A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Croke Park conference fully sold out
GAELIC GAMES: The GAA has announced that due to considerable interest, next Saturday's 2010 GAA Games Development Conference is completely sold out.
The eighth annual conference, Coaching Children: Building a Platform for Lifelong Involvement in Gaelic Games, which takes place on December 4th at Croke Park, will be attended by over 500 GAA delegates.
McCoy favoured to ride Kauto Star
RACING: Tony McCoy was installed as 1 to 4 favourite to ride Kauto Star in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Sty Stephen's Day after Noel Fehily was taken to hospital with a suspected broken wrist following a fall at Newbury.
Fehily has struck up a fruitful partnership with Paul Nicholls in recent weeks after stable jockey Ruby Walsh broke his leg in a fall at Down Royal.
Fehily was riding Rivaliste for the champion trainer in the sportingbet.com Handicap Chase at the Berkshire track when the pair came down at the sixth fence.
Nicholls moved to secure the services of McCoy for Neptune Collonges in the Hennessy Gold Cup tomorrow. He will also ride reigning staying champion Big Buck’s on his return in the sportingbet.com Long Distance Hurdle.
Jet lag catches up on Niland
TENNIS: The effects of a marathon 24 hour journey from Austria to Japan, and the resultant jet lag, finally caught up with Conor Niland yesterday in the ATP Challenger Tour event in Toyota, Japan.
After defeating Japanese qualifier Yasutaka Uchiyama 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round, number two seed Niland, winner of last week’s Challenger event in Salzburg, crashed out in the second round to Finland’s 411-ranked Juho Paukku on a 6-7 (5/7), 2-6 scoreline.
Despite his fatigue, 131-ranked Niland went very close to taking the first set, but his energy levels dropped considerably in the second set, and this allowed the unseeded Finn to break the Irish number two’s serve twice en route to closing out the match.
Niland’s Davis Cup team-mate Colin O’Brien from Dublin also bowed out in the quarter-finals of the ITF Men’s Futures event in Opava, Czech Republic, losing by 6-7 (5/7), 5-7 to Czech opponent Jan Mertl.
Lockout to cost USA €3.8bn
AMERICAN FOOTBALL:The executive director of the National Football League players union says a player lockout next season is a "near certainty," and that it would cost the economy an estimated €3.8 billion in lost wages, taxes and other revenue if the entire season is cancelled.
In an interview on “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend on Bloomberg television, union chief DeMaurice Smith said if NFL owners lock out players in order to get concessions in a labour dispute, it would be devastating to local communities as the country struggles with a 9.6 per cent unemployment rate.
“The magnitude of the loss would be at the very least about $160 million to $170 million per team-city,” Smith said. “That is a conservative estimate of the economic impact.”
The NFL has had labour peace since work stoppages during the 1982 and 1987 seasons.
Nadal thunders on in World Tour
TENNIS: Rafael Nadal roared into the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals yesterday with a 7-6, 6-1 defeat of Czech Tomas Berdych, who later accused the Spaniard of intimidating the umpire.
A sensational first set boiled over in the 12th game when world number one Nadal became involved in a heated debate with Brazilian chair official Carlos Bernardes after a controversial Hawkeye challenge.
With Berdych fighting to stay alive in the eight-man event, he challenged an overrule at 15-15 on Nadal’s serve and the resulting Hawkeye review shown on the O2 Arena’s huge screens confirmed his backhand had clipped the baseline.
Bernardes awarded the crucial point to Berdych even though Nadal said he had stopped playing when he heard the umpire incorrectly call the Czech’s backhand out.
Nadal was enraged and even walked off the court behind the umpire’s chair to talk to the tournament supervisor Tom Barnes before eventually returning to the court and holding serve.
“It just shows how the referee is probably scared of him and just let him talk with him too long,” world number six Berdych, whose chances of reaching the semis on his debut at the tournament vanished, said.
I was waiting while he was talking for like three minutes. He was like sitting there and he’s not going to play, stuff like that. Its not the mistake of Rafa. Its the mistake of the referee.”
Ecclestone victim of attack and mugging in London
MOTOR SPORT: Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone suffered a head injury when he was mugged in central London, police sources said yesterday, just weeks after suggesting the city's streets were more violent than those of Brazil.
The 80-year-old billionaire was kicked and punched by his attackers before they escaped with about €235,000 worth of jewellery.
Four men were waiting for him and his Brazilian girlfriend as they arrived at the headquarters of his business, Formula One Holdings, in Knightsbridge, central London, on Wednesday evening.
The offices are near Buckingham Palace and within walking distance of Oxford Street, one of the capital’s busiest shopping thoroughfares.
Earlier this month, Ecclestone had said it was surprising the number of people who got mugged hourly in Oxford Street.
He was responding to the news of the attempted carjacking of Britain’s former Formula One champion Jenson Button in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
