Sports round-up

Basketball: European Championships for Small States – Moldova 23 Malta 72 (3-27, 6-20, 3-15, 11-10)

Malta opened their title defence with a comfortable 72-23 victory over Moldova in Struga, Macedonia, yesterday.

The match was over as a contest by the halfway mark with Santino Coppa’s girls taking a commanding 47-9 lead.

Rebecca Brincat Thoresen and Ashleigh Vella were Malta’s leading scorers with 13 points.

Tour De France: Tour de France team Cofidis have suspended Frenchman Remy Di Gregorio over doping allegations, the team announced on the race’s first rest day yesterday. Di Gregorio, 26, was arrested following a police raid at his team’s hotel in Bourg-en-Bresse, several miles outside Macon in eastern France where the race will resume on the 10th stage today. A team statement said: “We have just learned that one of our riders has attempted to resort to doping substances to improve his performance. The suspicion leaves us with no choice but to hand down the strictest possible sanctions.”

Weightlifting: Lithuania has lost its slot in the London Olympics weightlifting competitions after an athlete from the Baltic state failed an anti-doping test, the team coach said. “Certainly we won’t be participating at the Olympic Games. The reason is doping,” Bronislovas Vysniauskas said.

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London 2012: Defeated Wimbledon finalist Agnieszka Radwanska (picture), one of Poland’s highest-profile sports stars, is to carry her country’s flag at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Radwanska, the first Polish Grand Slam finalist for 73 years, is one of seven Poles competing in the Olympic tennis tournament. Both she and her 21-year-old sister Urszula will compete in the singles.

Equestrian: A US bid group has dropped out of consideration for hosting the 2018 World Equestrian Games. The move came due to a change in local government officials, according to the president of the company that had assembled the US bid and cited benefits from the 2010 Games to the state of Kentucky of $233 million. Three bid cities remain in the shape of Vienna, Rabat and Bromont, Canada, with officials set to meet this week in Switzerland.

Basket, NBA: Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade had surgery on his troublesome left knee and is expected to be ready for action when NBA training camps open in October. Wade played through injury in the play-offs as the Heat captured the championship with a victory in the NBA finals over Oklahoma City Thunder. However, the need for surgery meant that Wade had to withdraw from the US team for the London Games.

Gender test: An Indian court granted bail yesterday to a female international athlete charged with raping her former lover who has alleged that she is actually a man. Pinki Pramanik, who retired in 2007 after winning a team gold in the 4x400m relay at the 2006 Asian Games, underwent a gender determination test during her detention in West Bengal state. Doctors from a state-run hospital said that Pramanik’s test results were delivered yesterday to the trial magistrate in the Barasat district of Kolkata.