*****
End of an era: Ichiro heads to Yankees after Mariners honor request for trade
By Kevin Kaduk | Big League Stew – July 23rd, 2012
The Ichiro era in Seattle is over and it's coming to a close in one of the weirdest ways possible.
In a strange twist, the 38-year-old Japanese superstar won't immediately be leaving Safeco Field after being traded on Monday afternoon. Ichiro will instead make the short walk over to the visitor's clubhouse and don the uniform of the ... wait for it ... New York Yankees, who are in town to open a three-game series.
Seriously, the horde of Japanese media that has followed Ichiro around the country since arrived in America in 2001 could not have written it any better.
The bombshell news was first reported by Jack Curry of YES Network and later confirmed by a tweet from MLB. The Mariners will receive Triple-A pitchers D.J. Mitchell and Danny Farquhar in return for Ichiro and an unspecified amount of money.
In a release, Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln said Ichiro had requested the trade:
"Several weeks ago, Ichiro Suzuki, through his long time agent, Tony Attanasio, approached Chuck Armstrong and me to ask that the Mariners consider trading him. Ichiro knows that the club is building for the future, and he felt that what was best for the team was to be traded to another club and give our younger players an opportunity to develop.
"Ichiro will be missed. He owns a long list of Major League Baseball and Mariners club records, has earned many prestigious awards, and in my opinion, he will someday be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Ichiro is in the last year of a deal that pays him $18 million per season and his future in Seattle had recently become a hot topic with former Mariner Jay Buhner making headlines by saying he'd "vomit" if Seattle re-signed Ichiro to another contract.
Neither Mitchell nor Farquhar can be described as a prized prospect and it's not surprising the Mariners couldn't garner a bigger return from the Yankees' search for outfield depth. What's more surprising is that they were able to get anything in return at all. Ichiro is mired in the worst season of his American career, hitting just .261/.288/.353 and sporting a career-low OPS+ of 83 (a stat where league average is 100).
Perhaps Ichiro will feel rejuvenated after being traded from a last-place team that's 42-55 to a first-place team that's 57-38. And perhaps he'll one day wear a Mariners uniform again, either to 1) notch North American hit No. 3,000 (currently a long shot with Ichiro sitting at 2,533) or to 2) ceremonially close out a fantastic career that began with the singles hitter winning the 2001 AL MVP and Rookie of the Year with the 116-win team.
But for now this deal makes the most sense. With Ichiro currently contributing more to the controversy on Seattle's sports talk radio waves than on the field for the Mariners, it was time for both sides to see other people. It's good to see that both sides agreed.
London 2012 Olympics: Runner finishes on broken leg
August 9, 2012, 4:39 PM ET AP
LONDON -- Manteo Mitchell felt the pop in his leg and knew it wasn't good. "It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half," he said.
The American sprinter had half a lap to go in the first leg of the 4x400-meter relay preliminaries Thursday and a choice to make: keep running or stop and lose the race. To him, it was never much of a choice.
He finished the lap and limped to the side to watch the Americans finish the race and qualify easily for the final. A few hours later, doctors confirmed what he suspected: He had run the last 200 meters with a broken left fibula.
"I heard it and I felt it," Mitchell told The Associated Press. "But I figured it's what almost any person would've done in that situation."
Mitchell finished his heat in a more-than-respectable 46.1 seconds, and the United States tied the Bahamas in the second heat in 2 minutes, 58.87 seconds -- the fastest time ever in the first round of the relay at the Olympics.
The 25-year-old sprinter from Cullowhee, N.C., said he was diagnosed with a complete break of the left fibula -- but it was not a compound fracture and the bone is expected to heal on its own in four to six weeks.
He knew what the stakes were when he lined up to run the first leg of his first Olympics. The Americans have won gold in the last eight long relays they've entered at the Olympics.
"Even though track is an individual sport, you've got three guys depending on you, the whole world watching you," Mitchell said. "You don't want to let anyone down."
He said he slipped on the stairs a few days ago in the athletes' village but didn't think much of it. Training went well and he felt good when he lined up to kick things off for the Americans. He said he was feeling great, as well, when he looked at the clock while approaching the 200-meter mark, somewhere in the high-20 or low-21-second range.
"I was doing my job," Mitchell said. "But probably at 201 meters, I heard it and I felt it."
He credited something more than simple adrenaline for pushing him the rest of the way around the track.
