BBBC reject McCullough bid

Boxing: Belfast's former world champion Wayne McCullough has had his bid for a licence to fight in his home town rejected by the British Boxing Board of Control.

McCullough was due to meet Hungary's Sandor Koczek in Belfast in October last year, but a brain scan revealed a cyst and he was not allowed fight.

Now his new application has also been turned down. BBBC secretary Simon Block said in a statement: "Following very careful consideration of all the documentation presented by Mr McCullough, and mindful of our own regulations, the stewards decided that Mr McCullough was not eligible to apply for a full licence."

Athletics: Ireland's four Olympic race walkers will face competition from most of the leading nations in tomorrow's Dublin International Grand Prix in the Phoenix Park. Kerry's Gillian O'Sullivan, who finished 10th in Sydney, is set to take on Australia's Jane Saville.

Saville is best remembered for being disqualified while leading the Olympic 20km walk in Sydney, just before she entered the stadium.

The first event, the 50 km race, starts at 10 a.m. and the women's 20 km is off at 11.30 a.m.

GOLF: Simon Edwards clung to his lead after yesterday's third round of the Glenmuir Club Professional Championship at County Louth.

The Carden Park (Cheshire) player extended the gap to two strokes after shooting a twounder 71 made up of an eagle, a bogey and a birdie, the rest pars. His 206 aggregate is two head of Scotland's Alan Reid, who hit a superb 68.

Ireland's leading challenger is still 35-year-old Brendan McGovern from Headfort, who recovered from a double-bogey start to sink five birdies and card only one bogey for a 71 and a share of fifth place with three others.

ATHLETICS: British 400m runner Mark Richardson had his drugs ban for a positive nandrolone test lifted by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) yesterday.

Richardson (28), tested positive after a doping test in October 1999. He had denied knowingly taking any banned substance.

GOLF: Alison Coffey is the sole Irish standard bearer in the third round - the last 16 stage - of the British Ladies Open Amateur Golf Championship at Ladybank in Scotland.

The 28-year-old Irish champion from Warrenpoint plays Australian Nadina Taylor this morning for a place in the quarter-finals. Coffey yesterday beat Denmark's Lisa Holm Soerensen 3&2 and then disposed of Italian Federica Piovano on the 17th.