Abderrahim Goumri of Morocco clinched victory in the 2011 Seoul International Marathon here on Sunday, the event's organizers said. Goumri finished first with a record of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 11 seconds. South Korea's Jeong Jin-hyuk came in second at 2 hours, 9 minutes and 28 seconds and Russia's Oleg Kulkov finished third in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 13 seconds, they said. South Korea's best ...

South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan could square off against American great Michael Phelps in a California meet this June, swimming officials here said Friday. The Korea Swimming Federation and the sports division of SK Telecom, which manages Park, said the 21-year-old is set to enter the Santa Clara International Grand Prix in California starting June 16. The event is the seventh and final leg o...

South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-na will come home this weekend with the world championships initially scheduled for next week in Japan still in limbo, her agency here said Friday. In a statement, All That Sports said Kim will arrive home on Sunday to continue training and also to serve as an honorary ambassador for the 2018 Winter Olympics bid for PyeongChang, an east coast alpine town. Kim is...

An ice hockey team based in Gyeonggi Province announced that it is planning to hold a charity game to raise funds for disaster-ravaged Japan. Anyang Halla, the defending champions of the Asia Ice hockey League, were due to play Japanese side Tohoku Free Blades in a best-of-five championship final series in Japan last Friday, when the country was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. All five match...

Hong, who held bantamweight and super bantamweight titles in the 1970s, said Lee has the makeup to be a successful boxer. "She's got a ton of energy," Hong said, adding Lee made the cross-country trip from Andong to Seoul to shoot a film and then traveled back to Andong the night before the final. "We'll prepare her for the National Sports Festival and the 2012 London Olympics." Lee Seung-bae, ...

Korea’s first Ironman ready for new challenge He is probably one of the fittest men in the world. Park Byung-Hoon, 40, is an Ironman athlete. An Ironman race is an extended version of triathlon sport. The athletes swims 3.8 kilometers, cycle 180 kilometers and then run a full marathon of 42.195 kilometers, without any break. As one can imagine, it is a very demanding sport, so not everyone can...

INDIAN WELLS, California (AP) ― Rafael Nadal survived his strongest challenge yet at the BNP Paribas Open, beating qualifier Somdev Devvarman 7-5, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals. The world’s top-ranked player dominated his first two matches, dropping just six games while winning in straight sets. But he was challenged from the start by Devvarman, the first Indian ever to reach the fourth round a...

The global governing body of gymnastics has opened disciplinary proceedings against a Chinese judge for altering scores to help a Chinese athlete share a gold medal with a South Korean gymnast at last year's Asian Games. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) said Wednesday the judge Bin Shao, who was only supposed to evaluate the difficulty of routines on the "D" panel, modified an execu...

Korean sports stars have pledged to support victims of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, joining the nationwide effort to assist the country’s closest neighbor. Former Major Leaguer Park Chan-ho, who now plays with the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese Pacific League, donated 10 million yen ($124,000) to aid Japan. The 37-year-old veteran pitcher noted on the team’s website that he was dee...

LONDON (AP) _ London is preparing to mark the 500-day countdown to the 2012 Olympics with the launch of ticket sales for the first home games since 1948. With Tuesday marking exactly 500 days to go until the opening ceremony on July 27, 2012, organizers will open applications for the 6.6 million tickets on offer. Demand is expected to be high for the tickets, which are being sold by a lottery s...

The 2011 World Figure Skating Championships, scheduled for March 21-27 in Tokyo, will be postponed following the massive earthquake in Japan last week, a news report claimed Monday. Organized by the International Skating Union (ISU), the world championships were to be held at Yoyogi Stadium in Tokyo. But citing an anonymous source, Kyodo News in Japan reported that the event will be put off beca...

Jeju United, FC Seoul open action The season is just getting into stride but that doesn’t mean there are not already some must-win, or at least, don’t-lose games this week. That doesn’t apply to the K-League yet ― that season is just two games old. Four Korean teams are about to play their second match of the Asian Champions League and with just six games in total in the group stage, there is n...