Australia

The best rugby players from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa want to form a combined Southern Hemisphere team to play the British Lions during their tour of Australia this year.

Communications firm Telstra has secured a naming rights deal for the 2001 International Soccer Expo, to be held in Australia in June.

Troubled sports and entertainment internet group Quokka Sports has been forced to lay off 59 percent of its 369 employees.

Olympic chiefs are worried about the high numbers of top-class competitors taking steroid-based drugs for asthma at The Games which was at least six times greater than the normal average at last year's Sydney Games.

English rugby union players are demanding changes to next season's calendar in order to reduce the number of games they play for club and country.

In New Zealand the upcoming All Black rugby tests against Argentina, Ireland and Scotland could struggle to find a decent sized television audience after it was revealed that the latest broadcasting rights had been sold to newcomer TelstraSaturn.

Australia?s Seven Network is eyeing up the country?s National Basketball League (NBL) broadcast rights in the event of it losing the broadcast rights to Australian Football League (AFL) matches.

The Salt Lake City bribery scandal is likely to haunt the next president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in his first year in charge, according to prospective candidate Jacques Rogge.

Eight countries - including France, Spain and Britain - are forming a breakaway European governing body for triathlon, the sport which made its Olympic debut at the Sydney Games.

The vice-president of the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE) has resigned after allegations that Spain's Olympic delegation included athletes with no handicaps to boost the country's medal tally in Sydney.

The eight quarter-finalists from the 1999 World Cup will be granted automatic qualification for the 2003 tournament in Australia and New Zealand, the International Rugby Board said on Friday.

Melbourne, which already boasts the leading facilities in Australia for tennis and Formula One racing, may soon become the home of a new world-class ice skating facility.

Organisers of the Rugby League World Cup are hoping for an upturn in the event?s fortunes after dire weather and disruptions to UK train services caused chaos over the first weekend of matches.

South African golfer Ernie Els has signed an investment and 10-year exclusive partnership deal with EighteenGlobal, the international golf company.

Eurosport, the leading pan-European sports channel, has smashed a series of Olympic records following their continuous coverage of the Sydney Games.

Russian Olympic officials have warned that a shake-up is urgently needed if the country is to keep pace with other leading nations.