Sports Digest

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Moves made to avoid bet fixing

OLYMPIC GAMES:Betfair, the worlds largest betting exchange, has agreed to share information with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on potentially suspect gambling at this years London Olympics.

Britain’s Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said earlier this month the integrity of the Games could be shattered by the “enormous” threat of illegal gambling rings trying to fix results.

Betfair said it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IOC laying out plans to co-operate and share customer and transactional data should suspicious activity be detected on an Olympic event.

“The interests of sports governing bodies, like the IOC, and Betfair are completely aligned in wanting to ensure consumers can bet on sporting events in a transparent and secure manner,” Betfair’s chief legal regulatory affairs officer Martin Cruddace said.

More scandal revealed in British court

CRICKET: A former English county cricketer pleaded guilty yesterday to agreeing to take money to bowl badly in a televised match in 2009 in the latest spot fixing scandal to hit the sport.

In November, a British court jailed three Pakistani players for fixing parts of a test in England in 2010 and this latest case will raise fresh concerns about connections between cricket and illegal gambling circles on the Indian sub-continent.

Mervyn Westfield, who played for Essex, admitted agreeing to allow 12 runs to come off his opening over in a 40-over match against Durham in September 2009 in return for a €7,000 payment.

In the event, only 10 runs were scored off the over.

Further setback for Kubica

MOTOR SPORT:Robert Kubica's former Renault Formula One team wished him a speedy recovery yesterday after the Pole, who missed all last season due to injuries, slipped and broke his leg in a further setback to his return to racing.

Kubica was taken to hospital in Italy with a suspected micro-fracture of his right leg, which he broke last year, after slipping on ice in the street near the town of Viareggio.

Wales must do without Lloyd

RUGBY: Wales hooker Lloyd Burns will miss the Six Nations and be sidelined for three months after suffering a neck injury, his club Newport Gwent Dragons said yesterday.

“Lloyd has been advised to withdraw from rugby for at least three months in order to fully rehab his neck,” Dragons director of rugby Robert Beale said in a statement. Burns (27) has won seven caps since rising to prominence last year.

Li stays the course to reach final

TENNIS:China's Li Na drew on her superior fitness to reach the final of the Sydney International yesterday with a 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Czech world number two Petra Kvitova, who started brilliantly but ran out of steam.

The resilient Li dug deep to recover from a first-set pasting to book a place in the final of an event she won last year and extinguish her exhausted opponent’s hopes of becoming world number one before the Australian Open starts on Monday next.

Argentinian Juan Martin del Potro complained to the umpire about rowdy crowd behaviour during a 7-6, 6-4 loss to Marcos Baghdatis in the men’s quarter-finals.

A partisan crowd cheered loudly every time Cypriot Baghdatis won a point and top seed Del Potro spoke to official Fergus Murphy for three minutes at the end of the first set.

Del Potro was rattled when the pro-Baghdatis crowd shouted out on set point.

Triple header to set Taylor up for world championships

BOXING: World women's lightweight champion Katie Taylor will be aiming for a Euro hat-trick in her hometown of Bray next month.

The European champion will meet Sandra Brugger of Switzerland, France’s Cindy Orain and Ingrid Egner of Norway at the Royal Hotel on February 24th, 25th and 26th. Her father and coach Peter said the triple header is part of their preparations for the AIBA World Women’s Championships in China in May.

The championships, where Taylor will be aiming for her fourth gold medal in a row, will act as the only Olympic qualifier for female boxers.

“I don’t think it has ever been done before (having three bouts in three nights) and it is something that Katie is really looking forward to, especially in Bray,” he said.

Taylor has won the 2011 amateur boxer of the year award on the women’s boxing website WBAN.