Monty out of Munich

SPORTS DIGEST: GOLF: Colin Montgomerie has pulled out of the BMW International Open in Munich to rest his injured back. The 39-year-old Scot decided to give the event a miss after consulting a specialist over the weekend about the back problems which have plagued him for most of the season.

Montgomerie had always planned to miss the European Masters in Switzerland the week after the BMW International Open, and then play in the German Masters and American Express Championships at Mount Juliet in the weeks immediately preceding the Ryder Cup at the Belfry.

European captain Sam Torrance has admitted he has already taken into consideration Montgomerie's injury due to the gruelling schedule of matches against the Americans.

Without the injury, Montgomerie - a player Torrance has described as his "rock" - would have been certain to play in all five series of matches, a potential total of 90 holes in three days. But Torrance said: "It might be a bit much for him to play in every series, but I had already taken that into consideration. I might not push him."

Meanwhile, former Open champion Greg Norman has also withdrawn from Munich and, like Montgomerie, the reason is back trouble.

OLYMPIC GAMES:Olympic sports will lose control over their anti-doping measures to governments and police and be thrown out of the Games if they fail to agree on a code against banned drugs next year.

Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), warned a meeting of summer and winter Olympic sports federations yesterday that they needed to keep working hard on the details of a new code aimed at harmonising rules and sanctions for all sports, which is due to be finalised in March or April next year.

Otherwise governments would step in and do the job for them, he said. "If we don't maintain the momentum, the public authorities will," Pound told the meeting.

Also yesterday, IOC vice-president Thomas Bach called on all winter sports to make sure they were clean of organised crime after the Salt Lake City figure skating scandal.

Bach made the call at the first IOC meeting since an alleged mob figure was arrested in Italy last month charged with trying to fix the skating at the Salt Lake Games in February.

CYCLING: Italian rider Mario Cipollini has announced that he will come out of retirement and compete in the Tour of Spain next month and the world championships in Belgium in October. Cipollini, one of the most successful riders in professional cycling, shocked the sport when he announced his retirement in July, following his team's failure to secure a Tour de France invitation.