Cycling: Organisers for this year’s Giro d’Italia announced which four teams will receive wildcards to compete alongside the 18 World Tour teams for the May 5-27 bonanza. Italians Androni Giocattoli, Colnago-Csf Inox, of Ireland, UK team Farnese Vini and Germans Team NetApp got the nod meaning there will be no place for Italy’s Acqua & Sapone, who have instead been given a place in the Milano-Sanremo and Tour of Lombardy races.
Winter Sport: Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke, a gold medal hopeful for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, suf-fered a head injury after crashing during training on Tuesday. Burke, 29, is a four-time ski super-pipe champion at the Winter X Games and was preparing to defend her 2010 and 2011 Winter X titles later this month at Aspen, Colorado. She was among those who successfully fought to have ski superpipe added to the Winter Olympic line-up starting in 2014 in Sochi.
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Tennis: World no.10 Andrea Petkovic (picture) pulled out of the Australian Open with a stress fracture in her back yesterday, becoming the second leading women’s withdrawal from the year’s opening grand slam. The exciting German joined seven-time grand slam champion Venus Williams, who has an auto-immune disease, on the sidelines, while Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams are among the other top players who are also battling injuries.
Basketball: Australian centre Andrew Bogut returned to the starting line-up for the Milwaukee Bucks yesterday and the team responded by defeating San Antonio 106-103 to end a four-game NBA win drought. Bogut scored 14 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field and grabbed a game-high 11 re-bounds for the Bucks, who were winless while Bogut was away for an undisclosed family emergency in Australia.
Rugby Union: New Zealand player Willie Ripia has resigned from Australia’s Western Force Super 15 club after he was allegedly caught stealing from his team-mates. Ripia, 26, was captured on CCTV last week taking players’ money in the changing rooms at the Force’s Perth headquarters, reports said. A statement said Ripia would not be part of the squad in 2012 after the club agreed to accept the fly-half’s resignation, effective immediately.