WEIGHTLIFTING: Weightlifter Daniel Koum, who is alleged to have demanded cash to take part in a pre-Olympics qualifying event, missed out yesterday when Australia named two lifters to compete at the Games. The Australian Weightlifting Foundation has claimed that Cameroon-born Koum, 26, who began lifting for the country in 2008, insisted on a $5,000 cash payment to perform at a qualifying event in Samoa – an allegation the athlete strongly denies.
SWIMMING: Australia will be represented in every event on the programme at next month’s London Olympics after 17-year-old 1,500m freestyler Jarrod Poort was officially added to the team. Poort smashed his personal best by 11 seconds to win the 1,500m at the selection trials in March, but his time of 15 minutes 13 minutes 38 seconds was two seconds outside the Olympic A-qualifying mark. His spot was confirmed by the international federation FINA and the Australian Olympic Committee selection committee immediately ratified his place in the team.
BASKET, NBA: Mike Dunlap, whose 32 years in coaching include a three-year stint with Australia’s Adelaide 36ers, was named coach of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats. Dunlap will be charged with turning around the fortunes of the worst team in NBA history. The Bobcats went 7-59 in a season shortened by a money squabble between owners and players, their 10.6 win percentage the all-time NBA lowest.
SOLIDARITY: A Ferrari auction has raised over €1.8 million for families of the victims of the earthquakes that struck the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna in May. The online auction saw a luxury 599XX car, the only one made, sold to an American client for over €1.4 million. It will be personally delivered to its new owner by the Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa at the next Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
OBITUARY: LeRoy Neiman, a famed artist whose sports portraits included drawings of such stars as Muhammad Ali and Babe Ruth, died on Wednesday at age 91 at a New York hospital. Neiman served as the official painter for five Olympics and conveyed the drama of the sports world as well as such notable figures as Frank Sinatra. He captured such diverse events as the Super Bowl, France’s Cannes Film Festival, Grand Prix auto racing in Monaco and England’s Ascot and Grand National horse races.
RALLYING: Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala clocked the fastest time in qualifying for the Rally New Zealand on Thursday, as eight-time world champion Sebastien Loeb had to settle for fourth. Latvala, who won in New Zealand in 2010, qualified with a time of two minutes 31.86 seconds in his Ford Fiesta, 0.37 seconds ahead of compatriot Mikko Hirvonen. The result means Latvala can choose his starting position on the first full day of racing in round seven of the World Rally Championship.
TENNIS: Andy Murray (picture) was yesterday named as the first member of the Great Britain tennis team for the London Olympics. The world number four will be competing in his second Olympics after Beijing when he lost in the first round of the singles and the second round of the doubles. Murray will also be playing doubles with his brother Jamie. The only British players to win a medal since tennis returned to the Olympic programme in 1988 are Tim Henman and Neil Broad, who were silver medallists in the men’s doubles in Atlanta in 1996.