SPORTS DIGEST:SPORT: RTÉ has announced the appointment of Ryle Nugent as the new group head of sport.
Nugent will be directly responsible for RTÉ Sport across all of its output areas – television, radio, publishing and news, with immediate effect.
He has been deputy head of television sport since 2006 and succeeds Glen Killane, who has recently been appointed managing director of RTÉ Television.
The 39-year-old Dubliner began his career in sports broadcasting in 1990 and has been a rugby commentator on RTÉ Television since 1999.
Rawlinson ‘had no plans to switch her allegiance’
ATHLETICS: Athletics Australia claim the media have misrepresented Jana Rawlinson’s attempts to gain a British passport, saying the dual world champion never had any intention of defecting from Australia to Britain.
AA high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth said he had talks with Rawlinson, concluding the 27-year-old hurdler had no plans to switch her allegiance.
Rawlinson reportedly made an informal approach to UKA official and London Olympics chief Lord Sebastian Coe about switching for financial reasons. As she last competed for Australia at the 2007 world championships, she would therefore be eligible to compete for Britain later this year. But Hollingsworth has rejected the accuracy of those reports, declaring them merely rumours caused by Rawlinson’s attempts to gain a British passport.
“Jana is quite distressed by the media approach to the rumours but after a long chat with her overnight we’re here to state that Jana is Australian, she’s got an Australian passport and she will remain an Australian,” Hollingsworth said yesterday.
“We’ve got to remember she’s married to an Englishman, she’s residing in England at the moment. She investigated a passport for ease of travel around the European Union to all the different European meets.”
Egan joins Miami for new event
BOXING:Dublin southpaw Ken Egan has been signed by Miami USA ahead of the opening bell for the new World Series of Boxing (WSB) in November.
Egan, John Joe Nevin, and David Oliver Joyce were snapped up from a selection of 175 boxers from 64 countries at yesterday’s international draft session in London.
The WSB will see 12 city-based franchises from the America’s, Asia and Europe battle it out home and away for a team championships title.
Cavan bantamweight Nevin, a bronze medal winner at the 2009 AIBA World Championships, was signed by Paris yesterday and St Michael’s Athy lightweight will box out of Delhi, India.
Beijing Olympian John Joe Joyce, a bronze medal winner at the 2008 European Championships, was not selected in London but remains in the WSB pool of boxers.
Each of the 12 sides are required to have a minimum of three non-nationals in their squads for the Series which gloves off on November 17th.