"Faith, focus, finish. Faith, focus, finish. That's the only thing I could say to myself," he said.
Mitchell was a promising high school football player at Crest High School in Shelby, N.C., when another broken bone altered his career. He broke his left arm, and his coaches -- seeing the natural talent -- pushed him over to the track.
Western Carolina coach Danny Williamson saw Mitchell finish second several times to a future Olympian Travis Padgett, and offered a scholarship.
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"He was a team person here," said Williamson, who received the first call from Mitchell after he got off the track Thursday. "As soon as he came to Western Carolina, no matter what the situation, he'd do anything we asked of him."
On the world's biggest stage, Mitchell took the team-first thing to a whole new level.
He is the 2012 version of Jack Youngblood, the Rams linebacker who played the Super Bowl on a broken leg. Or Tiger Woods, who won the 2008 U.S. Open on a broken leg. Or, maybe most appropriately, Kerri Strug, whose vault on a sprained ankle sealed the first Olympic team gymnastics gold for U.S. women at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
"I don't know how you write this, but I'd like to believe the only way he would have stopped is if the leg had fallen off," Williamson said.
Mitchell will spend the rest of the Olympics, and beyond, in a walking boot and on crutches. He'll be at the stadium to watch the final Friday. The medals ceremony is Saturday and Mitchell would get one, too, since he ran in the preliminaries.
Forgive him if he doesn't leap onto the podium, though.
"I pretty much figured it was broken, because every step I took, it got more painful," he said. "But I was out there already. I just wanted to finish and do what I was called in to do."
U.S. sets gold standard at London Olympics, and is No. 1 overall
Americans earn 46 gold medals and a total of 104, with Michael Phelps, and swimmers leading charge along with Allyson Felix and track and field teammates.
By Helene Elliott, Los Angeles Times
August 12, 2012, 5:54 p.m.
LONDON — Freestyle wrestler Jordan Burroughs came to the Olympics with two objectives: to become the champion in the 163-pound weight class and to restore Team USA to what he considered its rightful place atop the gold-medal list.
China had capitalized on its home-country advantage four years ago to win 51 gold medals, 15 more than the U.S. And although the U.S. won more medals overall in Beijing, 110-100, some experts give greater weight to the number of gold medals when ranking Olympic performances. Burroughs was so determined to avoid a repeat that he downloaded an app to his smartphone that allowed him to track the daily medal count and vowed to do his part for Team USA.
"I wanted to be the guy who helped us out," said Burroughs, who did just that when he defeated Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi of Iran in the gold-medal match. "Even though China makes all our clothes, they can't beat us in medals."
Thanks to Burroughs and 45 other triumphant team or individual performances, the U.S. had regained the top spot in both the gold-medal and overall tallies before Posh and the rest of the Spice Girls reunited to perform at Olympic Stadium during Sunday's closing ceremony.
The total of 46 gold medals was the highest for the U.S. in an Olympics contested on foreign soil. Those gold medals were supplemented by 29 silver medals and 29 bronze medals for a grand total of 104, giving Team USA the lead in the medal count for the fifth straight Games.
China finished second in gold (38) and overall medals (87). Russia had 82 total medals, including 24 gold. Host Britain had more golds (29) but 65 overall.
"We had very, very high expectations coming into the Games, and I think our expectations have been exceeded both on the field of play and off," Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said before Sunday's final events.
"One of our primary objectives is to get as many American athletes on the podium as we can. If you look at the team sports, we're going to put more than 200 on the podium while we're here, which is something that's very, very important to us."
Swimmers won the most medals for Team USA, 31. That equaled the Beijing team's total but the London swimmers won 16 gold medals, four more than the Beijing team.
Michael Phelps dominated the pool here by winning six gold medals and eight overall to pad his career total to 22, the most in Olympic history. Missy Franklin, Ryan Lochte and Allison Schmitt each won five medals and U.S. swimmers set five world records, two by breaststroke specialist Rebecca Soni.
The second-biggest contribution was 29 from a track and field team whose distance renaissance softened the sting of losing three of four individual sprint races to Jamaicans.
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Galen Rupp's silver medal in the 10,000 meters was the first by an American in that race since Billy Mills in 1964, and Leo Manzano's silver in the men's 1,500 was the first by an American at that distance since Jim Ryun won silver in 1968. Brigetta Barrett's high-jump silver medal was the first for the U.S. in that event since Louise Ritter won gold in 1988.
