SNOOKER: Jimmy White will not be celebrating the 10th anniversary of his last major title success with another piece of long-overdue silverware.
The six-times world finalist failed to produce a second-session revival against Drew Henry in the UK Championship at York last night.
The 40-year-old Londoner resumed the match 6-2 down and, though he captured the first two frames of the afternoon, Glaswegian Henry went on to book his place in the last 16 with a 9-4 win.
"I came here full of enthusiasm but lacking in confidence," admitted White whose last ranking tournament win was the 1992 UK Championship at Preston.
"I struggled from start to finish. In fact it just carried on from my last tournament where I was 4-1 up but lost 5-4 to Alan McManus. I'm lacking confidence though I'm playing well in practice. It's difficult when your game's not there because I didn't get any fluency going at all.
"You must punish a player like Drew or he will just get stronger," said White, the day's second top 16 casualty after the demise of Joe Swail.
Meanwhile, former UK champion John Parrott won't be taking his place before the cameras today in his role as BBC's snooker presenter. The former Question of Sport captain suffered minor whiplash when his car was involved in an accident on the M6 motorway.
ATHLETICS: Paula Radcliffe, who closed a phenomenal year by winning October's Chicago Marathon in world record time, plans to open 2003 by competing in the Great North Cross Country.
Radcliffe, three-times winner of Britain's most prestigious cross-country event, will contest a six-kilometre race in Newcastle's Exhibition Park on Saturday, January 4th, before flying to the United States for a lengthy training spell.
Apart from her marathon victories this year, Radcliffe has also successfully defended her world cross-country crown, won the Commonwealth 5,000 metres and European 10,000m gold medals as well as breaking her Commonwealth 3000m record.
After such a hectic 12 months, it is perhaps no surprise the Bedford runner has still to finalise her New Year schedule. The only definite date in Radcliffe's programme will be the world 10,000m metres in Paris where she is planning to improve on the silver medal she won in 1999.
RUGBY: Newcastle last night continued their winter spending spree by signing two Southern Hemisphere internationals - and more recruits could follow before Christmas.
New Zealander Mark Mayerhofler, capped six times by the All Blacks in 1998, and South African flanker Warren Britz, who made his solitary Test appearance against Wales earlier this year, have both agreed terms. They follow 77 times-capped Springbok Mark Andrews and Auckland's National Provincial Championship hooker James Christian to Tyneside.
