Sports Digest

A round-up of today's other sports news

Three Irish boxers into quarter-finals

BOXING:Three Irish boxers are through to the quarter-finals of the AIBA World Senior Championships and are just one fight away from at least a bronze medal apiece following a hat-trick of last 16 wins in Milan yesterday.

Olympic silver medallist Ken Egan, Willie McLaughlin and Beijing Olympian John Joe Nevin advanced to tomorrow’s last eight deciders following impressive wins at the Mediolanum Forum.

Cavan bantamweight Nevin was the last Irish boxer in the ring last night and he completed what Irish head coach Billy Walsh described as a “good day at the office” with a 10-4 victory over Iderkhuu Enkhjargal of Mongolia.

The Irish senior champion will now meet Yu Gu of China.

Valverde takes control in Spain

CYCLING:Spaniard Gustavo Cesar Veloso took a solo win on stage nine of the Tour of Spain yesterday and his compatriot Alejandro Valverde moved into the overall lead.

Second behind the Xacobeo-Galicia rider on the mountainous stage from Alcoy to Xorret de Cati was Italy’s Marco Marzano. Valverde finished third on the stage and leads the race from Australia’s Cadel Evans and Dutchman Robert Gesink.

Philip Deignan (Cervélo Test Team) moved up a place to 22nd overall when he placed 33rd finishing two minutes and 17 seconds off Veloso’s time.

Fallon lands 254 to 1 treble

RACING:Kieren Fallon teamed up with Luca Cumani to register a 254 to 1 treble at Folkestone yesterday, having had to wait 13 rides before registering a comeback victory at Wolverhampton.

He started off by winning on Diam Queen (9 to 1) in the Median Auction Maiden Stakes. Despite not being too hard on the filly, the jockey always looked likely to claim the spoils as they won by half a length.

Only 30 minutes later he was back in the winner’s enclosure, having made all of the running on Sham Sheer (15 to 2) in the Watch Live Sport Handicap.

He was narrowly denied in the next when Magical Speedfit got beaten by a head, but Ordoney made it a three-timer when the 2 to 1 favourite beat Mick’s Dancer by half a length in the Best Odds Guaranteed Handicap.

The six-times champion has been absent from British racecourses since July 2006 due to a combination of the Old Bailey trial and an 18-month drugs suspension imposed by French authorities.

Former Bath pair fail in bid to overturn nine-month bans

RUGBY:Former Bath co-captains Michael Lipman and Alex Crockett yesterday lost their appeal against the nine-month bans received for missing drug tests.

Neither player was present as a three-man Rugby Football Union panel met in London to consider the appeal, taking just under two hours to reach their decision.

The RFU hearing was the duo’s last hope of having their bans reduced within the disciplinary structure of the game.

The players’ suspension runs from June 1st, 2009 – the date they resigned from Bath – until February 28th, 2010.

The thrust of the players’ appeal centred around three contentions – that there was no lawful basis for them to be requested by Bath to submit to extra testing, that the players had reasonable grounds to not take the tests and that their refusal to take them was not prejudicial to the game. But the panel rejected the appeal on all three counts, believing it was entirely reasonable for Bath to request the extra test.

England flanker Lipman and Crockett were found to have failed on two occasions to undertake drug tests as Bath investigated allegations of misconduct during an unofficial end-of-season celebration in London.

A third former Bath player, Andrew Higgins, opted against appealing, instead choosing to retire after also being hit with a nine-month suspension.

Lipman, Crockett and Higgins were among six players who were linked with allegations of drug use during the celebrations in London on May 10th. Former Australia lock Justin Harrison resigned from the club after also failing to take a drugs test and later received an eight-month ban.