Kick-Boxing: An Irish teacher yesterday became the first foreign woman to beat the Thais at their national sport - lifting the Intercontinental Kick-boxing junior-featherweight title.

Niam Griffen (22) from Cork, knocked out her Thai opponent Satanfa Mormuangchum (16) with a powerful knee to the stomach in the fourth round.

Satanfa was helped from the ring and only regained consciousness 10 minutes later.

Satanfa had dominated the fight but Griffen charged out of her corner in the fourth and penultimate round determined to erase a points deficit.

Griffen was ecstatic at her victory, but paid tribute to her opponent. "It was very difficult, she was really strong," she said.

Griffen won a purse of around US $525 and a gold belt.

Thai kick-boxing, or Muay Thai, is a sport in which opponents are allowed to kick, punch and wrestle.

Drugs In Sport: Italian sport faced the prospect of a fresh drugs scandal yesterday after a national newspaper published the names of 22 top athletes who it claimed took part in an extensive blood doping programme.

The list, in Rome-based daily La Repubblica, included cyclists Gianni Bugno, Claudio Chiappucci, Maurizio Fondriest and Rolf Sorensen plus all four members of the Italian Nordic skiing team which took the gold medal in the 4x10 km relay at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer.

The paper claimed the athletes took the banned hormone erythropoetin (EPO) in the early 1990s under the guidance of a professor at the University of Ferrara in northern Italy.

It said the professor, Francesco Conconi, had claimed the programme was part of legitimate research into the effects of blood-enhancing EPO on amateur athletes.

Conconi denied the paper's allegations in a statement issued by his lawyers.

Some of the athletes named also dismissed the allegations.

"I have never worked with Conconi. I don't think the professor could ever claim to have been my doctor," said Chiappucci, who was forced to sit out the 1997 Giro d'Italia cycle race after recording a hematocrit level above the 50 per cent allowed by the International Cycling Union.

Italian soccer and CONI were rocked by a doping scandal a year ago involving the use of the muscle-building amino acid creatine, which occurs naturally in the body and which is not a banned substance.

The scandal led to the resignation of CONI's president and the head of the anti-doping panel and the closure of CONI's main Rome laboratory.

Athletes Of The Century: Legendary Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin has been voted Russia's athlete of the century, while Said Aouita, former track Olympic and world champion, has been named Morocco's sportsman of the century.

Yashin was a member of four World Cup squads, leading the Soviet Union to the Olympic gold medal in 1956 and the first European Championship title four years later.

He also guided the Soviet Union to the semi-finals of the 1966 World Cup in England.

His agility and anticipation helped him save more than 150 penalties in a career which spanned more than two decades.

Yashin was named European Footballer of the Year in 1963 and is the only goalkeeper to have won the award.

He died of cancer in 1990 at the age of 60.

Aoutia held sway over a broad range of distances, broke five outdoor world records - 1,500, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 metres and two miles - and set an indoor world best in the 3,000 metres.

His grip was loosened at the start of 1990s with the arrival of Algeria's Noureddine Morceli.

El Guerrouj restored Moroccan pride by, in turn, breaking Morceli's world records.