More sports news in brief.
Gillick getting right into form
ATHLETICS:David Gillick is coming into the form of his life as the countdown begins for the Beijing Olympics and he proved this emphatically with a new Irish 400 metres record at IAAF Permit meeting in Lille, France, last night.
Running an inspired race from lane five the 24-year-old Dubliner raced to victory in a time of 45.12 seconds, thus smashing his own year-old mark of 45.23 which he set in Geneva. Gillick's previous best this year was 45.59.
This was the third successive year that Gillick has set new Irish figures, having run 45.67 in '06 and now the Dundrum man will be looking to break the magical 45 seconds either in the lead up to the Olympics or in Beijing itself. Gillick's time is the fastest by a European 400m runner this year, replacing the 45.19 which Britain's Martyn Rooney ran earlier this month.
The news about Derval O'Rourke in the 100 m hurdles was not so encouraging as she finished fourth in a time of 13.15 in a race won by Anay Tejeda of Cuba in 12.84.
Carter gets move to France
RUGBY:New Zealand outhalf Dan Carter has signed a six-month deal with Perpignan after receiving permission to spend a season in Europe.
Carter will join Perpignan in December at the completion of New Zealand's tour of the Northern Hemisphere and remain in France until next June.
The 26-year-old will miss next year's Super 14 competition but be available to play for the All Blacks in 2009.
West is best in Round Ireland race
SAILING: GalwayBay Sailing Club's Aodhán Fitzgerald and the crew of Ireland West were confirmed as overall winners of the BMW Round Ireland Race by race officials, writes David Branigan.
After corrected handicap time, the Beneteau 40.7 foot yacht had a clear lead over the runner-up crews.
Ireland West completed the course in four days and one hour on Thursday afternoon, while the last boat of the original 40 starters arrived in Wicklow yesterday afternoon.
Mike Slade's ICAP Leopard broke the official course record time, while the World Speed Sailing Record Council will shortly consider world recognition of the circumnavigation for the first time since the race started in 1980.
Bulgaria withdraws Olympic hopefuls as 11 fail drug tests
WEIGHTLIFTING:Bulgaria withdrew its national weightlifting team from the Beijing Olympics yesterday after 11 members of the team failed dope tests, the national weightlifting federation said.
The weightlifters, who were hoping to compete for medals at the August games, were tested during a training camp in the Balkan country on June 8th and 9th, the federation said in a statement.
"The federation decided to withdraw the national weightlifting team - men and women - from the Olympics," it said.
Sports officials ordered drugs tests for all Bulgarian Olympic-bound athletes after the weightlifting announcement and called for tougher measures against anyone involved in doping.
The failed tests deal a blow to Bulgaria which has been on a mission to clean up weightlifting's tarnished reputation after a series of doping scandals and suspensions at previous Olympic Games.
The 11 weightlifters - eight men and three women - tested positive for the banned anabolic substance methandienon, the federation said.
Among them were medal hopes Ivan Stoitsov, who took two gold medals at last year's world championships, and Velichko Cholakov who won bronze at the Athens Olympics in 2004.
"I am shocked," Stoitsov said. "I think all this is a provocation. If I get punished, I'll quit training and do something else."
The results of the second, B tests are yet to be released.
Landis to hear tour fate on Monday
CYCLING:Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis will find out on Monday from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) whether he can reclaim his 2006 Tour de France title.
CAS said in a statement yesterday it would announce at its headquarters in Lausanne the decision of a three-lawyer panel on a five-day hearing that took place in New York in March.
Landis, who has denied wrongdoing, made his final appeal in closed door sessions before a CAS panel against a decision by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) last May that resulted in his two-year ban from cycling through January 29th, 2009.
The International Cycling Union later stripped Landis of his 2006 Tour de France crown and awarded the title to Spain's Oscar Pereiro.
The three CAS-appointed lawyers heard 35 hours of testimony at the Landis hearing that included 14 witnesses and written testimony from 10 others. The American cyclist tested positive for synthetic testosterone following the penultimate 17th stage of the race.
China takes hard line on drug cheats
SWIMMING:China's top backstroke swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng has been banned for life for doping, officials confirmed yesterday, dealing the host nation an embarrassing blow just 42 days before the start of the Beijing Olympics.
Chinese swimmers were embroiled in a series of doping scandals in the 1990s and the country's sporting authorities have pledged to weed out drug cheats before the Olympics.
First time offenders usually receive a two-year ban so Ouyang's tough sentence will serve as a stern warning to any other Chinese drug cheats.
The 25-year-old tested positive for the anabolic agent clenbuterol, Zhao Jian, head of the anti-doping office at the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) confirmed.
Ouyang, a semi-finalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics and winner of four silver medals at the 2006 Asian Games, claimed the 100 and 200m titles at the national championships in April.
