■ Snooker
Murphy through to last eight
Shaun Murphy booked his ticket into the last eight with an impressive 13-8 win over John Parrott at the snooker world championships in Sheffield, England, on Friday. The pair were all square at 8-8 going into the last session when Murphy fired in a 131 clearance and then another 60 to go 10-8 up and the 2005 winner went on to take the next three frames to clinch the win. Murphy said he had to hit top gear against Parrott after going into the final session level. "I just decided to go for it and obviously it paid off," Murphy said.
■ Yachting
Shosholoza comes good
South Africa's Team Shosholoza and France's Areva Challenge were the main winners and losers at the Louis Vuitton Cup on Friday. The pair met in round 11 of the first stage of the round robin matches with Areva holding a 100m cushion at the finish only for the hapless French to get disqualified on a technicality. "All their boat hadn't crossed the [virtual finish] line, the top of their mast didn't pass on the right side of the line," a spokesman for the race committee explained. Areva, who earlier had seen off United Internet Team Germany, remained eighth in the standings after their defeat, one place behind Team Shosholoza. But the French later announced they were appealing the decision.
■ Turtle racing
Billie wins Great Turtle Race
A leatherback turtle called Billie won the first Great Turtle Race from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands, swimming at a leisurely 5-6 kph, organizers said on Friday. Satellite tracking of 11 tagged turtles showed Billie sprinting away from the main group to make it first to the finish zone. Some 600,000 people logged on to the Web site of the two-week Pacific Ocean marathon (www.greatturtlerace.com), aimed at drawing attention to the endangered species whose numbers have plummeted 95 percent over the past 20 years. Sponsors paid US$25,000 to back a turtle.
■ Aussie Rules
Agency probes drugs tip-off
Australia's sports anti-drug agency said yesterday it was investigating a possible tip-off which gave an Australian Rules football team advance notice of random drug testing. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) said brothers Chad Cornes and Kane Cornes, both members of the Port Adelaide Power team, were told by their father Graham that ASADA officials were en route to the team's training ground to test some of the players. The call came after a radio station Graham Cornes works for, Adelaide's 5AA, was tipped off by an off-air caller. ASADA is looking into the matter to see if it can determine who called Russell Ebert, a radio colleague of Graham Cornes and an employee at the AFL team, and how the drug tests were compromised.
■ Golf
Women defy odds
Two amateur women golfers hit consecutive holes-in-one at a course in England, defying odds of a million to one, their club said on Friday. June Wiener, 75, and Sue Baskind, 61, both aced the 152-yard par-three 24th of the 27-hole course at the Moor Allerton Golf Club in Leeds, northern England during a four ball last weekend. "We were told the odds were a million to one -- I wish I'd had a pound on it," said Wiener, whose two artificial hips appear not to have hampered her golf swing. "We were so glad that there were two others with us as otherwise people wouldn't have believed us," she said.
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