Sports News: General

By Zoran Milosavljevic
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Drogheda United, Modrica and Domzale enjoyed winning Champions League debuts after dismissing their first qualifying round opponents on Wednesday.

By Steve Keating
TORONTO (Reuters) - World number two Rafael Nadal shook off a bit of Wimbledon rust with a crushing 6-4 6-2 win over American qualifier Jesse Levine to reach the Toronto Masters third round on Wednesday.

BEIJING (AP) _ China will allow a modicum of dissent at the Olympics, setting up special protest zones far from the main sports venues, in a shift that supporters and detractors said is meant to safely channel criticism and avoid disrupting the games.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) _ An eight-year-old girl was ejected from a junior tennis tournament at Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island when officials discovered she was wearing a radio earpiece to receive instructions from her father.

Olympian Jagbir Singh is tipped to be the frontrunner to take over from coach A K Bansal as the Indian Olympic Association's ad-hoc committee prepares to brief the sports ministry next week on its plans for hockey's development in the country.

The Indian women's 4x400m relay squad might have shone at the Asian Grand Prix series last month to make the cut for the Olympics, but with the team members not training together, the squad's preparations for the big stage in Beijing look hazy.

By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cyclist and testicular cancer survivor Lance Armstrong joined forces with four former U.S. surgeons general on Wednesday to urge Americans to do more to prevent cancer and get recommended screening tests.

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Beijing Olympics that goes smoothly without "unhealthy disturbances" will best serve Tibetans by fostering a more confident China, said the chief envoy of the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.

Combine bulldog spirit and brilliance and, if you are talking football, Carlos Tevez is what you get. On Tuesday night as Manchester United worked past Orlando Pirates 1-0 at the Absa Stadium here, the Argentine muscle mass showed he had lost none of the work ethic during close season. Bad news for Premiership contenders.

CLOSE ON the heels of the junior Indian hockey team's title triumph at the sixth Asia Cup in Hyderabad, the Indian Olympic Association's ad-hoc committee officials for hockey are planning to rope in International Hockey Federation (FIH) coaching projects manager, Tayyab Ikram, to give a fillip to the sport in the country.

BEIJING (AP) _ Olympic organizers will allow a modicum of dissent at the Beijing games, setting up special protest zones in a shift supporters and detractors said Wednesday is meant to safely channel pent-up criticisms of China and avoid disrupting the games. The designated protest areas will be in parts of three public parks, none of them near sporting venues for the games, which open in 16 days.

BEIJING (AP) _ The massive building that will house thousands of world broadcasters when the Beijing Olympics open in just over two weeks was evacuated Wednesday when a strong odor spread throughout structure.

By Karolos Grohmann
ATHENS (Reuters) - Katerina Thanou, banned for doping violations at the 2004 Olympics, has been included in Greece's squad for the Beijing Games but whether the sprinter will run next month remains to be seen.

By Julien Pretot
L'ALPE D'HUEZ, France (Reuters) - Spaniard Carlos Sastre seized the Tour de France yellow jersey with victory in the last mountain stage on Wednesday but looked incapable of preventing Cadel Evans from winning the race.

By Gelu Sulugiuc
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Andrea Baldini was five years old when his grandmother spotted him armed with a plastic sword, pretending he was Zorro, and took him to a fencing club.

By Alastair Himmer
BEIJING (Reuters) - Having learned finally to share the ball, Kobe Bryant is poised to lead the United States' charge for Olympic basketball gold in Beijing.

Kolkata, July 23 (IANS) Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty's Indian Cricket League (ICL) team Royal Bengal Tigers Wednesday signed a five-year sponsorship agreement with Kolkata's first division soccer club Howrah Union.

LONDON (Reuters) - Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has said Luiz Felipe Scolari's Chelsea squad has already peaked with the new Premier League season less than a month away.

With a billion hopes resting on their young shoulders, India's Olympic-bound pugilists are taking time out of their last minute finetuning to seek divine help in order to live up to the expectations.

Allaying concerns on the slow pace of infrastructure development for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President Suresh Kalmadi on Wednesday said all the construction work for the mega event would be completed by December 2009. Kalmadi, also the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman, reiterated that the preparations are on schedule.