A round-up of today's other news in brief
Alonso confident Renault will end season in style
MOTOR SPORT:Fernando Alonso is convinced a repeat of last year's end-of-season grand prix show is on the cards. Alonso's form so far over the opening six races of this year with Renault is not too far removed from 12 months ago.
Although this is now another season, the 2005 and 2006 champion can forget about adding a third crown, but he is at least confident of a late rally just as last year when he won in Singapore and Japan. Those victories enabled Alonso to claim more points in the final six races than any of the title contenders.
“It’s clear we need to take another step forward,” said Alonso, who managed seventh in the Monaco Grand Prix 10 days ago.
“We will have new developments for the car over the next few weeks and that should help, but I’m not expecting to jump to the front of the grid in Turkey this weekend.
“However, I still believe later in the year we can be back fighting for podiums and winning races, just as we did last year.”
Dakar stays in South America
RALLYING:The Dakar Rally is to be held in South America once again next year following the success of this year's event which was staged in Argentina and Chile.
The 2009 rally was moved to South America because of security issues in West Africa and the 2010 edition will not be returning to Senegal.
The 32nd Dakar Rally will start in Buenos Aires on New Year’s Day, with several stages also being held in Chile.
Rashid recovers for England
CRICKET:Adil Rashid bounced back from yesterday's disappointment to deliver an impressive display of leg-spin for England in yesterday's final warm-up match against West Indies at Lord's.
The 21-year-old Yorkshire prospect was hammered for 31 runs in only three overs at Trent Bridge on Tuesday in his first senior appearance for England in their opening ICC World Twenty20 warm-up match against Scotland.
But England kept faith with him at Lord’s and Rashid rewarded them by claiming one for 20 from his four overs to restrict West Indies, who chose not to include Chris Gayle in their batting line-up, to 144 for six.
By the time he came on to bowl in the seventh over, England had claimed the key wicket of Shivnarine Chanderpaul when he was brilliantly caught by Ryan Sidebottom.
Bolt rules out attempt at triple
ATHLETICS:Usain Bolt, the 100 and 200 meters Olympic champion and world record holder, has ruled out running for three individual golds at the 2012 London Games.
Reports earlier this week suggested organisers could rearrange the schedule to allow Jamaican Bolt to defend his 100 and 200 titles, as well as run in the 400 in London.
But Bolt, who also picked up a gold medal as part of Jamaica’s record-breaking 4x100 team in Beijing last August, rejected any possibility of running the three individual events.
“I never actually said that I could run three events, because that’s a lot of load and I really doubt whether I can do that,” Bolt told reporters at the launch of his track club in the Jamaican capital.
“I don’t think that I could do that at one track meet, so somebody got it wrong along the line. I may be doing 100 and 200, or 200 and 400, but not all three.”
Injured Haye pulls out of bout
BOXING:Wladimir Klitschko last night voiced his frustration at David Haye's withdrawal from their world heavyweight title clash on June 20th.
Haye was scheduled to challenge for Klitschko’s IBF, WBO and IBO belts before a sell-out crowd of over 60,000 at FC Schalke’s Veltins-Arena.
But an injury sustained at the 28-year-old Londoner’s training camp in Cyprus has forced him to pull out.
He will consult an independent specialist next week.
As the nature and severity of the injury is unknown, there is uncertainty over when the fight can be re-scheduled.
“I’m pretty frustrated right now. I’ve been waiting for this David Haye fight for half a year,” said Klitschko.
“But now I have no David Haye on June 20th, so we’ll keep the date and I wish a fast recovery to him,” he continued.
Klitschko’s manager Bernd Boente believes the fight could even be rescheduled for late July.
