Japan’s baseball players union requested on Monday that players "be allowed to gauge market interest in their services before they file for free agency." Japan Professional Baseball Players Association Secretary General Tadahito Mori said that teams that "refuse to negotiate with their own players who file for free agency makes it difficult for players to exercise their right to seek fair market value for their services." Mori: "If a player is permitted to talk with other teams before committing himself to free agency, it makes the system easier to use." Hiroshima Carp GM Kiyoaki Suzuki, who chairs Nippon Professional Baseball’s committee on player relations, "indicated his disapproval of such a change." Suzuki: "The whole purpose of free agency is to allow the players to talk to other teams" (KYODO, 4/19).
KENYA TO MEET DEMANDS: Kenya "appears likely to avoid sanctions" by WADA after its parliament "finally passed a law criminalizing doping Tuesday." Kenya Sports Minister Hassan Wario announced that the anti-doping bill -- which had been held up for months -- "had been approved by lawmakers." It "now only needs to be signed by the president to be adopted as law, appeasing WADA." Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has said previously that he will sign the legislation, "and personally drove the bill through parliament with Kenya's sports reputation on the line." The anti-doping law is one of the things Kenya "needs to have in place by a final May 2 deadline to avoid being declared non-compliant with WADA's global code." It calls for prison sentences in some cases "for using or providing performance-enhancing drugs" (AP, 4/19).
LEAGUE BRIEFS ...
Formula 1 has agreed to allow Pirelli "more track days" to test next year's tires after the sole supplier "threatened to quit at the end of the season if a rule change was not ratified on Monday." An FIA spokesperson said, "It has been approved." Motorsport.com reported FIA Race Dir Charlie Whiting had recently visited senior Pirelli representatives in Milan to "push the testing agreement forward." It added that an agreement had been reached in Shanghai, during the weekend's third round of the championship, for five teams to "join a program to run from July for a period of 25 car days" (REUTERS, 4/18).
Bulgarian triple jumper Gabriela Petrova had her doping suspension lifted by the IAAF on Monday, less than a week after WADA announced an "amnesty for athletes who had tested positive for meldonium before March 1." Petrova, silver medalist at the 2015 European indoor championships in Prague, "had denied any wrongdoing" after failing an out-of-competition drug test on Feb. 6, saying she had "stopped taking the banned substance in September." Last Wednesday, WADA said it was "unable to establish how quickly meldonium, outlawed since Jan. 1, cleared the human body." Hence, WADA deemed that the "the presence of less than one microgram of meldonium" in samples provided by athletes before March 1 was acceptable (REUTERS, 4/18).
Accusations emerged Sunday on French network Stade 2 -- the host broadcaster of the Tour de France -- that motor doping "is also at the highest levels of the sport." Suggestions that top riders "are rigging their bikes have escalated in the past several years." As was the case in the early '90s with "more conventional doping, riders who are the targets of such accusations have dismissed them." But several current and retired professional riders, including American Greg LeMond, are "among those who have said it is a real problem." Int'l Cycling Union (UCI) President Brian Cookson has made the search for technology-based cheating "a priority" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/18).
The Boxing Federation of India "decided to hold its elections on May 8." The final seal of approval "will come from the International Boxing Association (AIBA)."
Following overnight parleys over internal disputes pertaining to the membership of Karnataka and Telengana State associations, 36 units took part in the general council meeting and “unanimously” decided the date of elections.
The AIBA "had asked the faction-ridden Indian boxing fraternity to hold its elections by May 14 in order to ensure the country’s participation in boxing in the Rio Olympics" (THE HINDU, 4/17)
