The Malaysian Insider :: Sports
The Malaysian Insider :: Sports |
| British teenager Robson upends eighth seed Kvitova Posted: 17 Jan 2013 06:13 AM PST  British tennis player Laura Robson. — Reuters pic The 18-year-old Robson, who beat Kim Clijsters and Li Na at last year's US Open, took advantage of 18 double faults from former Wimbledon champion Kvitova to reach the third round. "I knew it was going to be very, very tough and trying to return her serve in the first set was very, very hard," 53rd-ranked Robson told the crowd. "But I knew once I got my returns firing and a bit more confidence on my serve I could get myself back into the match and that's what I did." With temperatures still close to 90 degrees as the match moved past midnight, both players made a stack of errors but Robson recovered from 4-2 down to serve for the match at 6-5. Nerves got to her and Kvitova broke back but Robson broke again in the 19th game and then held on to set up a clash with American 19-year-old Sloane Stephens. Robson's win, combined with the progress of Heather Watson, means there are two British women in the third round in Melbourne for the first time since 1991. — Reuters |
| Armstrong stripped of 2000 bronze, says IOC Posted: 17 Jan 2013 05:08 AM PST  Reuters file picture of former cyclist Lance Armstrong. "We have written asking for the return of the medal from the Sydney 2000 Games," an IOC official told Reuters on Thursday after the decision to take away the last major title won by the disgraced American. The retired Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life by the International Cycling Union (UCI) in October after several riders testified that he took drugs. The testimony came in a United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report in which the 41-year-old's former U.S Postal team was accused of running "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen". Armstrong, a cancer survivor who founded the Livestrong Foundation, has always denied wrongdoing but is due to appear on U.S. television later on Thursday with reports saying he will confess to taking banned substances. The 2000 bronze was the only Olympic medal Armstrong ever claimed despite dominating cycling by winning the Tour from 1999 to 2005. He retired for a second time in 2011. The IOC had been preparing to make a move for the medal for months but decided at its executive board meeting in December to wait for the UCI to inform the athlete of the titles taken from him and give him the right to appeal. "Following the recent decisions of USADA and the UCI regarding the competitive cycling results of Lance Armstrong, the IOC has disqualified Armstrong from the events in which he competed at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games," the IOC said in a statement. "Namely, the men's individual road race, where he finished 13th, and the men's individual time trial, where he finished 3rd and was awarded with a bronze medal and a certificate." The IOC has asked Armstrong to return the medal and certificate to the United States Olympic Committee which should send them on to the Olympic ruling body. "The decision was taken in principle at the IOC Executive Board meeting in December, but its implementation required the expiration of the appeal deadline," the IOC said. Spaniard Abraham Olano Manzano came fourth in the Sydney time trial and the IOC official said it had yet to be decided if he would be moved up to bronze. IOC sources said, however, it was very unlikely Manzano would be promoted because the organisation preferred to leave the medal vacant as it has done with the medals of American athlete Marion Jones, also a doping offender, from the same Games. — Reuters |
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