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Sports Briefs

■ Swimming
No more racing for Thorpe
Ian Thorpe says competitive swimming is only a "memory" for him and that he has no plans to return to the pool. On Nov. 21, the 200m and 400m Athens Olympic champion announced his retirement from swimming. On Friday, Thorpe was at the venue for next month's world swimming championships, helping kick off construction of the temporary 50m pool to be built at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena, home of the Australian Open tennis tournament. "The full stop was put on me coming back to swimming the day I announced the end of my competitive swimming career -- simple as that," Thorpe said. "I've thought about swimming, but it's not about racing against anyone else," he said.

■ Rugby League
Crowe nixes cheerleaders
Russell Crowe says pom-poms are out and drums are in at the rugby league club he part-owns in Australia because skimpily clad cheerleaders detract from the game and make spectators uncomfortable. The South Sydney Rabbitohs club announced this week it would be dispensing with its cheerleading squad and replacing them with a team of percussionists to fire up supporters. Oscar-winning Crowe, a longtime Rabbitohs supporter who helped save the club from obscurity by buying a major stake last year, said the club had become concerned the cheerleaders -- whose uniform includes fishnet stockings and tasseled miniskirts in the white, green and red team colors -- were inappropriate entertainment.

■ Biathlon
Swedes win mixed relay
Sweden won the first ever mixed relay at the biathlon World Championship in Anterselva, Italy, on Thursday. Helena Jonsson, Anna Carin Olofsson, Bjorn Ferry and Carl Johan Bergman finished the 2x6km and 2x7.5km race in 1 hour, 20 minutes, 4.7 seconds, despite 13 shooting errors. "We trained specifically towards this mixed relay because we knew that this would be our best chance for a gold medal," Swedish coach Wolfgang Pichler said. French quartet Florence Baverel-Robert, Sandrine Bailly, Vincent Defrasne and Raphael Poiree were 27.6 seconds behind to take the silver medal. Tora Berger, Jori Moerkve, Emil Hegle Svendsen and Frode Andresen of Norway took the bronze, 36.4 adrift of
Sweden.

■ Football
Phillips to coach Cowboys
Wade Phillips, the defensive co-ordinator of the San Diego Chargers, was introduced on Thursday as the Dallas Cowboys replacement for recently retired coach Bill Parcells. Phillips was a high school coach in Texas. He later worked under his legendary father, Bum Phillips, with the Houston Oilers and has a son who coaches in the Texas high school ranks. "It's great to have these cowboy boots back in Texas," Phillips said. One of the reasons the Cowboys were interested in the 59-year-old Phillips is his familiarity with the 3-4 defense, which Parcells had instituted in Dallas. San Diego had the National Football League's top-ranked run defense in 2005. Last season, the Chargers led the league with 61 sacks. Phillips was the first candidate interviewed without previous ties to the Cowboys. He has, however, guided the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos during his career. In three years with Buffalo, Phillips had a 29-19 record and made the playoffs twice. But he failed to win a playoff game and was fired following the 2000 season.

■ Cricket
Healy sorry about `air violin'
Former Test star turned television commentator Ian Healy was forced to apologize yesterday for making an insensitive gesture as Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds spoke about breast cancer. Healey, who earned 119 Test caps as Australian wicketkeeper, pretended he was playing a violin as Symonds explained in the commentary box that he was playing with a pink bat grip to raise awareness about breast cancer. Channel Nine reported its switchboards around the country were swamped with calls from outraged viewers. Healy denied he was making light of breast cancer. "I was winding Andrew Symonds up to talk about his pink grip, you know, we've got these massive big blokes using pink grips on their bat and that was the wind-up," Healy told Channel Nine. "As he got into his promotion of the scheme I did the air violin as people are calling it now," he said. "People have perceived that to be me mocking breast cancer, now no one in the world would mock breast cancer research or breast cancer," Healy said.

■ Soccer
Homophobic chants banned
Homophobic chanting is to be explicitly banned at English soccer stadiums for the first time, it was announced on Thursday. The move is part of an attempt by the Football Association (FA) to eradicate the problem at matches. Currently, ground regulations merely warn that "racial and other discrimination" can lead to ejection, or even arrest. But a spokeswoman for the FA said on Thursday the rules were being modified specifically to mention homophobic behavior. All of England's Premiership and Football League clubs have signed up to the new regulations, which come into force at the start of next season. "Traditionally, the rules were there to police racism at football matches," the spokeswoman said. "But homophobic abuse was something that has been highlighted to us, and we are taking a strong stand against it."

■ Rugby Union
Referee makes history
New Zealand referee Nicky Inwood will make history this weekend when she becomes the first woman to officiate in the Six Nations women's rugby match and the first woman to referee at Twickenham. The 37-year-old will control the match between England and Italy, the curtainraiser to the men's Six Nations match between the same two countries. Inwood represented the Black Ferns between 1989 and 1991 and has refereed at the women's World Cup tournaments in Barcelona in 2002 and Edmonton last year.

■ Soccer
Liverpool, Everton fined
Liverpool were fined £14,000 (US$27,500) and Everton £10,000 by a Football Association disciplinary commission on Thursday following a mass confrontation involving players from both sides in a reserve match last October. The Merseyside clubs admitted charges of failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion and were warned as to their future conduct by the commission. Those charges incurred fines of £10,000 each, while Liverpool were punished to the tune of an additional £4,000 fine on a separate charge of failing to ensure players refrained from using violent and/or threatening behavior. The incident occurred after Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek was sent off for his reaction to a tackle by Victor Anichebe.


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