DIGEST: BOXING: World Boxing Council champion Lennox Lewis will fight top-rated contender Vitali Klitschko of Ukraine in Los Angeles on June 21st, promoters announced yesterday.
The fight came about after Canadian Kirk Johnson backed out of a planned bout with Lewis on the same date after pulling a chest muscle during training. Lewis has not fought in more than a year, the longest lay-off of his career.
Rather than extending his idle period, Lewis decided to fight Klitschko, who was set to fight on the undercard against American Cedric Boswell.
SWIMMING: Next month's Irish Open swimming championships at Lisburn are destined to lose out in appeal because of a clash with the World Championships in Spain, reports Pat Roche.
Andrew Bree heads a list of star Irish competitors who will not be competing at the Irish event and he is likely to be joined in Barcelona by Emma Robinson and Julie Douglas. Decisions on the participation of Lee Kelleher and William Carey will be made later. The Irish Open provides the last chance of qualifying for the European short course championships for home swimmers.
Meanwhile, the Olympic Council of Ireland have approved a squad of 13 swimmers, submitted by Swim Ireland, to compete at the Youth Olympic Festival in Paris from July 25th to August 2nd. Team manager is Marian Fenton with Alan Turner and Brian Sweeney named as the coaches.
The team is: Boys - S Redmond (Phoenix); M Timmins (Galway); D Kelly (Galway); A Clarke (Ards); M Hann (City of Belfast ); C Hughes (Mullingar); S Aherne (Templeogue); K Brazil (New Ross). Girls - H Burke (Aer Lingus); J McConnell (Aer Lingus); L McDonnell (Aer Lingus); A Cadden (Cormorant); O McGandy (Enniskillen).
HOCKEY: The A division of the European Club Championship in Brussels proved to be a bridge too far for Cork Harlequins. They lost 2-0 to the home team, Royal Leopold, in yesterday's classification match , so this season's Irish champions, Cork C of I, will be in the B division next year.
In the women's A division in Holland, it was a similar, familiar story for Ireland's representatives as Pegasus went under 2-0 to Glasgow Western, leaving Hermes in the B division next year.
