SPORTS DIGEST:MOTOR CYCLING: Valentino Rossi won a thrilling battle with Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo to win the German round of the FIM MotoGP World Championship at Sachsenring yesterday.
The defending champion won by half a bike length over his young team-mate to extend his championship points lead to 14 as he made it 101 wins in grands prix.
Rossi has been under pressure from his team-mate in recent races as the Spaniard looks to add to his value during contract negotiations.
Lorenzo has been made an offer to stay with Yamaha but with Honda waiting to tempt him away his fine performances against Rossi will have seen his value go up.
The race had been led in the early stages by both Rossi and Ducati Marlboro rider Casey Stoner but the closing stages were left to the two Yamaha team-mates to battle it out.
Stoner even had to give up his hopes of finishing third as the Australian’s Ducati suffered tyre problems and Dani Pedrosa took the final podium spot for Repsol Honda.
China continues to dominate
DIVING: China continued their dominance at the diving world championships yesterday, but Russias Julia Pakhalina showed they could be beaten when she surged to one-metre springboard gold.
The diminutive diver, the bronze medallist at the Melbourne worlds two years ago, was first after the mornings elimination round and continued to wow a packed crowd in the final with her third dive out of five particularly impressive.
She finished with an overall score of 325.05 to leave Chinas Wu Minxia with a third one metre springboard silver in five world championships. Compatriot Wang Han took bronze.
The Chinese quickly recovered and Chen Ruolin and Xin Wang produced some sumptuous dives to easily seize gold in the womens 10 metre synchronised competition.
Surtees son injured at Brands Hatch
MOTOR SPORT: Formula Two driver Henry Surtees was airlifted to hospital in London after suffering an accident in yesterday's race at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent.
The son of 1964 Formula One world champion John Surtees was struck on the head by a wheel and tyre from the car of Jack Clarke, which spun into the wall exiting the Westfield Bend. The 18-year-old was knocked unconscious by the impact and his car failed to negotiate the following Sheene corner and collided with the barriers.
The race was red flagged while Surtees was removed from the car and taken to the medical centre where he was transfered to hospital by helicopter.
McConvey takes gold
CYCLING: As expected, Connor McConvey dominated the Irish national cross country mountainbike championships at Dumore Mountain on Saturday, taking gold after finishing as runner up in 2008, writes Shane Stokes. The overseas-based De Brink Ten Tuccher rider beat Ryan Sherlock (MTB Association of Dublin) and Lewis Ferguson (Curran Racing) by nine minutes and three seconds and 10 minutes 24 seconds respectively.
Robin Seymour did not complete this time round after indicating he would not be taking part. Beth McCluskey (Epic) won the women’s race with a time two minutes and 33 seconds than that of Caitlin Elliott (UCD). Bronze went to Ciara McManus.
Meanwhile, BCF West Midlands rider Matt Bailey won the M. Donnelly Junior Tour yesterday, ending the international six day event seven seconds ahead of South African rider Louis Meintjes. Irish rider Charles Prendergast (Stena Ireland) was third overall, 49 seconds back.
Pistorius fails to reach Berlin
ATHLETICS: Double amputee Oscar Pistorius has given up trying to qualify for the 400 metres at the world athletics championships in Berlin next month.
The South African also failed to reach last year’s Beijing Olympics having won a long battle over the right to compete with able-bodied athletes.
“Having not made the minimum qualifying time, I must resign myself to staying at home,” he said.
Soderling holds nerve for title
TENNIS: French Open finalist Robin Soderling overcame some second set nerves to beat Argentine Juan Monaco 6-3 7-6 at Bastad yesterday, clinching the Swedish Open title and his first ATP win on clay.
“I dont know what to say. . . I wouldn’t trade this one for a grand slam,” an emotional Soderling said in an on-court interview.
World number 12 Soderling, whose previous three ATP wins had all come indoors, ended a nine-year drought of Swedish winners here.
Back in 2000, Soderling’s current coach and former world number two Magnus Norman won beating Andreas Vinciguerra, another Swede, in the final.
For a set and a half, Soderling dominated Monaco completely with his heavy groundstrokes. Although a claycourt specialist, Monaco could not cope with the Swede’s higher tempo of play.
Both players held serves to 6-6 but Soderling sealed the tie-break 7-4. It was Soderling’s fourth win in five meetings with Monaco.
