Coach drowns in Hussain Sagar

Hyderabad: S.P.S. Yadav, the rowing coach of the Andhra Pradesh state team, drowned in the Hussain Sagar Lake while overseeing arrangements for the Asian Rowing Championships beginning here on Tuesday.

Yadav, a lancenaik with EME, fell down from the boat and drowned four days ago but his body was fished out only on Saturday. He was cremated on Sunday.

F1 theme park in Dubai

Shanghai: Dubai plans to build a $360 million Formula One theme park with work getting underway next year, Bernie Ecclestone said on Sunday. The park, at Motorcity, the Emirate?s existing race track, will cover five million square feet and include a hotel and conference centres. Despite having a track, Dubai is not on the Grand Prix calendar. The only race in the Middle East takes place in Bahrain.

The park is due to be finished in 2008, which could open the door for Ecclestone to approve the staging of a race in the UAE.

Rossi, Pedrosa triumph

Phillip Island: Valentino Rossi won his 11th MotoGP of the season and Daniel Pedrosa took his second successive 250cc world title after his nearest rival crashed out at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Rossi equalled his personal best for victories in a season, just one from the record of 12 set by Mick Doohan in 1997. It was the Italian?s fifth successive win at the Phillip Island track.

Haile, Dulecha win

Amsterdam: Two-time Olympic 10,000m champion Haile Gebrselassie won the Amsterdam Marathon on Sunday but failed to better the two-year-old world mark. The 32-year-old Ethiopian clocked a course record of 2::6:20 in his second race over 42.195 kms.Kenyan Paul Tergat, second to Gebrselassie over 10,000m at two Olympic Games and two world championships, set the world mark of 2:04:55 in Berlin on September 28, 2003.

Kutre Dulecha completed an Ethiopian double by winning the women?s race in 2:30:06.

Record crowd in France

Paris: French club rugby set a national crowd record for a regular-season match in any sport as Stade Francais inflicted the first defeat of the season on European champions Stade Toulousain at the Stade de France on Saturday. The stadium was packed with 79,454 people, comfortably beating the previous national club record held by Olympique Marseille of 57,603 supporters for a soccer match against Paris Saint-Germain at the Stade Velodrome in 1998.

Vaidisova best

Bangkok: Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic ground out a 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5 win over Russian top seed Nadia Petrova to win the Thailand Open on Sunday. The 16-year-old Vaidisova?s victory extended her winning streak to 15 matches, including three straight titles including the Korea and Japan Opens.

Sunil, Vijay to take part

New Delhi: The presence of former national champions Sunil Kumar Sipaeya and Vijay Kannan has added to the flavour of the DSCL open National Tennis Championship beginning at the DLTA complex here Monday.

Some of the second-rung Indian players like Karan Rastogi, Vinod Sridhar and Vishaal Uppal are not participating.

In the women's event, Isha Lakhani has been given the top billing. The former national champion should find herself ready to win it again.

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