MOTOR RACING: The Brazilian Grand Prix is set to stay at Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit after the city mayor assured Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone that it would be given a revamp. Ecclestone had said the only race in South America could switch to Rio de Janeiro but the 82-year-old told reporters yester-day that mayor Fernando Haddad had intervened. “I’ve just received a letter from the mayor and he’s guaranteed to revamp the whole facilities there, which will be good, we’ve been waiting long enough,” he said.

SWIMMING: World freestyle champion James Magnussen and his 4x100 relay team-mates have been fined and given deferred suspensions for using a banned sedative in a bonding session before the London Olympics, Swimming Australia said. Magnussen, Matt Targett, Eamon Sullivan, James Roberts, Cameron McEvoy and Tommaso D’Orsogna admitted in February they had used the sedative and been involved in “childish” pranks at their training camp before the Games last year.

ATHLETICS: Ex-Olympic champion Shawn Crawford has been given a two-year ban by the US Anti-Doping Agency after once again failing to comply with the whereabouts requirements. Crawford, who won 200 metres gold in Athens in 2004 as well as a silver medal in Beijing four years later, incurred the suspension after he did not inform USADA of his where-abouts for the third time in 18 months as part of the governing body’s out-of-competition testing.

BASKETBALL: The Euroleague’s all-time leading scorer Juan Carlos Na-varro produced an effervescent fourth-quarter performance to give Barcelona a lifeline 70-60 win at Panathinaikos Athens to level their quarter-final series 2-2. The fifth and decisive game between two of Europe’s club giants will be played in Barcelona next week, with the winners facing Real Madrid in the May 10-12 Final Four in London. The winners of the CSKA Moscow vs Caja Vitoria and Olympiakos vs Istanbul ties will meet in the other semi-final in the O2 Arena.