SP ORTS DIGEST:CANOEING: The Palmerstown weir sorted the wheat from the chaff at the 51st Liffey Descent on Saturday, writes Liam Gorman.
Australians Steve Bird (22) and Jesse Phillips (24) in a K2 racing kayak emerged victorious on their first attempt at the event after their closest rivals, Kenlea Murray and Brett Irvine from South Africa, crashed and took a swim at the formidable weir.
Peter Egan and Pedro Lopez of Salmon Leap club took advantage of the South Africans' misfortune to grab second place in the 28-kilometre test from Straffan in Kildare to Islandbridge in Dublin.
The pattern in the K1 was similar, with Kevin Pierce from Artane in Dublin coming home 44 seconds ahead of Malcolm Banks. The experienced Banks (48) was competing in his 35th consecutive Liffey Descent, and has 10 titles to his name, but he came a cropper at Palmerstown weir.
It was a first win in this prestigious class for Pierce, who said he had a "perfect" run over the weirs and a sweet descent overall. "I didn't touch a rock," he said.
The 32-year-old, who competes for the Wild Water club in Palmerstown, is having quite a run in the sport, claiming the national marathon title and also starring in Canoe Polo, but he is a late bloomer. He took a six-year break from the sport early this century after suffering an horrendous series of four dislocations of his shoulder in the late 1990s.
Liz Shouldice, also of Wild Water, took the women's senior general purpose class, and her clubmate Keith McGuirk the senior Canadian single title.
A good spread of clubs gained honours: David McDonnell of Kilcullen Canoe Club won the men's general purpose and Michael Brennan of Thomastown in Kilkenny won the senior wildwater class.
A late surge of entries pushed the number of competitors on the day to almost 900.
Barry in US Open action today
TENNIS:Limerick's Sam Barry today has a chance to bridge a 17-year gap for Irish players in the US Junior Open in New York.
No player from this country has won a match in the main draw of the Flushing Meadows event since Karen Nugent became the first to achieve the feat – in the girls’ singles in 1993.
Dubliner Nugent beat Georgia’s Anastasis Pozdniakova 6-2 6-1 in the first round, before losing 0-6 7-4 4-6 to Italy’s Adriana Serra-Zanetti, a player who subsequently rose to number 38 in the adult rankings in February 2002.
Unlike Nugent, Barry, placed at 62 in the world Under-18 rankings, has had to battle his way through the qualifying section. He won two matches to nail down a main draw clash against the USA’s world number 34 Nick Chappell, who originally hails from Toronto, and is a left-hander.
Dubliner John Morrissey, however, failed to advance to the second round of qualifying, the number seed crashed out to unseeded American Michael Zhu, ranked at number 148.
Perry takes fourth Irish Open title
SQUASH:Three weeks after becoming the first Irish woman to win the Australian Open, Madeline Perry collected another title on Saturday by beating former world number one Vanessa Atkinson in the final of the Canon Kirk Irish Open, writes Mary Hannigan.
The 33-year-old from Banbridge, who has risen to six in the world rankings, had to come from behind to win the opening game, Atkinson having game ball at 11-10.
Once she recovered, though, Perry took control of the match, taking the next two games 11-8, 11-6 to win her fourth Irish Open title.
Malaysian Azlan Iskander took the men’s title at Fitzwilliam, beating Borja Golan of Spain in a five-game final that lasted an hour and 40 minutes.
Fainga'a suspended for a dangerous tackle
RUGBY:Australian hooker Saia Fainga'a has been suspended for two weeks for a dangerous tackle during Saturdays 41-39 Tri-Nations win over South Africa.
Fainga'a was cited by SANZAR commissioner Steve Hinds for tipping Springbok replacement lock Flip van der Merwe in the 69th minute of the match in Bloemfontein.
Fainga'a pleaded guilty to the charge and will be banned from all rugby until September 19th.
Fullback Kurtley Beale nerveless goal in the final 30 seconds from 55 metres climaxed a game which see-sawed dramatically after the Wallabies had run the Springboks ragged in the first quarter.
It also atoned for two previous mistakes by Beale who had thrown a wild pass that went out touch-in-goal to give South Africa a five-metre scrum, from which centre Jean de Villiers scored.
Beale then slipped when he tried to field a kick.
The ball rebounded off his head to Springbok outside centre Jaque Fourie, who sparked an attack that led to outhalf Morne Steyn’s 77th-minute penalty which gave the home team a 39-38 lead.
“There were a lot of nerves but the boys wanted me to take the kick so I just stuck to the process and told myself not to worry. I knew I had hit it well,” Beale said.
The match began at a frantic pace with Australia scoring four tries in the first 26 minutes to lead 31-6 through some exhilarating broken field running.
Bolt targets football career
ATHLETICS:Usain Bolt is plotting a career as a footballer once he has fulfilled his ambitions in athletics. The 24-year-old is hoping to clock 9.4 seconds in the 100m. Once he has achieved what he views as an unassailable time, he will then turn to football. "I have four more good years in me if I train hard," he said. "When I finish I'd like to play football for two years. I always watch those guys and I think I could be a professional footballer."
