ATHLETICS… Sebastian Coe has been elected a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations this week. The Chairman of the London 2012 organising committee, was elected at a meeting of the IAAF Congress in Osaka. Sergey Bubka of Ukraine, American Robert Hersh and Dahlan Al-Hamad from Qatar will also serve four-year terms as vice-presidents. More @ www.ukathletics.net
BASKETBALL… Basketball continues its positive run as Great Britain began their European qualifying campaign with a 77-52 win over Slovakia in Birmingham. NBA star Luol Deng scored 21 points on his return to international basketball. Great Britain now have a week of training, some of it in Belgium, ahead of their second qualifying game, against Group B leaders Holland in Almere. More @ www.basketballgb.com
BEACH VOLLEYBALL… Blackpool is set to host the first-ever floodlit international beach volleyball tournament to be held in the UK this September. Leading players from the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Greece and Spain will contest the Blackpool International Beach Volleyball 2007, hot off the FIVB World Tour and World Championships, where the first Olympic qualifying places for Beijing will have been achieved. More @ www.volleyballengland.org
CANOEING… This weekend saw slalom paddlers preparing for the Olympics in a test event held at the newly opened Beijing Olympic venue. Eight of the potential GB athletes competed against an international field, and left satisfied after finishing the event with four top ten overall positions, as well as having more knowledge on the course and conditions they are likely to encounter in 2008. More @ www.canoe2007.org.cn
CYCLING… Nicole Cooke set a new record by winning her eighth national title in nine years after victory at the British Road Race championships in Essex. Sunday's win has also boosted her chances of claiming the season-long World Cup for a third time with two rounds to go, "It took a lot of hard work, and it's satisfying to take the win," she said. Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Cooke's run of eight wins started back in 1999, and victory at the World Championships in September would cap off a stellar year. More @ www.britishcycling.org.uk
DISABILITY CYCLING… Britain are second in the medal table after three days of competition at the Para-Cycling World Championships in France, having won five gold, one silver and one bronze medal. Paralympic champion Darren Kenny has led the way so far winning gold in both the CP3 3000m pursuit and the CP3 1km time trial, in which he also set a new world record of 1:13.011. Britain's Rik Waddon also put in a superb performance in the time trial to take the silver. There was also a top performance from Jody Cundy, who blew away the opposition in the LC2 kilo with a world record ride of 1:08.719. In the B and VI classifications there were gold-medal winning performances from both Britain's men and women, with duo Anthony Kappes and Barney Storey taking gold in the 1km time trial before Paralympic champions Aileen Mcglynn and Ellen Hunter repeated the success to take also take gold. Britain's Sarah Bailey also picked up a medal, despite suffering from a broken collarbone, taking home bronze in the LC1 500m time trial. More @ www.paralympics.org.uk
GLIDING… Pete Harvey has successfully defended his Open Class title at the European Gliding Championships which finished on Saturday at Issoudun in central France. Harvey had been engaged in a ding dong battle with German pilot Uli Schwenk over the course of the two week long competition but a third place in the final race was sufficient to give Harvey the title for the second time in a row and a third consecutive medal in the competition. World Champion Leigh Wells took the bronze medal in the 15m class. More @ www.glidingteam.co.uk
GYMNASTICS… British Gymnastics have announced the Women's and Men's squads to take part in the 40th World Championships in Artistic Gymnastics in Stuttgart, Germany, this September. Out of the 24 Men's and 24 Women's Teams who passed successfully through last year's first round of the Qualifications, only the top 12 will receive visas for Beijing. More @ www.british-gymnastics.org
HOCKEY… England's men failed to make the semi-finals at the EuroHockey Nations Championship in Manchester after losing 3-0 to Germany. The result also puts the team's Beijing aspirations on hold until early 2008 where England will have a further chance at Olympic qualification in either in New Zealand, Chile or Japan. More @ www.eurohockeymanchester2007.com
LONDON 2012… Organisers of the 2012 London Olympics are to allow more businesses the chance to back the games financially, by expanding sponsorship categories over eight sectors. Organising committee LOCOG now has eight top sponsor categories, after creating one for clothing and homeware. Existing categories are sportswear, airline, automotive, banking, telecoms, utilities, and oil and gas. It is hoped sponsorship will raise £2bn towards staging the 2012 games, with EDF and Lloyds TSB already confirming their support. More @ www.london2012.org
MAJOR EVENTS… Philip Riddle, Chief Executive of VisitScotland this week announced the appointment of Paul Bush OBE as Chief Operating Officer at EventScotland, the national events agency. Paul's experience comes from an extensive career in sport, where he worked as a coach, development officer, team manager, chief executive and previously as Deputy at EventScotland. Philip Riddle said: "Paul brings a wealth of experience to this important post. Events are crucial to Scotland's tourism industry, attracting visitors from home and abroad and making a significant contribution to our national economy. Scotland has gained a justified reputation as a fantastic location for events large and small, and EventScotland under Paul's leadership is set to develop this even further." More @ www.eventscotland.org
MODERN PENTATHLON… Great Britain struck gold in the women's team relay event at Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Berlin on Monday. The team of Katy Livingston, Mhairi Spence and Lindsey Weedon held off a strong finish by the Polish team to take the victory. Mhairi Spence ran the first leg, passing to Katy Livingston, with Lindsey Weedon holding off Poland's 2006 individual World Champion Marta Dziadura. More @ www.pentathlon.org
ORIENTEERING… The World Orienteering Championships continue this week in Kiev, Ukraine, with Rachael Elder and Jenny Johnson producing the highest placing in the British team in equal 23rd in the middle distance final. In the Long final World Champion, Jamie Stevenson, is looking to collect his fourth World Championships medal and improve on his 8th place from 2004. More @ www.britishorienteering.org.uk
SWIMMING… Caitlin McClatchey won a bronze medal in the 400m freestyle at the Japan International, and in the process came very close to breaking her own British record at the event in Chiba. Kris Gilchrist was also in good form breaking the Scottish record in the final of the men's 100m breaststroke. More @ www.britishswimming.org
TABLE TENNIS… Great Britain number one Paul Drinkhall added to his growing reputation as one of the best young table tennis players in the world when he took the gold medal at the ITTF World Junior Series in El Salvador. Drinkhall and Darius Knight then went on to beat the Chinese Taipei left handers Chen and Yeh Chin-Wei to become doubles champions. More @ www.englishtabletennis.org.uk
TRIATHLON… The Corus British Triathlon Team, which will compete at the 2007 BG Triathlon World Championships in Hamburg, Germany from 31 August to 2 September, was announced this week. Great Britain will have at least 16 representatives racing at the event across a range of levels including Senior, U23 and Junior. Tim Don will start as one of the favourites in Hamburg as he looks to defend his World title from Lausanne. The senior women's race will see an exciting head to head between reigning champion, Emma Snowsill from Australia, and Portugal's Vanessa Fernandes. Britain's Michelle Dillon and Andrea Whitcombe are both medal prospects. More @ www.britishtriathlon.org
WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL… Great Britain's men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams will be playing for Paralympic qualification at next week's European Championships in Germany. The men were second at the last European Championships in 2005 but could only finish fifth in last year's World Championships. Eleven of the squad heading to Germany featured at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in May. Meanwhile the women, who finished fourth in 2005, will take on Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey in the round-robin preliminaries. More @ www.paralympics.org.uk
