Cycling: French rider Pascal Herve admitted taking drugs yesterday - the ninth and last member of the Festina team to confess. "Yes, I took dope," Herve told the court in Lille hearing the 1998 Tour de France Festina scandal.
"It took me 2 1/2 years to say it. But I would have confessed earlier if there had not been just the nine of us idiots caught two years ago on the Tour de France."
Herve made his admission the day after his former team leader Richard Virenque confessed he had knowingly taken drugs.
For the last five seasons Herve has been Virenque's right-hand man.
Former Festina rider Laurent Brochard had earlier told the court he was probably still under the influence of drugs when he became world road race champion in 1997, although he didn't take anything on the day.
"There was some drug-taking during the Tour of Spain and it took place 10 days before the world championships. There was probably some (drugs) left," said Brochard.
Snooker: Marco Fu joined one of the game's most elite clubs but still left Motherwell disappointed after Ken Doherty sent him crashing out of the £195,000 sterling Regal Masters yesterday. Fu compiled the sport's 39th professional maximum 147 break in the fourth frame of the first-round clash but was beaten 5-1 by the in-form Doherty.
"I'm over the moon and disappointed at the same time," Fu said. The break was only the 19th televised 147 but had the distinction of being the first to be screened live on the Internet.
"Sometimes making a max can really boost you but it can also affect your concentration," said Doherty, who has had a maximum made against him on three occasions and has won the match each time.
Equestrian Sport: The Millstreet World Cup qualifier, which was cancelled eight days ago because of the Irish Sports Council's continued withholding of funds for the sport of show jumping, is back on again and will run on its originally scheduled date of November 4th, reports Grania Willis.
Eurosport has agreed to reschedule live transmission of the qualifier for 9 p.m. on the Saturday night, but the delay has resulted in the loss of major sponsor Kerrygold.
Following the announcement last Tuesday that the Duggans had made the decision to cancel the World Cup round, senior executives from the Show Jumping Association of Ireland (SJAI) had stepped in to attempt a rescue on Friday night. "No financial package from the SJAI or any other source was mentioned," said SJAI chairman Tony Hurley.
Baseball: The New York Mets ended the New York Yankees' 14-game World Series victory streak and Orlando Hernandez's eight-win post-season run, climbing back into the Subway Series with a 4-2 triumph on Tuesday.
The Mets broke through in the eighth with two runs on three straight hits by Todd Zeile, Benny Agbayani and Jay Payton and a Bubba Trammell pinch-hit sacrifice fly to break a 2-2 tie and cut the two-time defending champions' lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1. Hernandez yielded four runs on nine hits with three walks in his first defeat after the regular season. "I'm disappointed the team lost," said Cuban-born Hernandez. "They scored the runs, that's the game."
Boxing: Sixty-four boxing clubs around the country will benefit from the £324,000 grant allocation announced yesterday by the Minster for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr Jim McDaid. The grants range from a maximum of £50,000 down to £500 and follow the recent restoration of funding to the Irish Amateur Boxing Association after the resolution of outstanding issues with the Irish Sports Council.