Allyson Felix of Los Angeles won three gold medals and Carmelita Jeter of Gardena won gold, silver and bronze. Eighteen athletes or relays recorded national-best performances as the track and field team increased its medal total from 23 at Beijing and gave the overall U.S. total a big boost.
"I personally feel like it's important for us to take the title home because I feel like we've worked very hard and it's part of our expectations," said DeeDee Trotter, who won bronze in the 400 and gold with the dominant 1,600-meter relay team.
"I think that it's important in a way that we just want to maintain a level of talent and the level of medals that we've always been able to bring home, and to fall short of that would mean that we're not bringing our 'A' game. And we always want to bring our 'A' game."
That happened in several other sports too.
Divers won one gold medal and four overall after being shut out in Beijing, and Wimbledon provided a venerable backdrop for four tennis medals, up from two at Beijing.
"I was there the day that Serena [Williams] played Maria Sharapova and that was the most dominating performance that I have ever seen by a female tennis player, ever," Larry Probst, chair of the USOC board, said of the women's final. "It was just unbelievable."
But that wasn't true across the board.
Gymnastics' medal total dropped from 10 to six, though Gabrielle Douglas became the first American to win team and individual all-around gold medals. "Overall, I think we're happy with the way gymnastics turned out," Probst said.
Fencers won six medals at Beijing but only one here. Sailing was blanked for the first time since the 1936 Berlin Games. Most noticeably, the male boxers went home without a medal. In the Olympic debut of women's boxing, middleweight Claressa Shields won gold and flyweight Marlen Esparza won bronze.
"We're disappointed in boxing. We want to do better, particularly in men's boxing," Blackmun said. "And by saying disappointed in boxing, I don't mean in the people. We're disappointed that we didn't do better in boxing because I know we can do better and we have to focus on how we can do better."
Probst said Team USA's success here can also be measured by athletes' behavior away from the field, court, pool and track. On that score, he said, they all earned gold medals.
"The other thing I would add is when we leave London, do people perceive our athletes as good ambassadors for the United States? And the answer is a resounding yes," Probst said. "I think they have done an amazing job representing our country and we're really proud of them."
基準でオリンピックのランキングが変わる。金メダルの数か、メダルの総計か、それとも各国の人口をも考慮にいれるのか？
****
Victory by Total Medals or Just Gold?
What Matters the Most? The Number of Olympic Golds a Country Wins or its Overall Medal Tally?
August 13, 2012, 2:28 p.m. ET
By CARL BIALIK ,WSJ
After the final medals were awarded Sunday, one question still hung in the air over London: Did Great Britain beat Russia?
There's glory and then there's money. When you factor in medals per GDP, Grenada, not the U.S., is number one in medals. Heard on the Street's Liam Denning discusses on Markets Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
The 2012 Olympics did manage to do something the 2008 games did not: bring clarity to the top of the medal standings. A late surge allowed the U.S. to finish ahead of China in overall medals by 17 and in golds by eight. But after that, things immediately got murkier.
Host Britain ranked No. 3 in most medal tables around the world with a five-gold lead over Russia. The websites of the Olympics organizers, the BBC, the Moscow Times and Xinhua, the Chinese government newswire, all rank countries by golds. But on U.S. media sites that sort by overall medals, including NBC's and The Wall Street Journal's, Britain falls to No. 4 behind Russia, which held 17 more medals overall.
Pravda, the mouthpiece of Russia's Communist Party, noted that Russia would have led the overall medal count if it still were united with the former Soviet republics, just as, in the good old days, the USSR regularly topped the charts.
Olympic organizers help fuel the debate by not settling on a single system for ranking countries. Zoë Fox, a spokeswoman for the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, known as Locog, says the International Olympic Committee doesn't "insist on having a medal table at the games, therefore it's up to the organizing committees what they do." Locog decided to sort by golds as a default on the website, which, it turns out, has been favorable to the host nation. That also has been the convention in the U.K. media. "However, either way is entirely valid, whether ranking by golds or by overall medals," she said. "The IOC does not use any ranking system or medal table for the Games," said IOC spokesman Andrew Mitchell. "The media and others do, of course, but it is entirely up to them."
By both rankings, it has been a disappointing Olympics for Australia, said Mike Tancred, spokesman for the country's team. While others mostly focus on golds, he said, "we set a goal of a top-five finish in the gold-medal count and the overall count." Australia aimed for 35 medals, 15 of them gold; it finished on target for medals but nabbed just seven golds.
