By Joe Finegan

A massive homecoming is planned for the Irish Special Olympics Team tomorrow as they arrive into Dublin airport with a terrific total of 107 medals from the Athens games.

THE Irish Sports Council (ISC) is pressing ahead with its Beijing review without the involvement of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), an ISC spokesman confirmed last night.

AFTER covering 50 kilometres in 4:15.16, it took Jamie Costin almost 90 minutes to cross the 200 or so yards from the Olympic finishing line to the interview zone.

THE same 100 metres stretch of track which Usain Bolt made his playground on Saturday became the graveyard of Derval O’Rourke’s Olympic ambitions yesterday.

Michael Phelps will become the most successful athlete at one Olympics by winning eight gold medals in Beijing, according to Mark Spitz - the man he is bidding to overtake.

Mark Spitz expects to be displaced as the most successful swimmer at one Olympics when fellow American Michael Phelps bids for eight gold medals at the Beijing Games.

Steeped in the past achievements of legends like Barry McGuigan and Wayne McCullough, Ireland’s five-strong boxing squad heads to Beijing in fine shape to add their own chapter to their nation’s illustrious fighting history.

The Irish team for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing was officially announced by Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen in Dublin today.

IF Cathal Lombard qualifies for the Olympic Games in Beijing then the Olympic Council of Ireland will give consideration his participation.

LIVERPOOL legend Tommy Smith has blasted AC Milan ahead of tonight’s Champions League final and insists the Italian giants should not even be in the competition.

Swimming Australia have defended Ian Thorpe following allegations a 2006 dope test showed abnormally high levels of banned substances.

IT HAS been a long time coming, but Irish Olympic boxer Andy Lee will try and savour every second of his professional debut in Detroit tonight.

Olympic sprint champion Darren Campbell claims he can help Jonah Lomu rediscover the form that made him one of the most imposing figures in world sport.

Olympic sprint champion Darren Campbell claims he can help Jonah Lomu rediscover the form that made him one of the most imposing figures in world sport.

Paula Radcliffe admits nothing can ever compensate for last year’s Olympic misery but believes the strength she has subsequently acquired will serve her well at the forthcoming World Championships in Helsinki.

SEBASTIEN COE was in a unique position to chair the London 2012 bid — it was a wonder that the authorities took so long to realise it.

SHOWJUMPER Cian O’Connor was yesterday officially stripped of his Olympic gold medal because his horse failed a drugs test.

Irish showjumper Cian O’Connor was today officially stripped of his Olympic gold medal because his horse failed a drugs test.

World 100 metres record holder Asafa Powell will take on Olympic champions Justin Gatlin and Shawn Crawford as well as world sprint champion Kim Collins in a world-class 100m in Rome next month.

NOW that Cian O'Connor has been cleared of any deliberate wrongdoing, although he has been stripped of his Olympic gold medal from the Athens games, he should call a spade a spade and hand back the once glittering prize which is now so tarnished as to make it worthless.

Greek coach Christos Tzekos took the blame today for the drugs scandal which engulfed the Olympic Games as his star athletes Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou were cleared.

There is no easy fix to ensure Irish athletes match ever-increasing international sporting standards, it was claimed today.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge believes there will always be a doping problem but claims great advances have been made to stamp out cheating in sport.

ANDREW BREE will continue to swim for Ireland despite failing to make the country’s Olympic team this year.

Multiple swimming world record holder Ian Thorpe believes athletics would not be embroiled in the ongoing Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) drugs scandal if officials had dealt with the drugs issue earlier.

Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou have been charged with avoiding a drugs test on the eve of the Athens Olympics and of faking a motorcycle accident hours later.

Olympic showjumper Cian O’Connor could lose Ireland’s only gold medal from the Athens Games after a second blood sample from his horse tested positive for banned substances.

THE Irish Sports Council and the Irish Amateur Boxing Association are battling to keep Andy Lee from turning professional until after the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Moroccan middle-distance star Hicham El Guerrouj has announced he plans to retire in 2006.

OLYMPIC gold medallist Cian O’Connor is innocent until proven otherwise, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern urged yesterday.

CIAN O’CONNOR insisted last night he was not a drug cheat as Irish sport was rocked by a fresh doping scandal.

SHAMED former Olympic hopeful Cathal Lombard can only be made pay back a fraction of the State sports grants he received before he was banned for a doping offence.

Two Paralympic athletes from Azerbaijan have been banned for life after failing drugs tests at the Athens Paralympics, organisers announced today.

Ireland's Paralympics team was celebrating its first medal at the Athens Games tonight as Clareman Derek Malone produced a fast finish for bronze in the T38 800m final.

The defrocked Irish priest who sabotaged the Olympic Marathon vowed today that his illegal stunt days are over.

IT was a measure of Ireland’s lacklustre Olympic performance — with the glittering exception of Cian O’Connor and his horse Waterford Crystal — that yesterday’s homecoming was overshadowed by the manic behaviour of an ex-priest and the controversy raging around Pat Hickey, Irish Olympic Council president.

Gold medal winner Cian O’Connor leads the homecoming today for a 39-strong Irish Olympic team.

British sprinter Abi Oyepitan aimed a cheeky taunt at Maurice Greene after Britain’s 4x100metres relay quartet had pulled off a stunning victory over the USA.

Hicham El Guerrouj completed a second golden double of the night as victory in the men’s 5,000metres final created his own piece of history.

Kelly Holmes has won her second gold medal for Great Britain in the women’s 1500metres final.

Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou will be free to compete following the Olympic Games after the IAAF today launched an inquiry into their missed drugs test.

Alistair Cragg, Ireland's second track finalist of the Athens Games, has played down his chances of success in Saturday's 5000m final.

A search of a warehouse used by the coach at the centre of a doping scandal involving Greece’s star sprinters uncovered small amounts of anabolic steroids. a government agency said.