Britain's Alistair Brownlee clinched the men's World Championship series with a hard-fought win in the grand final at Australia's Gold Coast yesterday. The 21-year-old wrapped up the championship in style, completing the 1.5 kilometre swim, 40-kilometre cycle ride and 10-kilometre run in 1:44.51. The women's race will be held today.

Swimming

Korea are looking for an overseas coach for Park Tae-hwan following the Olympic champion's disappointing run at the World Championships in July. The 2007 champion Park failed to reach the 400 metres freestyle final at the worlds in Rome after he gave South Korea their first Olympic swimming gold medal in Beijing last year.

Athletics

Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang will return to competition for the first time since hobbling out of last year's Beijing Olympics at next weekend's Shanghai Golden Grand Prix. The return of Liu in his home city is a huge boost to the organisers of the meeting after Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt pulled out on Friday, citing fatigue.

Volleyball

Perugia's Kim Willoughby, a member of the US women's volleyball team that won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics, has been handed a two-year ban in Italy after testing positive for an anabolic steroid. The Italian Olympic Committee said that Willoughby cannot return until July 10, 2011 after being suspended for a positive test.

Horse Racing

The winner's share of the Breeders' Cup Classic will be hiked by $1m if both Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra start the race. The base winner's share for the $5m race on Nov. 7 would climb to $3.7m with the added money, the richest of any race in the world this year, officials said. Rachel Alexandra is undefeated in eight starts this year but her co-owner Jess Jackson has said he would not race her on Santa Anita's synthetic surface.