Digest

ATHLETICS

Carter banned over second doping offense

Nesta Carter

Retired sprinter Nesta Carter avoided the maximum punishment for a second doping violation on Wednesday when Jamaica's Independent Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel handed him a four-year ban for the use of the banned drug Clomiphene.

Carter, who won four world championship relay medals for Jamaica before retiring earlier this year, faced an eight-year ban after testing positive for the testosterone-boosting substance in an out-of-competition test in March this year.

"Medication prescribed for me while out of competition in February 2021 to manage an ongoing medical condition, contained Clomiphene,"Carter said after the verdict was made public on Wednesday.

Carter previously served a three-month ban in 2017 as the result of a positive test for the stimulant methylhexaneamine in a retroactive test of a sample taken at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tokyo track champs named athletes of year

Norwegian 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm and Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah were named the World Athletes of the Year on Wednesday for their sensational performances at the Tokyo Olympics.

Warholm received the men's award for smashing the 29-year-old world record to win the Olympic final in a time of 45.94 seconds. His performance is widely considered one of the greatest Olympic track performances of all time.

Thompson-Herah took the women's award for achieving the sprint double at a second consecutive Olympics.

Although her compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was the favorite for the 100m coming into the Games, Thompson-Herah beat her to retain the short sprint title she won five years earlier at the Rio Olympics. In the 200m, she held off 18-year-old Namibian revelation Christine Mboma to complete an Olympic 'double-double'.

BASEBALL

MLB lockout begins amid talks impasse

Major League Baseball plunged into its first work stoppage in a quarter-century when the sport's collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired Wednesday night and owners immediately locked out players in a move that threatens spring training and opening day.

The strategy, management's equivalent of a strike under federal law, ended the sport's labor peace after 9,740 days over 26 1/2 years.

Teams decided to force the confrontation during an offseason rather than risk players walking out during the summer, as they did in 1994.

"We believe that an offseason lockout is the best mechanism to protect the 2022 season," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a letter to fans.

"We hope that the lockout will jump-start the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time. This defensive lockout was necessary because the players' association's vision for Major League Baseball would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive."

SOCCER

Salah stars as Reds pile pressure on Benitez

Mo Salah

Mo Salah scored twice as Liverpool showed no mercy on former manager Rafa Benitez to leave the Spaniard clinging to his job as Everton boss after losing the Merseyside derby 4-1.

The Reds had won just one of their previous nine visits to Goodison Park, but were in complete control from the first whistle against Benitez's Toffees, who have now taken just two points from the last 24 on offer in the English Premier League.

Stunning strikes from Jordan Henderson and Salah inside 20 minutes gave Everton a mountain to climb.

"It was for sure the best performance at Goodison since I have been at Liverpool," said Reds boss Jurgen Klopp. "We had some good games here but never as good or convincing as tonight.

"Tonight we showed we made a big step in our development. This is now our benchmark we have to reach when we play these type of games."

MOTOR SPORTS

Verstappen, Hamilton set for title showdown

Red Bull's Max Verstappen has his first shot at winning the Formula 1 title in Sunday's inaugural Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, but Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton is chasing a hat-trick of wins to take the battle down to the wire in Abu Dhabi.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton, 36, has closed the gap to his 24-year-old rival to eight points in their clash of the generations after resounding back-to-back wins in Brazil and Qatar.

The championship has swung between the two and is now on a knife edge.

Victory for Hamilton under the floodlights in the penultimate race of the season on Jeddah's super-fast 6.1-kilometer street circuit could catapult the Briton into the lead while a failure to finish is likely to end his hopes.

On paper the flat-out blasts along the Red Sea waterfront should favor Hamilton, whose Mercedes will once again have the "spicy" engine that powered the Briton from last on Saturday to first on Sunday at the Sao Paulo GP in Brazil.

Xinhua - Agencies