Frankfurt - A record number of competing nations are expected at the alpine ski and Nordic ski world championships early next year, the international ski federation FIS said Thursday.

Athletes from 67 nations will be competing at the alpine ski world championships at the French resort of Val d'Isere between February 2 and 15.

The Nordic ski event at the Czech resort of Liberec between February 18 and March 1 has attracted competitors from 55 nations.

Monte Carlo - The IAAF, the governing body of world athletics, has imposed two-year doping bans on eight Russian athletes for testing positive for the banned blood-booster EPO.

It emerged Thursday that the athletes include Vladimir Kanaikin, the 20-kilometre walk world record holder, and Alexei Voyevodin,
50km walk bronze medalist at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Last month, seven Russian athletes were suspended for two years by the Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) for tampering with doping samples.

The athletes named included Yelena Soboleva, who earlier this year set a world indoor record in the women's 1,500 metres and two-time world 1,500 champion Tatyana Tomashova.

London - Liverpool will be hoping to regain top spot from Chelsea, for 24 hours at least, this weekend when they take on West Bromwich Albion in the latest round of fixtures in the English Premier League.

Rafael Benitez's side suffered their first defeat of the season last weekend when they went down 2-1 at Tottenham Hotspur and laboured to a 1-1 draw with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League in midweek.

But with Chelsea, who lead the table from Liverpool on goal difference, not in action until Sunday, the Anfield side know that three points will restore their place at the top and continue their impressive start to the season.

London, Nov 6 : Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton had an emotional homecoming at the McLaren headquarters where he expressed his gratitude to 1800 employee who contributed in shaping his future, and said he is not going to leave the F1 team.

“All of these trophies are your hard work. We’ve won together, we’ve lost together and now we are world champions,” The Telegraph quoted Hamilton, as saying.

Los Angeles - Frenchman Tony Parker was unstoppable, and the San Antonio Spurs are no longer win-less.

Parker poured in a career-high 55 points, and the visiting Spurs outlasted the Minnesota Timberwolves 129-125 in double overtime on Wednesday night.

At 0-3, the four-time NBA Champion Spurs were off to their worst start since the 1973-74 campaign when they played in the old ABA. However, Parker put an end to that, hitting 22-of-36 field goals, mostly on a mixture of layups and soft jumpers.

Lahore, Nov 6: Perhaps under ICC pressure against a proposal to appoint former Pakistan Test captain Salim Malik as the head coach of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), the PCB last evening said that it never appointed or offered to appoint him as the coach.

Malik, who had a life ban for alleged involvement in match-fixing overturned last month, had said on Tuesday that he had accepted an offer from the PCB to become head coach at the NCA.