■ Soccer
African Cup heats up
The qualifying round for next year's African Cup of Nations heads into its final weekend with 11 berths still unclaimed, and Egypt, Morocco and South Africa look set to take three of them. Egypt, a four-time winner of the continental tournament, has the best chance to join host Tunisia, defending champion Cameroon, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal in the competition finals in January. The Pharaohs have played all four of their Group 10 matches and lead Madagascar by three points. But Madagascar, which hosts Mauritius, needs to make up a 17-goal difference in order to overtake Egypt in the standings. Morocco, which won this tournament in 1976, leads Sierra Leone in Group 7 by three points. It needs only a draw at Equatorial Guinea to ensure qualification. South Africa also needs only a draw to move on. Bafana Bafana, which trails Ivory Coast in Group 11 on goal difference, visits winless Burundi.
■ Olympics
Vote mystery unsolved
A day after Vancouver's narrow win in the selection of the 2010 Olympic host city, the mystery of the uncast votes remained unsolved.
Four IOC members failed to vote in the first round of Wednesday's secret ballot and three in the second round -- a factor which could have swung the election the other way. "The only explanation is they just did not operate the machine," said IOC board member Denis Oswald, a scrutineer for the vote. "Based on experience, there are always 3 to 4 people who don't vote. My interpretation is that they wanted to abstain." No official abstentions were recorded, however.
■ Olympics
Brothel boost upsets Swedes
The Swedish government lodged an official complaint with the International Olympic Committee and the Greek government on Thursday about Athens' policy of allowing more brothels during next year's Olympic Games. Iceland has already complained to the IOC about the plans to authorize 30 more brothels during next August's games to meet extra demand. "It is most worrying to receive information that initiatives have recently been taken in your country, in the context of the preparations for the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, that could be perceived as supportive of prostitution and brothel activities," said the letter sent by Swedish sports minister Mona Sahlin to Greek culture minister Evangelos Venizelos. "The Olympic Games were established to bring people together -- not to degrade them," the letter added.
Agencies
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