For Kim Jong-su, spokesman for the South Korean delegation, counting overall medals doesn't cut it. "Our ranking will be decided only by gold medals," Kim said.
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pic=Great Britain's Peter Wilson, center, celebrates after receiving the gold medal in men's double trap.
Researchers who study rankings say such discrepancies are inevitable with something as arbitrary as an Olympics medal table. It starts with how many medals are awarded per event: Most award three, but that's not set in stone. In boxing, there are four: Both boxers who lose semifinals matches win bronze, instead of squaring off for the bronze medal.
Christopher Murray, professor of global health at the University of Washington who has worked on several rankings of national health-care systems, advocates a sliding scale for medals—three points for gold, two for silver, one for bronze. That would propel Russia slightly ahead of Great Britain in the medal table. "Winning four gold medals is simply a higher achievement than winning four bronze medals," Murray said. "There's a reason the cameras showed Gabby Douglas smiling broadly as she learned she had won the all-around gold while her chief competitor, Aliya Mustafina, fought back tears upon winning the silver."
Murray also suggests adjusting for gross domestic product, a measure of both population and resources. But other researchers say such adjustments could reward a fluky result from a tiny country, plus they don't matter to the superpowers. " 'Punching-above-our-weight' is a nice self-image for small countries, but it is much less important in world politics than being the heavyweights," said NYU law professor Benedict Kingsbury.
"All medal weightings are meaningless—and unfair and misleading—but some are more meaningless than others," says John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, who has studied law-school rankings.
He points out that a team of basketball players can win, at most, one gold for their country, while a swimmer can win two golds for swimming the same stroke the same distance twice: once individually and once as part of a relay team. Banzhaf said he would like to see a medal system account for that, while not penalizing, say, gymnasts, who can win more than one gold but must master different skills to do so.
A medal table that put each sport on a level playing field, ranking countries by their average performance across all sports, would be a sensible approach —but one that wouldn't be very popular in the U.S., which got 58% of its medals in swimming and athletics. China didn't get more than 10 medals in any single sport.
A version of this article appeared August 13, 2012, on page B8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Victory by Total Medals or Just Gold?.
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Most people here who had cheered Iannetta replacing Matis' regular catcher position are absolutely as blind as bat. What have he done so far for angels this season? Do you remember Angels were winning when he was on the disable list? Say no more about Wells as well. Don't they know how much of influence the catchers have over their own team pitcher's performance? Acquiring Iannetta to replace Matis was very risky move and that proved to be disastrous for Angels. Only hope right now is that they need to move quickly to get a new great catcher of regular position if any available from trading the overrated Trumbo or doing whatever, as a quick fix. That fixes some of pitchers’ bad performance. Otherwise, there is no playoff for Angels this year and next to come.
Japan routs U.S. team to win Little League World Series title
Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 AP
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, pennsylvania — Noriatsu Osaka hit three homers and tripled as Japan limited Goodlettsville, Tennessee's potent lineup to two hits in a 12-2 victory Sunday to win the Little League World Series title.
PHOTOS On top of the world: Pitcher Kotaro Kiyomiya (above) carries the Japanese flag during a victory lap after his team's 12-2 win over the United States in the Little League World Series championship game on Sunday in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Noriatsu Osaka ended the game with a two-run homer in the fifth inning that put the mercy rule into effect for the team representing Japan from Kitasuna, in Tokyo, which also won the LLWS title in 2001.
In a symbolic gesture, Japan's players jogged the traditional postgame victory lap carrying the flags for both their home country and the United States.
"We had such a great time in Pennsylvania and we really played a good game today. It was kind of a 'thanks,' " the 12-year-old Osaka said through an interpreter.
Starting pitcher Kotaro Kiyomiya struck out eight batters in four innings and added an RBI single for the Tokyo team, representing Japan. The game ended in the fifth inning after Osaka's third homer made it a 10-run game that invoked the "mercy rule".
"We thought we played the best in the tournament so far, especially to win by the 10-run rule in the finals," said 12-year-old Rintaro Hirano, who homered in the fourth to make it 10-1.
It was a bittersweet final game for two teams that grew close during their two weeks in South Williamsport. They exchanged customary postgame handshakes at the plate before Japan received the World Series championship banner and took its warning-track run.
"Tennessee was our best friends in the U.S. division," Kiyomiya said.
