Swimming: Brian Mongey of the Millennium Club won the closest finish to a Liffey swim in living memory when shading it by a veritable fingertip from Sandycove's Bertie O'Brien on Saturday, writes Pat Roche.
O'Brien led after the final bridge, Butt, but Mongey's stunning speed over the final 50 metres enabled him to get up.
The women's race over the same distance was won by Ciara O'Sullivan of St Paul's. Rachell Lee of Guinness recorded the best time, 20.33 - faster than the men but attributable to a change in the flow of the tide after the men's event had ended. Lee's club benefited to the extent of £1,000 put up by sponsors Toyota for any record broken. The Guinness swimmer, off at 7 minutes 45 seconds, finished 17th.
Equestrian: Denis Coakley, who made his Nations Cup debut with a clear and a four-faulter last Friday in the team that finished third in Linz, stormed to victory in the Grand Prix at the Austrian venue 48 hours later with Marie O'Brien's Toshiba Dreampoint, writes Grania Willis.
The 29-year-old Co Waterford rider , who broke his international duck when scoring an impressive double to win both the Millstreet Masters and the Grand Prix with Toshiba Dreampoint last month, was drawn sixth of nine through to the jump-off yesterday and had the nine-year-old Clover Hill gelding in winning mode from flagfall.
Taking the racing line throughout, Coakley had Toshiba Dreampoint's nose through the finish in 36.53 to snatch victory by a mere .14 of a second from Heinrich Herman Engemann, whose double clear in Friday's Nations Cup had helped clinch the German win.
Francis Connors, drawn as pathfinder with Cruiseway, finished sixth in 39.58.
Cycling: With just over one month to go to the under-23 world championships, Mark Scanlon showed an encouraging return to form in the two-day Belfast-Dublin-Belfast race. Scanlon, who broke his elbow in a crash at the start of July, dominated the event, winning both stages, the overall, the points and the mountains competitions.
Brian Kenneally was the only rider close to Scanlon, finishing second on both stages and ending the race four seconds behind in the runner-up position.
The Linda McCartney team on Saturday offered Kenneally a guest slot on their squad for a number of forthcoming Italian races.
The team already has two Irishmen lined up for next season, Mark Scanlon and Ciaran Power.
In Lausanne, Robin Seymour, Olympic-bound, finished a disappointing 67th in the eighth round of the mountain bike World Cup after blowing up on the final lap. He joins the rest of the Irish team when they travel out tomorrow.
Motorcycling: Australian rider Garry McCoy won the 500cc Portuguese Grand Prix yesterday to give him his second win of the season following his triumph in the season-opener in South Africa.
McCoy, riding a Yamaha and starting from pole, beat home American Kenny Roberts Junior on a Suzuki with Honda pilot Valentino Rossi of Italy in third.
Roberts took a decisive step towards lifting the 500cc title, the Californian extending his lead over Rossi in the title race to 46 poinnts with just four legs to go.
