The Hindu : Sport Digest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 19, 2002

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Sport Digest

ATHLETICS: SYDNEY: Seven Australian athletes, including top hurdler Kyle Vander Kuyp, have appealed against their omission from the track and field team to compete at this year's Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Tim Ewen, who defeated national record holder Vander Kuyp in the 110m hurdle final at the Australian championships, also appealed after he was left off the 80-strong team, which did not include a single men's high hurdler. Also appealing were Susan Andrews and Adrienne McIvor (800m), Rhys Jones (shot put), Rosemary Hayward (4x400m relay) and Elly Hutton (4x100m relay). Athletics Australia said the appeals would be heard within three days.

LONDON: How's this for tenacity? Englishman Lloyd Scott, who began the London Marathon on Sunday along with 32,000 other runners, is expected to complete the course on Friday night in what's expected to be an elapsed time of 128 hours, 30 minutes. London officials are calling it the ``world's slowest ever'' marathon time. The catch? Scott, 40, is covering the 26.2-mile (42.2 kilometer) course wearing a 120-pound (54.5 kilos) diving suit complete with the dome-like helmet and boots. He's doing it for charity. By Wednesday, the former professional soccer player had raised £50,000 pounds ($72,000) for a children's cancer and leukaemia fund.

CRICKET: COLOMBO: Cricket authorities said on Thursday that injured off-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan hasn't been completely ruled out of Sri Lanka's cricket tour of England, beginning next week. ``The England tour is a long tour and it is most likely that Muralitharan will join at some point,'' said Cricket Board spokesman Niresh Eliatamby. Sri Lanka will play in England from April 26-July 13. Muralitharan tore the ligaments in his left shoulder on Wednesday, his 30th birthday, while fielding during the final against Pakistan that Sri Lanka lost in Sharjah. He was treated at a hospital and will be flown to Australia for surgery and recuperation. ``Our information suggests that he has torn some ligaments and has slightly dislocated his shoulder,'' Eliatamby said.

AUCKLAND: Injury-prone New Zealand bowler Dion Nash has accused New Zealand Cricket of wrecking his chances of staying fit by suspending him for three weeks in the middle of the domestic season. Nash is slowly recovering from a mystery hip injury he sustained while batting against South Africa in the final of the triangular one-day tournament in Australia in February. The bowler will have a scan next week in an attempt to discover the extent of the injury that kept him out of the recent series against England. ``It has been very frustrating,'' Nash said on Thursday. "Probably one of the most frustrating things was being suspended at a time when I should have been bowling. ``I missed three weeks over Christmas when I believe I would have peaked and been fit for the Australian series. As it was, I was thrown in at the deep end in Australia while not perfectly fit. The suspension has turned out to be more than a simple three week ban,'' he said.

SWIMMING: SYDNEY: Australia will take on the United States in a Ryder Cup-style swim meet before next year's world championships to end any disputes over who is the world's best swimming nation. And if the made-for-television event proves a success, it could be repeated in Australia in the lead-up to the 2004 Athens Olympics. Australian swimming media director Ian Hanson told Reuters the two countries had agreed to the idea to settle their unresolved argument for bragging rights from last year's world championships in Fukuoka. The Australians, led by Ian Thorpe, claimed they were the best team in the world because they'd won more gold medals in Japan but the Americans insisted they were still number one.

HOCKEY: MELBOURNE: Kookaburras veteran, Victorian goalkeeper Lachlan Dreher (35) has announced his retirement from international competition on Thursday. Dreher, one of the longest serving players of Australian hockey, has played 162 international matches for Australia over an international career that spans 14 years. Dreher, whose career with the Kookaburras began in 1989 against England at Luton, announced his decision during the AHL finals week in Melbourne on Thursday. A veteran of three Olympic Games, from which he has collected one silver and two bronze medals, Dreher has also competed at three World Cup tournaments for one silver and one bronze medal, and at 12 Champions Trophy tournaments for which he has four gold, four silver and one bronze medal in his collection. Dreher made his decision to retire in the weeks following the Kookaburras most recent World Cup campaign, at which the team won the silver medal.

TENNIS: MONTE CARLO: Australian Lleyton Hewitt has received the 2001 `Player of the Year' award for winning the ATP Champions Race and becoming the youngest player to end the season number one. The 21-year-old Adelaider, who won his first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open, one of six titles for the season, received his award at a gala evening on Wednesday in Monaco on the fringes of the Monte Carlo Masters Series event. Croatian Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic was also honoured as his fellow players elected him the `Most Improved Player', while international tennis writers additionally gave him the quirkier — but richly deserved — award of `Most Quotable Player'.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport