SAILING: Galway Bay's Eamonn Conneely beat America's Pegasus (Philippe Kahn) in both of Sunday's final races to come out top of the nine boat fleet and become TP 52 global champions in Miami last night, reports David O'Brien.
Conneely's Patches, with a crew of Irish and British talent on board - that includes Britain's Stuart Childerley steering - leapt back with a vengeance on Saturday to win the 45-mile coastal race of the Rolex Championship that is being sailed as part of Miami race week.
After winning three races in a row on Wednesday and then having to retire from the distance race on Thursday with damage to its deck, Saturday's win counted for 1.25 times the finish and catapulted the Irish boat back into second place overall, three-quarters of a point behind fleet leader Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 52 who was outwitted by Conneely in the final races yesterday. Patches counted a 1 and a 2 beating Kahn twice.
The Patches team, including experts flown into Miami especially from the West Coast of the USA, worked throughout Friday until 6am Saturday morning to cut out the broken area of deck and rebuild it. They went out to the racecourse yesterday with carbon covering the damage on their deck area.
CRICKET: Misjudgements and misfortune combined to leave England in a perilous position after four days of the second Test against India.
Some poor shot selection and ill luck accounted for half the tourists' side in an elongated final session which ended with England on 112 for five, a slim advantage of 74 overall.
Kevin Pietersen was most sore about being dismissed, given out caught at slip after the ball cannoned off his forearm.
To compound England's misery it came only moments after Andrew Strauss fell to a sweep redirected onto boot and pad via bottom edge for wicketkeeper Mahendra Dhoni to claim an easy catch.
However, India's tail wagged in frenzied fashion, proving a complete contrast to that of the tourists' on the previous day, to secure a 38-run first-innings advantage from a position of 153 for five.
SHOW JUMPING: Billy Twomey, whose brilliant second round clear in the Barcelona Nations Cup last September kept Ireland in the Samsung Super League, triumphed in the Cruzcampo Grand Prix on the Spanish Sunshine Tour yesterday, reports Grania Willis .
The Cork rider brought out his Barcelona heroine Anastasia in Vejer de la Frontera and her jump-off time of 40.61 left her at the head of the line up, with Trevor Coyle and Overtime two seconds off the pace in fourth. Coyle also took third place in the mini Grand Prix with Joy's Mouche. Denis Lynch made it a weekend double for Ireland with a second win at Dortmund on Saturday.
BASKETBALL: By finishing second in their respective conferences, St Vincent's and Limerick secured home quarter-finals as the regular season of the Superleague came to a close writes Gavin Cummiskey.
The Killarney Lakers will play St Vincent's, while Killester must travel to Limerick next weekend. Conference champions Ballina and the UCC Demons progress straight to the semi-finals, which take place at the Mardyke Arena on March 25th. The final is 24 hours later at the same venue.
The Tralee Tigers disappointing campaign, ended on Saturday night with defeat to Neptune 79-66, ensuring Kerry rivals Killarney progressed.
Northern conference champions Ballina proved too strong for UCD Marian, 106-85.
CYCLING: John Dempsey rode strongly on the final day of the Giro del Capo in South Africa yesterday, spending over half of the 109-kilometre leg around Cape Town clear in a five-man breakaway and earning the most aggressive rider award for the stage.
The prize is the first international award for the newly-launched Continental team, and the first step towards what they hope will be a good season. For the fifth day running, Andrew Roche was best placed of the team.