There were so many highlights, including five home runs off Tennessee pitching.
That was more than enough offense for 13-year-old ace pitcher Kiyomiya. The right-hander with the hitch in mid-delivery pitched like a big-league ace in allowing just one hit.
Regardless, this is still a banner year for Goodlettsville after its exhausting 24-16 victory Saturday over Petaluma, California, for the U.S. championship. That game set a record for most combined runs in the World Series.
The thrilling victory kept the Tennessee players and their families up late into the night.
"(The parents) must have partied harder than the kids did," manager Joey Hale said. "I knew we'd be flat today."
Tennessee lost a 10-run lead in the bottom of the sixth of that game before scoring nine times the next inning to finally put away Petaluma in a Little League classic. Even more impressively, Butler had three homers and a record nine RBIs.
"It feels really good and it was really great," Butler said simply about his hitting exploits. He said his three homers Saturday were the longest he had hit all season.
Its pitching depth sapped, Tennessee turned to right-hander Justin Smith to start against Japan — the first time the 12-year-old had pitched in the World Series or in Southeast regional tournament.
"Everybody knew our pitching was depleted and we were bound for a letdown," Hale said. "I'm not saying we were going to beat Japan. I think they were the best team here at everything by far, pitching, hitting. But I think last night is how we want to be remembered."
While his players danced around in delight after the game, skipper Yoichi Kubo teared up. He kept his composure after managing a team that won the World Series in 2001, "but I was crying this time when we won this game as world champion," he said.
Nishikori tops Raonic in Japan Open final
The 22-year-old will move up to 15th in the ATP rankings
Monday, Oct. 8, 2012 Kyodo
Kei Nishikori realized a dream en route to his second career title, winning the Japan Open with an impressive three-set victory over Milos Raonic on Sunday.
First come, first serve: Kei Nishikori holds his trophy after becoming the first Japanese winner in the 41-year history of the Japan Open on Sunday. AFP-JIJI =写真
The 22-year-old Nishikori, appearing in his fourth career final, defeated Raonic 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-0 to become the tournament's first Japanese champion since it became an ATP event in 1973.
The win was Nishikori's first since the 2008 Delray Beach International, before he had surgery on his right elbow. He had lost in the first round the last two years here.
"It's an unbelievable feeling," said Nishikori, who will shoot up to a Japanese all-time high 15th when the new rankings are released Monday. "I wanted to be able to win again on the tour and to do it in Japan means so much more."
"It was four years ago the last time I won. When I had surgery on my elbow in 2009, I wasn't sure I could make it back even in the top 100. I know injuries are a part of the game and I just hope to train hard, stay fit and hopefully crack the top 10 someday."
"This championship is something I've wanted for a very long time."
Nishikori played the 21-year-old Raonic for the first time, and his Canadian opponent came away more impressed by his new-found rival.
"I was aware that Kei is a good player," sixth seed Raonic said. "I've known him from a young age and he's always been a very high prospect."
"I didn't necessarily learn anything too new about his game. I just better understood the extent that he can play. He's very quick, and he uses that really well."
"All the points he won until the last two games, really, he played well. He was hitting deep returns, he was putting pressure on me. He was just taking time away from me which I'm not used to."
"He was reading my serve from the beginning really well, which usually doesn't happen. That definitely made it difficult."
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In a matchup between world tennis' two budding stars — it was the youngest final in 58 events on the tour this season — Nishikori got off to a fast start to electrify the sellout crowd at Ariake Forest Tennis Park.
Armed with a sledgehammer serve topping out at close to 230 kph, Raonic had been virtually unbreakable this tournament, leading with 49 aces and having lost serve just once — in Saturday's semifinal victory over top seed Andy Murray.
But Nishikori, who entered having won a tournament-best 21 of 45 return games, managed to break Raonic in just the second game, moving out to a 3-0 lead.
Yet at 3-1, the tenacious Raonic broke back on his way to leveling the score. Nishikori had set point at 6-5 but Raonic — who saved match point in both the quarterfinals and the semis — forced deuce and the tiebreak.
However, determined to win a title on home soil, Nishikori came back from 4-3 down to capture the tiebreak 7-5, after Raonic saved yet another set point.
The second set was closely contested as the first, with neither losing serve through the first seven games.
Up 4-3, Raonic won the first break point of the set as Nishikori hit a forehand wide. The Japanese almost broke right back but Raonic blasted his 13th ace for deuce, and went on to make it one set apiece.
