Sprinters' move fails: Greek sprinters Konstantinos Kenteris and Ekaterina Thanou have lost their bid to have a provisional ban on them lifted while sport's highest court determines whether they should be suspended for missing drugs tests.
The athletes have been suspended by the IAAF, athletics' world governing body, since April last year for missing three doping tests before the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne will make a final decision at a hearing beginning on June 26th. The IAAF suspended the sprinters after the Greek Athletics Federation refused to sanction them.
Top riders lead team
Paul Healion and Andrew Roche have been confirmed as leading the promising Murphy & Gunn/Newlyn Group team in the FBD Insurance Rás, which begins with a stage from Tallaght to Enniscorthy this Sunday, reports Shane Stokes.
The squad was upgraded to UCI Continental status this year and have been dominant in Irish competition thus far in 2006, winning many top events here.
They will be supported by John O'Shea, John Dempsey and Morgan Fox. The latter is a former continental professional and national road race champion, whose experience will be invaluable.
Nadal and Federer out
World number one Roger Federer and number two Rafael Nadal have pulled out of the Hamburg Masters tournament due to fatigue, organisers said yesterday. Nadal (19) beat Federer in Sunday's Rome Masters final in a match that lasted more than five hours to equal Guillermo Vilas's record of 53 straight wins on clay. The Spaniard will have to wait until the French Open to make the 29-year-old mark his own.
Both players will travel to Hamburg for medical check-ups as tour rules dictate and will be replaced in the draw by Sweden's Robin Soederling and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic.
