“THE heathers will be blazing in Wexford tonight,” Irish coach Billy Walsh predicted as he embraced fellow county man Adam Nolan, who yesterday became the second man from the Model County to qualify for an Olympic Games — Billy himself having qualified for the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Alert Ryan Tubridy, engage Ian Dempsey, trouble Ray D’arcy and dispatch Paul Collins from barracks; we may have another bandwagon to mobilise.

IT is probably inevitable that we will be told that the Chinese are exploiting the Olympic Games for their own political purposes, as if the Americans, the Germans, the Russians, the British, or all the others had not done so already.

The athletics coach at the centre of the BALCO scandal is expected in a United States district court in San Francisco today.

The Olympic torch arrived today in South Korea on the latest leg of its world tour, with demonstrators vowing to disrupt its run through the city that hosted the 1988 Summer Games.

The Irish men's heavyweight four of Alan Martin (NUIG), Sean Casey (Muckross), Cormac Folan (NUIG) and Sean O'Neill (St.Michael's) have sensationally qualified the boat for next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

SHAMED sprinter Ben Johnson has claimed 40% of sportsmen are using performance-enhancing drugs.

Shamed sprinter Ben Johnson has claimed 40% of sportsmen are using performance-enhancing drugs.

OLYMPIC gold medallist Dr Steven Martin, MBE, has been appointed Chief Executive of the Olympic Council of Ireland.

Ray Ryan, Agribusiness Correspondent

DURING the Cold War, governments used sport for political ends. The communists pointed to the successes of their athletes as proof of the superiority of their system.

CATHAL LOMBARD, the 28-year-old Cork runner, has acknowledged that he tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug, EPO.

IT IS ironic that a word as cumbersome as tetrahydrogestrinone should be the name of a drug so easy to digest.

Lennox Lewis insists he has parted company with his long-time manager Frank Maloney on good terms.