SPORTS DIGEST:BOXING: Tipperary super-heavyweight Con Sheehan will make his World Series of Boxing debut for the Germany's Leipzig Leopards in a home tie versus Mexico City tomorrow night.
Sheehan, who along with Ken Egan inked a one-season contract with the Leopards, will face Mexican Mario Heredia over five three-minute rounds.
Egan, who is launching his autobiography in Dublin on Monday, will make his debut for the Leopards at home to Istanbulls on December 3rd.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s David Oliver Joyce and Patrick Gallagher have been named in the Istanbulls and Mumbai Fighters teams to face Paris United and Milano Thunder respectively tonight. Kildare lightweight Joyce meets Ljubomir Marjanovic of Serbia, and Belfast middleweight Gallagher is in against last season’s WSB Individual champion, Sergiy Derevyanchenko of the Ukraine.
Cooper looks set to skipper Kerry again
GAELIC GAMES:Colm Cooper is to be given another chance to lead Kerry to All-Ireland glory.
The All Star corner forward will retain the county captaincy for the 2012 campaign and will be hoping the side can make amends for this year’s dramatic Croke Park defeat by Dublin.
The 28-year-old is to be nominated as captain by his Dr Crokes club who retained the Kerry senior championship crown with a comfortable victory over Mid Kerry last Sunday week.
Under a long-standing Kerry County Board agreement, that success gives the club the right to select the captain of the senior inter county team for the following season.
Meanwhile, it has also been confirmed that Eoin Brosnan has committed himself to Kerry for another championship campaign. He had retired two years ago before being persuaded to return last season.
Smyth and Slattery go head to head
EQUESTRIAN:The final of the 2011 Gain/Alltech autumn Grand Prix league takes place at the Cavan International Horse Show this evening when the national Grand Prix winner, Peter Smyth, and Gabriel Slattery, the joint-national speed champion, go head to head for the title, writes MARGIE McLOONE.
Just five points separate the pair, 38 to 33 in Smyth’s favour, and with points and a half available this evening, it’s all to play for between them. The final is a 1.40m jump-off class, with a prize fund of €3,000, and is set to start at 7.30pm. It will be shown live on www.irishsport.tv, courtesy of ShowjumpingIreland, along with all international classes over the weekend.
At the Royal Fair in Toronto, Conor Swail (Lansdowne) and Dermott Lennon (Hallmark Elite) finished second and third respectively in Wednesday night’s World Cup competition behind Britain’s Scott Brash riding the Belgian-bred Bon Ami.
Warner banks on London getting nod
ATHLETICS:The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) risks ignoring its core market at its peril if it chooses Doha over London to stage the 2017 world championships, UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner said yesterday.
“If you chase the short-term sugar rush of the short-term territory argument too often you might turn round and find your sport is built on foundations of sand,” Warner said in Monte Carlo where the IAAF will choose today between London and Doha to host the 2017 edition.
If London loses out, the global track and field showpiece will have be held outside western Europe for 10 years. Daegu in South Korea was the 2011 host, Moscow will stage the championships in 2013 and Beijing in 2015.
Landis guilty of ordering hacking of anti-doping lab
CYCLING:Disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has been handed a one-year suspended jail sentence for ordering the hacking of a French anti-doping laboratory.
The American, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a dope test, was found guilty by a French court of masterminding the hacking into the computer of the lab that found abnormal levels of testosterone in his system.
His former manager Arnie Baker was handed the same sentence. The duo, along with others involved, will have to pay a total of €75,000 in damages to the Chatenay-Malabry lab.
They were charged with “fraudulently breaking into a computer system” as part of a broader investigation into criminal hacking, where several companies were charged with spying on opponents.
Officials from the lab had said hackers had obtained confidential information about the rider from their computers as Landis, who spent millions of dollars for his defence, was trying to clear his name.
Landis, for whom a French arrest warrant was issued in January 2010 so he could be questioned in the case, was not present at his trial, therefore being convicted in absentia.
