DRUGS IN SPORT: Several athletes who competed in this year's world championships in Paris have tested positive for the new designer steroid THG, an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) spokesman said yesterday.
The scandal sparked by the discovery of the previously undetectable drug sprung back into prominence a day before the start of a two-day IAAF council meeting in Berlin, where the fight against doping will top the agenda.
Retesting on 400 urine samples taken during the Paris championships is not yet complete but with about 75 percent of the results in, "a very small number" tested positive for tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, according to IAAF spokesman Nick Davies.
ATHLETICS: Sonia O'Sullivan produced a very encouraging performance in a mixed 5,000-metre race in Melbourne.
The Cobh athlete ran as a guest and posted 15 minutes 20 seconds.
O'Sullivan, who is training in Melbourne, will have been greatly encouraged by her form ahead of next month's European Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, where the expected presence of former champion Catherina McKiernan, as well as Marie McMahon-Davenport from Ennis and Limerick's Rosemary Ryan, gives the Irish team genuine medal prospects.
RUGBY: Ulster Schools condemned Leinster to the interprovincial wooden spoon with a well deserved 18-3 victory at Ravenhill last night.
The scoreline does not reflect what was a tightly contested match with Ulster's excellent defence and ability to turn pressure into points bringing them home against a Leinster side who lacked cutting edge and simply made too many mistakes.
Ulster opened the scoring after three minutes with a penalty from Johnny Watt and ran in a well worked try approaching half-time with the ball being fed out to Tim Elliott, who put Rory Drysdale in at the corner.
Leinster replied with a penalty nine minutes into the second half but the home side hit back with a second penalty from Watt. Leinster tried to run the ball from their own half in the closing stages but Darren Cave intercepted and ran in from the 10 metre line for a try converted by substitute Gary Wilson.
ULSTER SCHOOLS: P Budina (CAI); R Drysdale (BRA), D Cave (SUS), D Marshall (Ballymena Acad), T Elliott (MCB); J Watt (RBAI), P Marshall (MCB); G Murphy (Foyle & Derry), C Knipe (RS Armagh), G Mitchell (RBAI), C Lavery (Rainey), D Best (Ballyclare HS), J McCall (CRS Armagh), M Connaughty (Ballymena Acad), D Pollock (RSD).
LEINSTER SCHOOLS: R Kearney (Clongowes); K Bardan (Belvedere), E Flanagan (Castleknock), G Byrne (Terenure), F Carr (Newbridge); J Sexton (St Mary's); M D'Arcy (High School); B McGovern (St Mary's), G O'Meara (St Mary's), P Collins (Templeogue), C McInerney (St Mary's), D Toner (Castleknock), R Boucher (CBC Monkstown); P Foley (St Michael's), D O'Reilly.
TENNIS: Lisa Raymond will lead off the US challenge for an 18th Fed Cup victory when she takes on France's Amelie Mauresmo in the first singles match of the final today.
Raymond, who won both her singles matches and partnered Martina Navratilova to a doubles win in the 4-1 semi-final victory over Belgium, will face the world number four in the first of two days of final action at Moscow's Olympiiski sports complex.
US number one Meghann Shaughnessy will play Mary Pierce in the second singles.
FORMULA ONE: Next year's French Grand Prix, due to take place at the Magny-Cours circuit in July, has been cancelled because of financial problems, according to a local government official.
Marcel Charmant, president of the local council in the Nievre region, said the company running Magny-Cours could not give Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone the guarantees he required ahead of the race.
