TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2016 SPORTS Six Russian weightlifters, judo champion banned for doping MOSCOW: Six Russian weightlifters, mitted last year. The agency did not track and field team to compete at the “no” during a question-and-answer ses- athletes aged 10 and over in more than including former world and European publish details of the offenses. Olympics. The team was suspended in sion on Twitter when asked if the min- 3,000 state sports academies. “Our job of junior champions, have been banned Russia’s weightlifting team is already November after a World Anti-Doping istry’s recent conciliatory tone toward eradicating doping from sport will be for doping violations, the country’s under pressure after four of its top ath- Agency commission’s report alleged WADA was matched by acceptance of considerably helped by teaching chil- national anti-doping agency said yes- letes, including world record holder drug use was systematic and sponsored the accusation that it had a role in dop- dren from an early age that this is not terday. The agency said 2014 world jun- Alexei Lovchev, were banned for dop- by the Russian state. ing. “The state has taken a lead in doing acceptable in our society,” the acting ior champion Larisa Kobeleva received ing at November’s world champi- Also yesterday, the Russian Sports everything to demonstrate we are head of the Russian anti-doping agency, a four-year ban, while 2014 European onships. Lovchev has appealed. The Ministry pledged to add anti-doping reforming and have nothing to hide,” Anna Antseliovich, said in the ministry junior champion Nadezhda agency also announced a four-year ban education to the curriculum in all she tweeted. statement. Antseliovich’s agency is cur- Ovchinnikova was suspended for two for Russian judo champion Pyotr schools. However, it maintained that The ministry said there will be com- rently suspended from collecting sam- years. The four other weightlifters Khachirov. The latest bans come less doping had not been state sponsored. pulsory lessons for “millions of children” ples after the WADA commission’s report received sanctions of between four and than two weeks before a key vote by Nataliya Zhelanova, anti-doping adviser in schools across Russia and more spe- accused its employees of helping to cov- eight years for doping offenses com- the IAAF on whether to allow Russia’s to Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, wrote cialized education addressed at young er up doping.— AP Ali’s body returns back to his hometown Louisville LOUISVILLE: The family of boxing legend from life support on Friday, Gunnell said. Muhammad Ali on Sunday accompanied “Our hearts are literally hurting. But we are his body back to his hometown Louisville, happy daddy is free now,” one of Ali’s nine ahead of a public funeral procession and children, daughter Hana, wrote on Twitter. service expected to draw huge crowds in “We all tried to stay strong and whispered honor of “The Greatest.” Former president in his ear, ‘You can go now. We will be okay,’” Bill Clinton and comedian Billy Crystal are she wrote. among those due to speak Friday at a Political leaders, sports figures, celebri- memorial in a sports arena in the Kentucky ties and fans around the world paused to city where Ali-a three-time world heavy- remember “The Greatest,” whose remark- weight champion-grew up and threw his able career spanned three decades. first punches. “Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period,” The charismatic Ali, a dazzling fighter US President Barack Obama said. “His fight and outspoken civil rights activist who outside the ring would cost him his title became one of the 20th century’s most and his public standing. It would earn him towering figures, died on Friday at age 74 enemies on the left and the right, make after health problems complicated by a him reviled and nearly send him to jail. But long battle with Parkinson’s disease. “Ali is Ali stood his ground.” Tributes for Ali-who now home,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer converted to Islam in the 1960s-even came tweeted. A private plane carrying the cas- from Iran, where Foreign Minister ket and Ali’s relatives arrived in Louisville, Mohammad Javad Zarif called him the largest city in Kentucky, from Arizona, “#TheGreatest in the ring and in the fight where he died. for justice, dignity and peace.” The casket was loaded into a hearse and taken to a local funeral home, where STELLAR CAREER dozens of fans were waiting to show their Ali’s career stretched from 1960 to 1981 support, local CBS affiliate WLKY reported. and he retired with a record of 56-5, includ- SAN FRANCISCO: