat to a storming European team at Medinah last month, birdied the 15th and made a great par save at 17. He could have forced a playoff with a birdie at the last but instead hit his approach right and ended up with a three-putt bogey for a 69 that left him third on 266. Furyk made just two bogeys all week, but he still couldn't break through for a first win of a season that has included seven top-10 finishes, a near-miss at the US Open and a tough loss to Sergio Garcia at the Ryder Cup. "I think what I'm most disappointed about is when it came down the stretch, hitting the ball pretty much as good as I can, I made really, really poor swings at 17 and 18 with a seven-iron and eight-iron," Furyk said. "So to play those two holes and not get one good look at it for birdie was disappointing." Toms also needed a birdie at 18 to match Gainey but drove into a bunker. "I was thinking about what kind of putt I was going to have before I ever hit the fairway," Toms said. "You get ahead of yourself and that's what happens." Davis Love, who captained the losing US Ryder Cup team, had found a measure of solace in a strong performance this week in the tournament he hosts, but his dwindling hopes ended for good when he drove into the water on 16 en route to a double-bogey. His one-over 71 left him tied for fourth on 268 with Zimbabwe's Brendon de Jonge (65) and D.J. Trahan (69). - AFP |
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