Sports round-up

Cricket: Australian Twenty 20 international Mitchell Marsh has been sent home from the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane for disciplinary reasons, Cricket Australia said yesterday. The 20-year-old West Australian all-rounder was ordered home to Perth after being declared unfit to train yesterday following a night out, CA said in a statement. “While the incident in isolation was not serious, he was already on a final warning,” CA said. “As such, it was decided he should be sent home to Perth.”

Basketball, NBA: The United States’ Olympic basketball team took the court for their first training on Friday, with Chris Paul becoming the latest casualty as he left practice with a thumb injury. USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said Paul “tweaked” a prior injury and they hope he will be back on court on Saturday. Injuries have already cut the list of 20 candidates to 14 healthy ones, with such stars as center Dwight Howard, guards Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade, and forward Chris Bosh – a third of the likely Olympians – out of London consideration.

Golf: US Open champion Webb Simpson seized the lead on Friday in the Greenbrier Classic, where Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were headed for an early exit. Simpson birdied the par-three 18th on the par-70 Old White TPC course to complete a bogey-free four-under 66 for nine-under 131. He broke out of a logjam atop the leaderboard, with Jonathan Byrd, Charlie Beljan, Jeff Maggert and Jerry Kelly all on eight-under 132 as the round was winding down. But 14-time major champion Woods and Mickelson finished outside the projected cut line of one-under 139.

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Tennis: Austria’s Tamira Paszek (picture), was given the go-ahead to play in the Olympics after winning an appeal before the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The ITF had originally blocked the world number 37’s entry, claiming she had not fulfilled the eligibility rule which requires players to make themselves available for a set number of their country’s Fed Cup ties. But the ITF board of directors have now dropped their objections and Paszek will be allowed to compete in the Olympic event.

Cycling: A decision by Alessandro Petacchi to hand his shoe covers to Lampre team-mate Davide Vigano was being cited as the possible reason for the biggest crash in this year’s Tour de France. A mass pile-up 26km from the finish line of Friday’s sixth stage to Metz led to a total of 12 retirements ahead of yesterday’s stage. Garmin team chief Jonathan Vaughters said Lampre’s move may have been the biggest contributing factor to the crash which forced the retirement of two of his riders, Ryder Hesjedal and Robert Hunter.

Boxing: Boxer Mark Anthony Barriga is the Philippines’ main hope for gold at the London Games, sports officials said yesterday, with the light-flyweight aiming to be the country’s first Olympic champion. The 19-year-old, a quarter-finalist at the world championships in Azerbaijan last year, is facing tough odds, said Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines executive director Ed Picson. But he added: “We think he has a decent chance of winning. If we did not think he had a chance, we would not send him.”

Horse Racing: Champion jockey Tony McCoy was among the mourners at the funeral of Campbell Gillies in Scotland. Cheltenham Festival-winning rider Gillies died in a swimming accident on holiday in Corfu last month, the day before his 22nd birthday. Hundreds of colleagues, family and friends poured into in Edinburgh to pay their respects in a ceremony led by Tim McGuire.