This Sept 27, 1975 file photo shows Belinda Ali, wife of heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, talking with news people after Also on Sunday, interfaith services were ing such historic bouts as the “Rumble in arriving in San Francisco from Manila. Muhammad Ali was in the Philippines in 1975, preparing for the iconic Rumble in the Jungle with Joe held at Louisville’s Islamic Center in Ali’s the Jungle” against George Foreman in Frazier and was seen about town with Veronica Porsche, a woman he introduced as his wife. The only problem was, Ali had a wife back home in honor. Fischer told AFP that the city-whose 1974 in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Chicago, and she wasn’t happy when she heard the news.—AP residents have left flowers, balloons and Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). “He hit tributes at Ali’s childhood home-was ready me with a quick one-two, knocked me for a massive celebration to honor its most down to the canvas and my whole life famous son. “The Champ was a supernatu- changed,” Foreman told CNN of the epic How Ali ‘Thrilla’ left its ral figure who crossed all kinds of bound- “Rumble.” “I was devastated,” he said. “Little aries, from athletics to arts, to humanitarian did I know I would make the best friend I activities, from black to white, from ever had in my life.” Other defining Christians to Islam, and he belongs to the moments of Ali’s career included two mark on the Philippines world,” he said. “There will be people com- knockouts of Sonny Liston and his rivalry ing from all over.” with Joe Frazier. MANILA: A bustling shopping mall forms an especially the ‘Thrilla’, which briefly put an because the table was shaking from the The mayor said plans for Ali’s last unlikely monument to the “Thrilla in Manila”, but impoverished, Southeast Asian dictatorship in exchanges inside of the ring. “It was that brutal. farewell had been in the works for “quite CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR Muhammad Ali’s most brutal fight made its the centre of the world’s view. They were at each other from round one.” some time,” and that the city-host of horse Ali-born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr on biggest impression on the minds of those who racing’s elite Kentucky Derby, which draws January 17, 1942 - dazzled fans with slick witnessed it and still speak of it with awe. The ‘BLOOD SPATTERED FAR AND WIDE’ DECLINE AND FALL crowds of nearly 200,000 — was set to moves in the ring and his wit and engag- late Ali’s third and final meeting with Joe Frazier, Frazier had won their first fight in 1971 Although Ali won, the punishing bout was to “handle big crowds.” After a small family ing persona outside it. He famously said in 1975, only went to Manila because Philippines before Ali avenged the loss three years later. By prove a turning point for the ageing champion, funeral on Thursday, Ali’s coffin will be he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a dictator Ferdinand Marcos was hoping to gain the time they met in Manila, the ill-feeling then 33, as he moved into a phase of steady transported Friday through the streets of bee.” He took the name of Muhammad Ali popularity and prestige, three years after declar- between them was raw, stoked by some incen- decline until his eventual retirement in 1981. Louisville, before a private burial and the after converting to Islam in 1964, soon ing martial law. diary comments from the ‘Louisville Lip’. “It will “God blessed me that day. He’s blessed me many public memorial service at the KFC Yum! after he had stunned the sport by claim- But after Ali’s glamorous hob-nobbing with be a killa and a chilla and a thrilla when I get times, and that fight in Manila was one of them,” Center. The procession has been organ- ing the world title with a monumental Marcos and his beauty-queen wife, Imelda, the the gorilla in Manila,” taunted Ali, giving the Ali said. “It was like I took myself as far as I could ized to “allow anyone that is there from upset of Liston. fight at a stifling Araneta Coliseum was a fear- fight its iconic nickname. go, and God took me the rest of the way.” The the world to say goodbye,” family Ali’s refusal to serve in the Vietnam War some collision of the two heavyweights-and The fight was held on October 1, 1975 at fight was a triumph for President Marcos, who spokesman Bob Gunnell told reporters. saw him prosecuted for draft evasion, and sometimes described as the best boxing match nearly midday in the tropical country, and with a was able to claim a public relations victory. He More details about the ceremonies were led to him being effectively banned for ever seen.