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Sports Briefs

■ Cricket
Flintoff pays for night out
Andrew Flintoff was dropped for England's World Cup match against Canada on Sunday and stripped of the vice captaincy after a drunken night out. The England and Wales Cricket Board said Flintoff will not be considered for the England captaincy should Michael Vaughan be injured at any stage during the World Cup. Flintoff was alleged to have been out drinking until the early hours after Friday's loss to New Zealand. According to British media he had to be rescued from the ocean at 4am by hotel staff after taking a pedalo from a beach near the team's hotel following an eight-hour drinking session, paddling it out to sea and rocking it from side-to-side before it capsized.

■ Soccer
North Koreans go south
North Korea's under-17 squad will arrive today for a 12-day training session in South Korea in a further sign of warming relations on the peninsula. The squad will at Incheon International Airport before flying to the southern holiday island of Jeju, officials from the Korea Football Association said. They will focus on preparations for the FIFA U-17 World Cup which South Korea will host this summer, said an association official quoted by Yonhap news agency. The North Koreans will play various friendlies with university and high school teams from tomorrow to Saturday before meeting the South Korean national under-17 team on March 30. The squad will move from Jeju to the southwestern city of Gwangju and then to Suwon just south of Seoul before finishing their training in the capital.

■ Rugby Union
Lomu to play in Hong Kong
All Black legend Jonah Lomu will be the star attraction at a tournament in Hong Kong at the end of next week, 11 years after his last competitive appearance in the city where he made his name. The giant winger, who has 63 international caps, played in two World Cups and recovered from a kidney transplant, will turn out for an HSBC New Zealand Legends team at a Tens tournament on March 28-29. It was while playing at the Hong Kong Sevens in 1994 at the age of 18 that Lomu first sprang to global attention. He last played there in 1996. "Hong Kong holds some special memories for me, and I'm looking forward to playing there again with some of my old mates in the Legends side," Lomu said.

■ Soccer
PSG slip deeper into trouble
Paris St Germain slipped deeper into relegation trouble with a dire 1-0 defeat at Rennes on Sunday. PSG's season hit a new low following their midweek loss to Benfica in the UEFA Cup, which ended their last hopes of ending the season with any silverware, and now this sorry reverse which sees them firmly rooted one place off the bottom of the French first division. Jimmy Briand scored Rennes's winner 14 minutes from time to condemn the visitors to their fourth league defeat in a row. Sammy Traore could hardly be faulted as he headed bravely against the bar two minutes from time despite blood seeping through a bandage from an ugly head wound. But Paul Le Guen's men could not save themselves from defeat.

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