The day belonged to Nishikori, however. In the final set, he broke his opponent three more times and converted his third match point in deuce to triumph with a third-set bagel.
Nishikori's goal for next season: to go deeper in Grand Slam events.
"I'm performing more consistently now," Nishikori said. "I do think hard court is my surface so at the U.S., Australia Opens I want to be able to at least get to the quarterfinals."
"I started playing really well after beating (Tomas) Berdych," he said of his quarterfinal win over the No. 2 seed. "Beating a top 10 player will carry you a long way. I didn't think I'd win, to be honest."
"I hope people understand how important this win is to me."
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Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Munenori Kawasaki started the season with Triple-A Buffalo. But following a severe left ankle sprain by Jose Reyes last month, the big league club called up the excitable Japanese import. And while Kawasaki hasn't lit the world on fire at the plate, teammates and fans alike love the enthusiasm he brings to the ballpark. Everyone got to see his unique zest for life Sunday.
With Toronto down 5-2 to start the bottom of the ninth inning against the Baltimore Orioles, Kawasaki eventually found himself at the plate with the score 5-4 with two outs and runners on first and third. The veteran of two title-winning World Baseball Classic squads then sliced a Jim Johnson pitch to left-center that proved to be the game-winner. Following his walk-off double that gave the Jays a 6-5 victory over the O's, Kawasaki then gave one of the greatest postgame interviews ever.
Sportsnet reporter Arash Madani initially spoke to Mark DeRosa, who scored the winning run. But DeRosa deferred to the ebullient Kawasaki, who when asked, "What do you have to say for yourself?" by Madani, exclaimed, "Thank you very much! My name is Munenori Kawasaki! I am from Japan. I'm Japanese!" The infielder then referred to a phrase book and added, "My teammates gave me an opportunity so I wanted to do something about it" - which was greeted with a pie in the face from Emilio Bonifacio and a Gatorade dousing by Jose Bautista and another teammate.
UFC
Ronda Rousey knocked out by Holly Holm in UFC championship fight
Neil Frankland
MELBOURNE, Australia ― The Associated Press
Published Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015 8:54AM EST
Ronda Rousey was the UFC’s unstoppable force until Holly Holm used the former champion’s aggression against her to produce one of the sport’s biggest upsets.
Rousey chased Holm around the ring at UFC 193 on Sunday – looking for the right hold and taking head shots along the way – until Holm saw an opening 59 seconds into the second round and snapped a kick to the head that immediately dropped her more fancied opponent to the canvas.
IN PHOTOS=Ronda Rousey no longer undefeated after being knocked out by Holly Holm in UFC title fight in Melbourne, Australia
Holm (10-0) jumped on the prone Rousey, delivering several blows to her head before the referee intervened, ending Rousey’s 12-fight unbeaten run and handing Holm the bantamweight title.
An ecstatic Holm jumped around the ring while Rousey stayed on the canvas as she received medical treatment amid the roar of a stunned, record UFC crowd.
“She’s won a lot of fights and imposed her will on a lot of fighters,” Holm said. “So I expected her to be aggressive and impose her will on me.
“She had me on the cage for a minute and obviously she was trying in for a take down right there ... she had a lot of things she was trying so I’m just glad I put in the practice,” she added.
Rousey, a former judo Olympian, was unbeaten through 12 UFC fights before meeting Holm, and a win would have been her seventh title defence. Instead, Holm, a 34-year-old veteran female boxer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has the championship belt.
“We figured her aggression was coming, if it didn’t that’s OK, but with footwork and my career we figured she wouldn’t give me that space,” Holm said. “There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears but it was all worth it.”
Rousey left the stadium to receive treatment for concussion and facial cuts at a nearby hospital after the loss and skipped the post-fight media conference.
“She was transported (to hospital) because she got knocked out,” UFC chief Dana White said. “Obviously she’s completely bummed out and depressed.”
White said a rematch between Holm and Rousey made “a lot of sense” and would put other potential matchups on the backburner.
“Obviously we don’t make fights the night of the fight, but the rematch makes a lot of sense,” he said. “The rematch is what the people want to see.”
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In the other title bout, a bloodied Joanna Jedrzejczyk outlasted Montreal’s Valerie Letourneau to successfully defend her straw-weight belt in a five-round slugfest.
Jedrzejczyk (11-0) won a unanimous points decision over Letourneau (8-4) who offered the champion one of her tougher fights in some time.
