Other sports news

¤ The 17th Maccabiah Games, dubbed the Jewish Olympics, began yesterday as thousands of competitors from around the globe gathered at Israel's National Stadium in Tel Aviv for a festive opening ceremony. This year's quadrennial games are the largest ever with 7,000 competitors from 55 countries, making it the third largest sports gathering in the world behind the Olympic Games and soccer's World Cup, organisers said. The event was founded in 1932, 16 years before Israel's establishment. It has been held regularly, except between 1938 and 1950, the years corresponding with the Nazi Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel's establishment in 1948.

¤ Paul Kipsiele Koech was added to Kenya's 3,000m steeplechase team for next month's World Championships yesterday, giving the men who swept the medals at the 2004 Olympics the chance for a repeat in Helsinki. Koech, who pushed world record holder and world champion Saif Saaeed Shaheen to the line at the Rome Golden League meeting on Friday, joins Olympic champion, Ezekiel Kemboi and silver medallist Brimin Kipruto. Koech took bronze in Athens last August as Kenya's 1-2-3 took their tally to 13 out of the last 18 Olympic steeplechase medals on offer.

¤ Romania's Olympic silver medallist and twice world champion Marian Dragulescu announced his retirement from gymnastics yesterday. Dragulescu, who won silver in Athens last year in the floor exercise, said he would be too old to compete at the next Games in Beijing. "I have no interest to compete any more," Dragulescu, 25, told Reuters. "I won all except Olympic gold but it's too late for me to wait for the (2008) Olympic Games in Beijing."