DRUGS IN SPORT:Human growth hormone (HGH) test kits could be available for August's Beijing Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman has said.
Speaking in Lausanne, Howman said validation tests had already begun on kits being produced by a German company.
"The kits are under scientific scrutiny to check there is no loophole legally or scientifically," Howman said.
"Will it be ready for Beijing? That depends on the validation process, but we hope so.
"The test itself is good so it is just the kits that now have to be validated."
He added the window of detection between the ingestion of the hormone and a possible positive test had been expanded beyond the original 48-hour limit but would not say how much further, for fear of tipping off potential dopers.
CRICKET:The Australia batsman Matthew Hayden has been reprimanded by his national board after describing the Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh as an "obnoxious weed".
Hayden was found guilty after a three-hour hearing in Melbourne of breaching Cricket Australia's (CA) strict code of behaviour for publicly denigrating an opponent.
The 36-year-old had faced the possibility of a ban or a fine but escaped with a warning after saying his comments were not intended to be offensive.
"I maintain my innocence, my intentions were never to denigrate cricket or anyone," Hayden said in a statement after the hearing.
"But the umpire has made his decision . . . and in the spirit of cricket I respect and accept the decision."
The charges were laid after Indian officials lodged a formal complaint over Hayden's comments, which included a light-hearted challenge for teenage fast bowler Ishant Sharma to join him in the boxing ring.
"We condemn such comments by the Australian players," the Indian board's chief administrative officer, Ratnakar Shetty, said.
ROWING:England's double Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell got off to a shaky start in his attempt to break the world record by rowing across the Channel.
Two minutes after setting off from Dover in his adapted 20-foot scull yesterday, he capsized in rough seas but was soon back in and racing to France.
That is just the beginning of his cross-Continent challenge, however, as he will then travel through France and Spain by bicycle, before swimming across the Strait of Gibraltar to Africa, all for the charity Sport Relief.
UNDER-19 CRICKET:
Under-pressure coach Brían O'Rourke has turned the spotlight on his underperforming Ireland squad as they battle to avoid the wooden spoon at the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia.
O'Rourke's position would surely be untenable if Ireland were to lose to Bermuda again tomorrow, but he insists the four consecutive defeats suffered to date are not due to his lack of effort, and instead blames the slack approach of some players.
Indicating he feels badly let down, he said: "What's been so frustrating for me out here is that I've had to go back to basics too often - we should be moving along to a higher level, but I haven't been able to do that.
"At times it's been like dealing with an Under-13 team - that's just so frustrating."
ATHLETICS:Derval O;Rourke last night failed to improve on her season's best in a final test run to decide whether to defend her World Indoor 60-metre hurdles title. Competing at a small indoor meeting in Tampere, Finland, she did at least win her race, but her time of 8.10 seconds was again outside the 8.09 she'd run in Athens earlier this month.
O'Rourke was hoping to dip under eight seconds, and perhaps even closer to her Irish record of 7.84, set when winning the World Indoor gold in Moscow two years ago.
On Monday she was selected on the Irish team, but it now seems unlikely she will travel to Valencia for the championships (March 7th-9th), and she is due to inform Athletics Ireland of her final decision on that sometime today.
There were in fact two hurdles races at last night's meeting, and O'Rourke finished second in the first of those, clocking 8.20 behind Russia's Yulia Kondakova, before returning just over an hour later to win the second race, in 8.10.
It remains to be seen if that time is enough to persuade her to still compete in Valencia, but all the signs suggest her indoor season is over.
BOXING: Three Irish fighters are within one bout of qualifying for the Olympics following quarter-final wins in Pescara, Italy, yesterday.
Irish captain Ken Egan, Cavan bantamweight John Joe Nevin and St Michael's Athy light welterweight John Joe Joyce are all within eight minutes of booking their tickets for Beijing.
But Dublin middleweight Darren Sutherland is out after being beaten 23-22 by England's James deGale, and Cathal McMonagle and Ross Hickey also exited following reversals to Lithuanian and Hungarian opponents.
Egan, from the Neilstown club in Dublin, marched into the last four courtesy of a convincing 29-8 win over Bulgarian light heavyweight Emil Krastev.