The six-time Muay Thai world champion Jedrzejczyk started to pressure her opponent from the second round with some trademark, lightning-quick combinations to Letourneau’s head, while forcing the challenger to keep her distance with some effective kicks.
Organizers announced a crowd of 56,214 at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium, which normally hosts Australian rules football matches. The mark eclipsed the 55,724 fans who attended UFC 129 at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in 2011.
Rousey, 28, has taken UFC by storm since her debut in 2012 and her success has led to several movie projects as well the publishing of her autobiography.
But it was Holm’s calm confidence and the manner of her win that attracted all the attention Sunday.
“Tonight was one of those moments,” White said. “These are the moments in fighting that make it so crazy and so fun. Tonight was one of those moments.”
Holm, a former undisputed welterweight boxing champion, said the moment of her UFC title victory was “one of those moments that you live for.”
“They’re the scariest moments. This fight was a lot for me mentally,” she added. “I couldn’t tell you how many times I cried in the gym leading up to this fight.
“It’s a lot to take in, but those kinds of fights are the ones where a loss is devastating but a win is that sweet of a victory.”
White said that while most onlookers were shocked by Rousey’s loss, he was not one of them.
“At the end of the day I made this fight. I said this was a good fight,” he said. “Holly was the right fight. Ronda had never faced anybody who uses the range and distance the way she does.
“This woman has four times more fights than Ronda does. She’s been a world champion,” he said.
In other fights on the undercard, Mark Hunt of New Zealand (11-10-1) won his rematch with Brazil’s Antonio Silva (19-8) by technical knockout after the referee stopped the feature heavyweight bout in the first round.
New Zealand-born Australian middleweight Robert Whittaker (16-4) earned a gutsy win on points over Uriah Hall (13-6), while Jared Rosholt (14-2) won a unanimous decision of towering Dutchman Stefan Struve (30-8) in a scrappy opening heavyweight bout of the main card.
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Russia stripped of Beijing 2008 4x400m women's silver medal
Fri Aug 19, 2016 9:52pm BST Reuters
Members of Russia's women's 4 x 400 relay team pose with their silver medals during the medal ceremony of the athletics competition in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008. The members of the team are Yulia Gushchina, Liudmila Litvinova,... REUTERS/Mike Blake (CHINA)
By Karolos Grohmann | RIO DE JANEIRO
Russia have been stripped of the 4x400m women's relay silver medal from the Beijing Olympics after Anastasia Kapachinskaya tested positive for a steroid in a re-test of her sample, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday.
"Re-analysis of Kapachinskaya’s samples from Beijing 2008 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substances stanozolol and dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol)," the IOC said.
Jamaica were third and Belarus finished in fourth place in the Beijing race.
"The IAAF (international athletics federation) is requested to modify the results of the above-mentioned events accordingly and to consider any further action within its own competence," the IOC said.
Kapachinskaya was also disqualified from her 400m run where she had placed fifth.
Her Russian team mates Alexander Pogorelov, who was fourth in the decathlon, and shotputter Ivan Yushkov also had their Beijing Games results canceled out after testing positive for the same substance.
Yushkov was 10th in his event eight years ago.
Earlier this week Russia were ordered to return their gold medals from the 4x100m women's relay from the same Games after Yulia Chermoshanskaya also tested positive in a re-test.
The IOC stores samples for a decade to test with newer methods or for new substances. The ruling body conducted targeted re-tests before the Rio Olympics.
A total of 98 samples were positive in reanalysis of samples from both the Beijing Games and the 2012 London Olympics as the IOC attempted to root out cheats and stop them from going to the Rio Games.
Russia's track and field team, with the exception of one athlete based in the United States, were banned from the Rio Games over what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said was a state-backed doping program.
Japan
'It's exhilarating': Japan's female sumo wrestlers take on sexism
Amateur wrestlers hope ban on women in the professional arena will one day be overturned
Justin McCurry in Gifu Mon 18 Jun 2018 20.04 EDT Last modified on Mon 18 Jun 2018 23.51 EDT
Eight of the current nine members of the Asahi University women sumo team pose for a group photo by the Dohyo Photograph: Laura Liverani for the Guardian
It isn’t hard to see why Chisaki Okumura is one of Japan’s best female sumo wrestlers. Combining her considerable height and heft with flashes of speed, her practice bouts end with a succession of opponents thrown to the ground or shoved unceremoniously out of the ring.
