A round-up of today's other sports stories in brief...
Disappointing Ireland well off the pace in Adelaide
GOLF: Ireland face a steep uphill battle in their bid to win a medal in the World Amateur Team Championship for the Espirito Santo Trophy in Adelaide after a disappointing second day.
They slipped to joint 21st place with a 36-hole total of 303 - 13 over par - and are 13 strokes outside the bronze-medal position.
With two days remaining Sweden are still the runaway leaders, some eight strokes clear of Spain, who are seven in front of defending champions South Africa.
Tara Delaney, the former Curtis Cup player and Danielle McVeigh, a reserve at St Andrews this year, both returned 77 yesterday, while Niamh Kitching was for the second day running the non-counter with a 78. Delaney birdied the seventh and 11th holes but slumped to bogeys on four holes - three on the outward half and one on the back nine.
A double-bogey seven on the 16th wrecked what could have been a reasonable card. She pushed her drive into trees and found an almost unplayable lie, chipped out only to land in a bunker, from which she splashed out on to the green, but her putt lipped the hole.
McVeigh birdied the second and eighth and had three bogeys before her real nightmare came on the final hole, where she carded a triple-bogey seven. She drove into trees and had all sorts of problems before three-putting from 30 feet.
And although Kitching played better than on Wednesday she still struggled with her irons.
Leg break ends Schild's season
SKIING: World Cup slalom champion Marlies Schild broke a leg in training yesterday and will miss the entire season.
The 27-year-old Austrian underwent a two-and-a-half-hour operation in Innsbruck after crashing during a giant-slalom session near Soelden, where the first World Cup races are due to be held on October 26th.
Schild has won the World Cup slalom title for the past two seasons. She also took an Olympic bronze medal in 2006.
Jankovic survives scare in Moscow
TENNIS: World number one Jelena Jankovic survived a scare before reaching the Kremlin Cup quarter-finals with a 6-7 6-3 6-2 win over Vera Dushevina yesterday.
The Serb, who replaced Serena Williams at the top of the WTA rankings on Monday, was in real danger of bowing out of the tournament.
Jankovic, making her Moscow debut, lost the first set and was 0-2 down in the second before finding her range and subdue the 77th-ranked Russian.
Jankovic, fresh from winning her third title of the year in Stuttgart on Sunday, faces unseeded Italian Flavia Pennetta, who followed her victory over Venus Williams on Tuesday by beating Russian Ekaterina Makarova 3-6 6-4 6-4.
Twomey takes honours in Birmingham
EQUESTRIAN SPORT: Billy Twomey won the first international jumping class at this week's diamond jubilee Horse of the Year Show in Birmingham when landing the 1.45m jump-off competition on Carron Nicol's Fantasia, writes Margie McLoone.
The England-based Corkman, recording his first major success since returning from an injury incurred in April, was a second faster than Britain's Andrew Davies (Sir Graditz), the only other rider to record a double clear.
Two other Irish riders made it through to the 11-horse jump-off, Cian O'Connor finishing third on Baloufina and Ivan Dalton filling sixth spot with Corcovade.
In the later 1.50m two-phase class, Wexford-born rider Dave Quigley and Lucky de Blondel finished fifth, over five seconds slower than the winners, Britain's Guy Williams on Torinto VD Middelstede.
Twomey took second in last night's Foxhunter championship with Blue Thunder.
More tests for Ballesteros
GOLF: Seve Ballesteros was still in a Madrid hospital yesterday with Spanish newspapers reporting that medical tests had discovered he is suffering from a serious illness.
El Pais, the Spanish daily, said that a battery of tests, including some carried out by neurologists, had revealed an unspecified "grave" illness. It added the family was expected to reveal more about Ballesteros's condition today.
The La Paz hospital where he was taken on Friday confirmed that doctors had ordered an additional set of tests to be carried out on the 51-year-old golfing great.
"He is in a stable condition," a hospital spokesperson said. "It is possible that the additional tests that will allow for a diagnosis will be finished by tomorrow."
Ballesteros was reported to be feeling well and receiving visitors.
Yordanova gets a two-year ban
ATHLETICS: The Bulgarian middle-distance runner Daniela Yordanova has been banned for two years for doping, the Bulgarian athletics federation said yesterday.
The 32-year-old Yordanova tested positive for testosterone or its precursors from an out-of-competition sample given on June 13th in Sofia.
"I'm really sorry that it's happening with Yordanova but I hope that she will be morally and physically strong enough to return to the track after the end of her ban," the Balkan country's federation president, Dobri Karamarinov, said.
Yordanova, who finished fifth in the 1,500 metres at the 2004 Athens Olympics and fifth at the European indoor championship in Valencia in March, was barred from competing at the Beijing Olympics, where she was expected to contend for a medal.
Her coach Dimitar Vasilev took responsibility for the drug test failure saying it was caused by contaminated food supplements.
