Brief Sports News
OLYMPICS
SYDNEY (AP) — The robbery at gunpoint of two members of Australia’s Paralympic sailing squad in Rio de Janeiro on the weekend has prompted calls for organizers to bolster security more than six weeks before the Olympics.
Kitty Chiller, Australia’s Olympic team leader, said Rio organizers “need to introduce the extra security precautions … before an athlete gets hurt.”
The crime against the Australians came after an Olympic champion sailor from Spain was held up at gunpoint in Rio last month.
An estimated 85,000 police and soldiers will be patrolling the streets during the Aug. 5-21 Olympics, but violent crime remains a fact of life in Rio.
Chiller said: “Maybe the organizing committee should mobilize their games-time defense force early. Do it now.”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The International Boxing Federation will punish fighters who compete in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics by removing them from the sanctioning body’s rankings or vacating their titles.
The IBF joins the WBC in an aggressive campaign by sanctioning bodies to keep prominent pros out of the Olympics.
Citing safety concerns that amount to violations of its principles of sportsmanlike competition, the IBF said it will remove any professional Olympic fighters from its rankings for a year. The body would also take its title belt away from a champion fighting in the Olympics.
The International Boxing Association (AIBA) recently decided to allow professional boxers to attempt to qualify for Rio, but the organization’s hopes for a tournament featuring big names have been unrealized to date. No prominent boxers have accepted the invitation, with just one Olympic qualifying event remaining in Venezuela next month.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is pressing the World Anti-Doping Agency to explain why it delayed an investigation into allegations of systematic cheating by the Russian Olympic team.
In a seven-page letter sent to the agency’s president, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said a robust and sound anti-doping agency is indispensable to fairness in sports and the health and safety of athletes.
Yet the agency’s response to reports of an “elaborate state-sponsored doping program in Russia” call the agency’s strength and credibility into question, he told Sir Craig Reedie, the World Anti-Doping Agency’s president.
Reedie said Monday that his agency has “received a request for information and will respond as invited to do.”
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed against Baylor University accuses the nation’s largest Baptist school of creating a “hunting ground for sexual predators.”
The lawsuit, brought by a former Baylor student, is the third in recent months to claim the school was indifferent to or ignored claims of sexual assault and didn’t enforce federal general discrimination protections. Baylor demoted former president and chancellor Ken Starr after an outside law firm found the school had mishandled assault allegations for years.
The latest case, brought by a woman identified only as Jane Doe, says she was drugged and abducted from an off-campus residence known as “The Rugby House” in February 2015. The lawsuit does not name her assailant but said he is not a member of Baylor’s rugby club team.
The woman did not file a police report because she was too embarrassed, and it was her mother who called Baylor officials, according to the alleged victim’s attorney, Paula Elliott.
MONROE, La. (AP) — The district attorney’s office has decided not to prosecute Alabama offensive lineman Cam Robinson and reserve defensive back Laurence “Hootie” Jones on drug and weapons charges, with the district attorney saying he didn’t want to “ruin the lives” of the two football players.
Prosecutor Neal Johnson cited insufficient evidence in court documents, but district attorney Jerry Jones told KNOE-8 he did not want to prosecute the men because of their athletic backgrounds.
“The main reason that I’m doing this is that I refuse to ruin the lives of two young men who have spent their adolescence and their teenage years working and sweating while we were all home in the air conditioning,” Jones said.
OSCAR PISTORIUS
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The family of Oscar Pistorius says he and other relatives have been threatened in an extortion attempt ahead of the former track star’s sentencing on July 6 for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
South African police said that they are investigating alleged threats of violence made in WhatsApp messages to Arnoldus Pistorius, a cousin of the double-amputee Olympian.
Anneliese Burgess, a Pistorius family spokeswoman, says the man who sent the messages initially told Pistorius’ cousin that he had evidence that would undermine testimony for the prosecution at Pistorius’ sentencing hearing last week.
Burgess says the man wanted payment for the alleged evidence and became “very abusive” when it became clear that he wouldn’t get it.
Pistorius fatally shot Steenkamp in his home early on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
PRO BASKETBALL
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Ben Simmons has worked out for the Philadelphia 76ers, who could make him the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
The LSU freshman went through drills two days before the draft in New York.
President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo told reporters afterward that by choosing to work out for the 76ers, Simmons “closed the chapter on any doubt” that he didn’t want to play for Philadelphia. Duke’s Brandon Ingram and every other player Colangelo said the team would consider had already worked out.
The 76ers had already had dinner with Simmons and his representatives, but Colangelo says by Simmons working out in front of himself and team ownership, it “speaks to his desire to want be selected No. 1.”
CLEVELAND (AP) — Overwhelming demand for a piece of history has prompted The Plain Dealer newspaper to print nearly 500,000 copies of its Monday edition proclaiming the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA champions.
Newspaper officials said that the normal press run for a Monday is around 36,000 copies, but the newspaper printed 180,000 copies to mark one of the biggest sporting events in city history.
Fans began flocking to the Plain Dealer’s suburban printing plant early Monday to buy copies after the Cavs clinched the title. Demand prompted the newspaper to print an additional 300,000 copies later Monday.
Stores were restocked numerous times Monday after the newspaper printed extras.
Interstate 480 exits next to the printing plant were jammed with cars Tuesday as more people headed there to pick up newspapers.
PRO HOCKEY
The 2016-17 NHL schedule is jam-packed, thanks to a late start because of the World Cup and a bye week for each team.
Back-to-backs and stretches of three games in four days are more common than ever before because of the condensed schedule. The season runs from Wednesday, Oct. 12, to Sunday, April 9, which at 180 days is almost a week shorter than 2015-16.
The Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and Western Conference champion San Jose Sharks each have 15 back-to-back sets. Pittsburgh also plays four games in seven days around the three-day Christmas break.
Players on every team will have at least five full days off from games and practices sometime in January or February.
OTHER
HOUSTON (AP) — Federal investigators say various professional athletes, including San Francisco Giants pitcher Jake Peavy and Denver Broncos quarterback Mark Sanchez, were cheated out of at least $30 million in a Ponzi-like scheme run by their investment adviser.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said it obtained a court order freezing the assets of the investment adviser, Ash Narayan.
The order is part of an SEC lawsuit filed last month in Dallas federal court against Narayan, who hasn’t been criminally charged.
The SEC says Narayan defrauded Peavy, Sanchez and retired Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt out of $30.4 million by claiming he pursued a low-risk investment strategy for their earnings but instead put their money into a struggling online ticket business.
Narayan’s attorneys didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Zaevion Dobson, a high school football player who was shot to death while shielding two girls from gunfire, will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs.
The 15-year-old Dobson will be the youngest person ever to win the award, which has been given annually since 1993. The award recognizes individuals who embody the spirt of Ashe, who dedicated his life to human rights advocacy.
Dobson, a sophomore at Fulton High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, died Dec. 17 while protecting friends from a shooting. Knoxville police said the girls shielded by Dobson were unhurt.
Read more here.