On a humid, wet afternoon in central Japan, Okumura draws on her reserves of strength for a final, punishing series of drills with a male opponent. By the end, it is hard to tell who is more exhausted.
For more than two hours every weekday afternoon, the 17 men and nine women of Asahi University’s sumo club stretch, warm up and perform drills together, although for safety reasons they conduct full-on bouts separately.
Training is centered on two dohyo – a dirt-covered 4.55m diameter circle marked out with half-buried rice-straw bales - which are among the few places where female sumo wrestlers are defying the centuries-old sport’s uneasy relationship with gender.
Pic=A female and a male member of the Asahi University sumo team practice against each other during their daily training. Photograph: Laura Liverani for the
As amateurs, the women athletes at Asahi and other universities are not bound by the ancient traditions governing professional sumo - in which only men can compete. But that might not be the case for much longer.
Many hope the ban on women joining the professional sumo ranks will one day be overturned, proving that deep-seated misogyny has no place in a sport striving to be accepted as an Olympic event.
In April, not long after professional sumo was rocked again by allegations of bullying and violence, an incident at an exhibition tournament in Maizuru, near Kyoto, triggered a new campaign to rid Japan’s de facto national sport of its sexist traditions.
The row was triggered by after several women, including at least one nurse, rushed on to the ring to administer first aid to the local mayor, who had collapsed after suffering a stroke. Using the public address system, the referee repeatedly ordered them to leave the ring, but the women refused.
Officials sprinkled “purifying” salt on the wrestling surface after they had left. Sumo officials later denied that this had been done because of the women’s presence in the ring. Salt is customarily scattered on the ring before bouts and after a wrestler has been injured.
The impromptu first responders had fallen foul of an ancient rule banning women from entering, or even touching, the dohyo.
The rule has prevented local female politicians from presenting awards inside the ring.
The Maizuru incident not only embarrassed sumo but was also seen as a metaphor for the treatment of women in Japan, which performs poorly in global tables of gender equality and female political representation.
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Tomoko Nakagawa, the mayor of Takarazuka in western Japan, has unsuccessfully petitioned the Japan sumo association to lift the ban. “I can’t understand why it is only the sumo world that refuses to change or is even going backwards,” she told Agence France-Presse.
The sport’s struggle with sexism is equally baffling to Okumura, who has been wrestling since she was at middle school.
“Sumo shouldn’t be thought of as a sport for men and women, it’s for everyone,” says Okumura, runner-up in last month’s international women’s sumo invitational championships in the 64-80kg category.
“I definitely benefit from being able to train with the men, and I don’t get the impression that they’re looking down on me and the other women. If I were allowed to compete against them in a proper bout I think I could hold my own.”
The Asahi club was formed eight years ago and is now one of about half a dozen women’s sumo clubs at Japanese universities. The female members use the same number of kimarite – or winning moves – as the men, but wear their mawashi belts over shorts and T-shirts.
“There are some people who still struggle to accept the idea of women’s sumo, but I’ve never thought it was at all unusual,” says Shigeto Takahashi, the club’s manager, who has been coaching female wrestlers for 35 years. “The only real difference is that the women have to be a little more careful about injuring their shoulders, but they’re not allowed to wear any padding.”
Kaori Matsui, an associate professor in the university’s department of health and sports sciences, and the club’s deputy manager, said it was natural for women to compete in sumo, having already broken down barriers in other contact sports such as wrestling and judo.
Pic=Two members of the Asahi University women sumo team go through their routine training, practicing Shiko, or foot stomping. Photograph: Laura Liverani
The number of new women taking up amateur sumo is static, however, a problem she blames on the dearth of female coaches to offer guidance to girls and young women.
“Some people I meet are amazed that there is even an international women’s sumo scene,” she says. “There needs to be a more coordinated approach to promoting the brilliance of women’s sumo. When you watch it close up, it’s exhilarating.”
While weary wrestlers gulp down cups of cold tea from a copper kettle, Minayo Nishimoto shows few signs of fatigue - unsurprising, perhaps, for a woman who has been hurling her comparatively slight frame around sumo rings since she was nine years old.
“I understand that the dohyo is regarded as sacred, but whichever way you look at it, the ban on women is sexist,” says Nishimoto, who prides herself on her uwatenage overarm throw. “But that just makes me all the more determined to carry on and be the best female wrestler in Japan.”
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