Olympics: International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates rounded off a tour of Paris yesterday by praising the city's bid for the 2008 Games.

The four-day visit by members of the IOC technical team included tours of some of the city's major sporting venues.

Paris is competing against Beijing, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka for the right to host the 2008 Summer Games.

"One of the aspects of the Paris bid that impressed us was the commitment towards the project of Olympic and Paralympic athletes," chairman of the evaluation team Hein Verbruggen said.

Cycling: A revolutionary test to detect the use of EPO will be unveiled today by the International Cycling Union, the UCI announced yesterday.

The test, which has been launched partly in a bid to avoid a repeat of the 1998 Tour de France fiasco, dubbed the "Tour de Farce" due to revelations of widespread EPO use, will employ both blood and urine sample testing.

Athletics: British sprinter John Skeete was hit with a two-year ban for doping yesterday but was declared innocent of any offence after producing evidence his dietary supplements had been spiked.

Skeete tested positive for the notorious "Ben Johnson" steroid stanozolol at the British Indoor Championships in Birmingham on January 27th.