Top shot
Johnson to return Olympic gold
LONDON: Five-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson will return his final gold medal won in the 2000 Sydney Games 4x400 m relay after a teammate admitted taking drugs.
Antonio Pettigrew testified at the trial of coach Trevor Graham that he had taken banned drugs since the 1996 US trials. His confession followed drugs bans on Alvin and Calvin Harrison and Jerome Young, who were also members of the victorious US team.
"I know that the medal was not fairly won and that it is dirty," Johnson said in a column published in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
"So, difficult as it is, I will be returning it to the International Olympic Committee because I don't want it. I feel cheated, betrayed and let down."
Graham was convicted last Thursday on one count of lying to federal agents investigating the BALCO laboratory.
Gascoigne released from hospital
LONDON: Former England midfielder Paul Gascoigne was released from hospital on Monday after being held under the Mental Health Act for the second time this year.
Hertfordshire police confirmed that the 42-year-old had been taken to hospital on Sunday after he was seen acting strangely in Hemel Hempstead by a member of the public.
"A 42-year-old man who was sectioned under the Mental Health Act is no longer sectioned and police believe he is no longer in hospital care," a police spokesman said on Monday.
The former Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Rangers and Lazio player, widely known as Gazza, was previously detained after being arrested at a hotel in Newcastle in February.
He was subsequently released in March.
Gascoigne, who won 57 caps between 1988 and 1998, has struggled with a series of health and personal problems since retiring from the game.
Open joy for Love and Beem
LOS ANGELES: Former major champions Davis Love III and Rich Beem had cause to celebrate on Monday while fellow Americans Fred Couples and Tom Lehman missed out on booking places at next week's US Open.
Big-hitting Love failed to qualify for this year's Masters but was among 21 players in a field of 140 at Brookside Golf & Country Club and Scarlet Golf Club in Columbus, Ohio who secured spots.
Two more berths from that sectional qualifier were to be decided on Tuesday morning when Americans Eric Axley and Rickie Fowler and Canadian Jonathan Mills return to complete a sudden-death playoff.
Beem, who held off a charging Tiger Woods to win the 2002 PGA Championship, was one of two players who came through from Shadow Hawk Golf Club in Richmond, Texas.
Love, whose only major victory came in the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot, shot scores of 72 and 66 to qualify for his 18th consecutive US Open.
Heptathlete Ennis ruled out
LONDON: British heptathlon medal hope Jessica Ennis will miss the Beijing Olympics because of a fractured right ankle, UK Athletics said on Monday.
Ennis, 22, who was fourth at the Osaka World Championships last year, was ruled out after a scan revealed the extent of the injury she sustained at an event in Gotiz, Austria, at the weekend.
"I'm obviously upset with the results and I'm gutted to be missing out on my first Olympics, but injury is part of life as a heptathlete," Ennis said on the UK Athletics website (www.ukathletics.net).
"I am determined to make a full and speedy recovery from this and enjoy a long athletics career."
Ennis was tipped as a contender for a podium finish in Beijing in an event in which Denise Lewis won gold for Britain in Sydney in 2000 after recovering from a calf injury.
(China Daily 06/04/2008 page22)
