Sports round-up

Swimming: Athletes at the world championships in Shanghai have been warned only to visit certain restaurants if they want to avoid food tainted with banned drugs. Chinese officials handed out a list of safe restaurants and hotels in the giant city after team leaders raised concerns about the risk of eating food containing clenbuterol, a performance-enhancing drug. A recent study found that 22 of 28 travellers returning from China tested positive for low levels of fat-burning clenbuterol.

Rugby union: New Zealand Rugby Union has put a $50,000 price tag on disgruntled All Black Luke McAlister’s plans for an early departure to French club Toulouse. The 30-Test veteran McAlister has in the past received favourable treatment from the New Zealand rugby hierarchy but that relationship appeared severed after McAlister was excluded from the Tri-Nations squad named on Sunday. The inside centre was then dropped from his provincial North Harbour side after failing to turn up for training.

Golf: Defending champion Michael Hendry showed he has no intention of letting go of his title as he took the lead in the $1 million Indonesia Open yesterday with a brilliant bogey free round. The New Zealander won the title by seven shots last year at the Damai Indah Golf-Pantai Indah Kapuk Course with a final round seven-under-par 65 and began his defence at venue with the same score. Hideto Tanihara and Australians David Bransdon, Steve Collins and Leigh McKechnie, who made a hole-in-one on 15, all shot 67.

Olympics: Olympic Council of Asia president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah was elected yesterday for a sixth four-year term at the organisation’s general assembly in Tokyo. Sheikh Ahmad, a 49-year-old Kuwaiti who assumed the post in 1991, has also been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1992. The OCA’s 30th annual general assembly approved the 2014 Incheon Asian Games programme of 36 sports which included softball, a women’s event, under the category of baseball.

Equestrian: British dressage star Laura Bechtolsheimer finished second with her triple world medalist Mistral Hojris in yesterday’s Aachen Grand Prix in Germany. The Gloucestershire-based rider scored 80.596 per cent for runners-up spot behind Germany's Matthias Alexander Rath, aboard reigning European champion Totilas.