Sports digest

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

Gillen regains European Tour place

GOLF: Martina Gillen has secured her playing rights on the women's European Tour for next season after coming through qualifying school on the South Course at La Manga with flying colours.

After a difficult season that saw the Beaverstown golfer lose her card, Gillen bounced back in southern Spain to earn her privileges back at the earliest opportunity after the gruelling 90-hole marathon.

The 28-year-old signed for a final round of 74 to finish on eight over and a share of 18th place. The top 30 and ties secure cards for the new season.

After opening with a bogey on the first, Gillen then birdied the third only to give another shot back at the next. With a level card on the back nine the final score of 74 – following the fourth round 69 – was enough to keep Gillen well inside the top 30 places.

Ryan just misses out on medal

CYCLING:Following the fine 10th place achieved by the Irish trio of Jennifer O'Reilly, Ciara Horne and Caroline Ryan in the team pursuit at the track World Cup in Cali, Colombia, the strong performances of the Irish team continued in the final two days of the event, writes Shane Stokes.

Caroline Ryan exceeded all pre-race expectations when she broke the Irish record in the women’s individual pursuit and qualified fourth.

She clocked a time of three minutes 40.6 seconds in the 3,000 metre test, finishing just 0.546 seconds off the time of third-placed rider Pascale Schnider (Switzerland). They fought it out for the bronze medal and while she went over a second faster in that final, Schnider also improved and took the medal. However, the performance is very noteworthy and shows how Irish track cycling is progressing. Martyn Irvine also performed strongly in the men’s omnium finishing 10th.

Tendulkar records 50th Test century

CRICKET:Sachin Tendulkar scored his 50th Test century yesterday but it looked unlikely to save India from losing the first Test against South Africa.

Tendulkar had batted for five hours in scoring 107 not out, sharing a defiant seventh-wicket stand of 172 with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (90) as India reached 454 for eight wickets when a storm ended play on the fourth day at Centurion.

His landmark century, which came in 258 minutes and 197 balls of great composure and technique, had helped India reduce their deficit from 294 runs to 30, but the worlds number one ranked team have just two wickets remaining.

Tendulkar Test cricket’s leading run-scorer with 14,509 in 175 matches.

Britton gets some revenge in Belgium

ATHLETICS: Irish runner, Fionnuala Britton, gained some measure of compensation for being just squeezed out of the medals at the European Cross-Country Championships in The Algarve last Sunday when she turned the tables on two of the three runners who finished ahead of her at the IAAF event in Belgium yesterday.

In fact Britton had the two Portuguese runners that were first and third in the Europeans, Jessica Augusto and Dulce Felix (who was given the same time as Britton), well behind her in yesterday’s event at Park Van Laken when she chased home the Kenyan, Caroline Chepkwony, the winner in 20 minutes 35 seconds.

Britton was just two seconds behind second in 20:37 with another Kenyan, Prisca Jepleting, third in 20:45 with Augusto only sixth and Felix well back in 16th place. The Belgian champion, Veerle Dejaeghere was seventh in 21:00.

“I suppose it’s a bit sweet to get some measure of revenge but it still does not make up for last Sunday,” said the Wicklow runner.

“I suppose I was even more determined today but to be honest from the halfway point I did not see either Augusto or Felix and I was concentrating in keeping with the Kenyan.

“I was still with her with a half a mile or so to go but then just got away from me in the end. I do feel a little better now and it’s a good end of the year for me but there are some very good races coming up in the new year.”

Twomey pipped for top spot

EQUESTRIAN: Cork-born Billy Twomey finished second in yesterday's FEI Rolex World Cup qualifier at Olympia, London, beaten to the top spot by his former mentor Michael Whitaker, writes Margie McLoone.

Sixteen combinations made it through to the jump-off round from a start list of 37 and, fourth last to take on the shortened track, Twomey and Sue Davies’s 13-year-old mare Tinka’s Serenade were clear in 35.74 to take the lead. However, they weren’t in that position for long with next in, Whitaker and GIG Amai knocking two-hundredths of a second off that time to claim the €30,000 first prize.

Cian O’Connor failed to make it through to the second round yesterday afternoon but otherwise enjoyed an excellent weekend. Having won the opening international jumping class at the show he followed up with success in Saturday’s jump-off class with Splendor and the runner-up spot in Friday’s speed class with Umberto.

McCoy takes BBC award

SPORTS AWARD: Jockey Tony McCoy has been crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year. The 15-times champion became the first person in racing to win at the annual review of the sporting year, which took place at Birmingham’s LG Arena last night. Fifteen-times darts champion Phil Taylor finished runner-up while heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis was third. McCoy won this year’s English Grand National for the first time on Don’t Push It.