IN BRIEF (Page 23)
Greene out with leg injury
LOS ANGELES: Former Olympic and world 100 meters champion Maurice Greene will miss this week's U.S. championships in Indianapolis because of a leg injury, his manager said on Monday.
"It seems that as he got over one leg injury two weeks ago, he started pushing it at practice and injured the other leg," Emanuel Hudson said.
The 32-year-old Greene has run sparingly over the past two years because of foot and leg injuries and was not expected to be a contender for this year's U.S. world championship team. He finished last in his heat at the Adidas Track Classic in May, clocking 10.84 seconds.
Hudson said Greene, a three-times world champion and former world record holder who still holds the American record at 9.79 seconds, was not ending his career.
"He does intend on running this European season so he will continue to rehab and train," Hudson said.
Gebrselassie goes for record
LONDON: Twice Olympic 10,000 meters champion Haile Gebrselassie will attempt the world one-hour record at the Ostrava grand prix in the Czech Republic on June 27.
A statement from the meeting organizers said the 34-year-old Ethiopian would try to break Mexican Arturo Barrios's world mark of 21.101 kms set in La Fleche, France, on March 30, 1991.
Gebrselassie retired from track running to concentrate on the marathon after the 2004 Athens Olympics.
In preparation for his record attempt he made a surprise return to the track in the Dutch town of Hengelo last month, clocking 26 minutes 52.91 seconds in a 10,000m race.
Zvonareva to miss Wimbledon
EASTBOURNE, England: World No 19 Vera Zvonareva has pulled out of next week's Wimbledon championships after failing to recover from a wrist injury, organzers said on Monday.
The Russian, who also missed the French Open because of the injury, will be replaced in the Wimbledon draw by Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak.
American sisters Venus and Serena Williams have been given a late wildcard into the doubles draw at the grasscourt grand slam event after Britain's Amanda Elliott and Katie O'Brien withdrew due to a wrist injury suffered by Elliott.
The Williams sisters won the Wimbledon doubles title in 2000 and 2002.
Eto'o AC Milan's top target
ROME: AC Milan's No 1 target in the closed-season transfer market is Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o, the Serie A club's vice-president said on Monday.
"Our primary objective for next season is Eto'o, and if the economic conditions are right we will get him, otherwise we'll stick with the team that won the Champions League plus Ronaldo," Adriano Galliani was quoted as saying on Milan's website.
Asked for his opinion on comments made last week by Milan president Silvio Berlusconi, who said he would like to see Andriy Shevchenko return from Chelsea, Galliani replied: "The president and I have always been in agreement over the last 30 years.
"We are in constant contact. Who knows? Anything can happen".
Gibilisco in doping hearing
ROME: Former pole-vault world champion Giuseppe Gibilisco has been called to appear before the anti-doping wing of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI).
According to a statement on CONI's website on Monday, the 28-year-old Italian is accused of "the use or attempted use of a banned substance or of a prohibited practice".
Gibilisco won the gold medal at the World Championships in Paris in 2003 and the bronze at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
His audience with CONI's anti-doping wing is scheduled for June 26.
Coach to join government
PARIS: France coach Bernard Laporte will move from the trainer's bench to a government desk after the World Cup ends in October following his appointment by President Nicolas Sarkozy as a junior minister for sport.
The 42-year-old Laporte, renowned in France for his blunt, confrontational style and his distinctive southwestern accent, said last year that he would step down after the World Cup to go into business.
But his longstanding links with Sarkozy appear to have made a political career more attractive.
The bespectacled Laporte, a solid club professional as a player, has steered the French rugby team to a Six Nations grand slam in 2002 and 2004 and also the title in 2006 and 2007.
(China Daily 06/20/2007 page23)
