IN BRIEF (Page 24)

Olympics

India hockey team misses out, Britain qualifies

SANTIAGO, Chile: Eight-times gold medalist India missed out on the Olympic Games men's hockey event for the first time when it lost 2-0 to Britain in the final of a qualifying tournament on Sunday.

Britain, gold medalist in 1988, scored two early goals to seal India's fate and win the six-team competition in Chile, which also featured the hosts, Austria, Russia and Mexico.

China, Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, South Africa, Spain, Belarus, Pakistan and Australia qualified directly for the Beijing Games. India missed out on an automatic berth after it failed to reach the 2006 Asian Games final.

Motor sports

Busch gives Toyota first NASCAR victory

ATLANTA: Kyle Busch gave Toyota its first NASCAR Cup win when he streaked to victory in the 500-mile race at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday.

"That's amazing," Busch told reporters after the first NASCAR victory by a foreign manufacturer since Jaguar won a road course race in 1954.

Toyota teammate Tony Stewart finished second in an impressive performance for Joe Gibbs Racing, the NASCAR team owned by the former Washington Redskins NFL coach.

Dale Earnhardt J. took third in a Chevrolet, followed by Greg Biffle and Jeff Gordon.

Carl Edwards' bid for a third consecutive victory ended when his engine malfunctioned on lap 275 of the 325-lap race.

Golf

O'Hair holds off Cink to win second Tour title

MIAMI: American Sean O'Hair kept his composure to overhaul a stumbling Stewart Cink and clinch his second PGA Tour title by two shots at the Tampa Bay Championship in Palm Harbor on Sunday.

Three strokes behind the pacesetting Cink after the weather-delayed third round, O'Hair surged to victory with a 2-under-par 69 in bright sunshine on the challenging Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club.

The 25-year-old Texan grabbed the outright lead for the first time by ramming in a 32-foot birdie putt at the par-3 15th and could afford the luxury of bogeying the last for a 4-under total of 280.

Asia's biggest golf tournaments swap dates

SINGAPORE: Asia's two biggest golf tournaments, the Barclays Singapore Open and the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, have swapped dates this year, organizers said yesterday.

The HSBC Champions, won last year by world No 2 Phil Mickelson, will now be played a week earlier from November 6-9.

The Singapore Open, which Angel Cabrera claimed in 2007 ahead of Vijay Singh, has been pushed back till November 13-16.

Both tournaments offer $5 million in prize money.

No reason was given for the switch, although the HSBC tournament would have clashed with the season-ending Masters tennis tournament, also in Shanghai.

Tennis

Querrey downs Anderson to win Las Vegas title

LOS ANGELES: Unseeded American Sam Querrey captured his first ATP title by beating South African qualifier Kevin Anderson 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the Las Vegas Open final on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Querrey, 66th in the world rankings, was successful with only 57 percent of his first serves but blasted 12 aces and saved nine of 10 break points to win the two-hour match.

The 21-year-old Anderson, ranked 175th in the world, was hoping to become the first South African to win an ATP title since Wesley Moodie in Tokyo in 2005.

(China Daily 03/11/2008 page24)