Germany's Jan van Eijden and Lithuanian Edita Kubelskiene have been thrown out of the World Track Cycling Championships after failing blood tests.

The two were expelled yesterday following a series of early morning blood controls carried out by the International Cycling Union (UCI) on 21 riders from Chile, Canada, Lithuania and Germany.

The test showed that the 23-year-old German sprint specialist's red corpuscle count breached the 50 per cent safety limit.

The decision on 25-year-old Kubelskiene, a member of the Lithuanian women's team, was announced later.

"It's unbelievable," said van Eijden's coach Detlef Uibel on learning the verdict. "Three weeks ago, his red corpuscle count was tested at the World Cup and was 47 per cent."

High levels are usually associated with the use of the banned drug EPO, which boosts the amount of oxygen-carrying red cells in the blood, thereby increasing a rider's resistance to fatigue.

Under UCI rules both riders will be prohibited from taking part in competition for a minimum of 15 days.

Motor Sport: Denmark's Jason Watt, a star driver of Formula 3000 and Formula One hopeful, is conscious again after being left in a coma following a motorbike accident last week, but he will never walk again, doctors confirmed yesterday.

Watt, 29, injured his back but despite emergency surgery is paralysed from the waist down. The British-born driver with a Danish mother and Jamaican father was taking part in a photo-shoot outside Copenhagen for a Danish motorbike magazine when the accident took place.

During the photo session, he lost control of his Kawasaki 900Ninja, which sped into the parked motorcycle of the photographer.

Baseball: The Atlanta Braves outlasted the New York Mets 10-9 in 11 innings in Atlanta, Georgia, yesterday to win the National League championship series and advance to face the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Gerald Williams doubled in the 11th inning and scored the winning run when New York's Kenny Rogers walked Andrew Jones with the bases loaded to give the Braves a 4-2 triumph in the best-of-seven series.

The victory sends Atlanta into a fifth World Series in the past 10 years against the reigning World Series champion Yankees, who defeated Boston in five games for the American League crown. The World Series opens in Atlanta on Saturday.