Briefs | Skicross will debut at Vancouver Games

Olympics

Skicross a go, women's ski jumping will wait: The rough-and-tumble freestyle event of skicross is in for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Women's ski jumping will have to wait to be considered for 2014.

The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday approved skicross — similar to snowboard cross — for the Vancouver Games, but rejected women's jumping and five other events.

The IOC executive board also overhauled the process for selecting sports for future Summer Games, and partially lifted its freeze on payments to the international amateur boxing association to encourage reforms in judging and scoring.

Skicross involves groups of skiers racing each other to the bottom of a course with jumps, rollers, banks and other manmade and natural terrain features.

Beijing will have doping tests for 4,000-plus: More than 4,000 doping tests will be carried out during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a 25 percent increase from the 2004 Athens Games and nearly double the amount from the 2000 Sydney Games.

Tennis

Venus says she never committed to "Battle of the Sexes": Venus Williams insists she never committed to play against men in a 2001 "Battle of the Sexes" event, and such a splashy exhibition did not interest her.

"That wasn't my thing," she testified in a breach-of-contract lawsuit in West Palm Beach, Fla. "I'm a professional women's tennis player. I want to play serious tennis."

Williams spent a second day on the witness stand in a lawsuit brought by promoters Carol Clarke and Keith Rhodes. Also testifying was her sister, Serena.

Skiing

Italian has fastest training time: Italy's Nadia Fanchini clocked the fastest time in opening training on for the first Alpine World Cup women's downhill of the season in Lake Louise, Alberta.

Fanchini, bidding to follow in the ski tracks of her sister Elena, who claimed her maiden World Cup win on the Olympic course last year, charged down the sun-kissed trail on a bitterly cold day in 1 minute, 54.41 seconds.

Men's training cancelled: Training for the men's Alpine skiing World Cup races in Beaver Creek, Colo., was cancelled because of too much snow.

Soccer

Real Salt Lake gets sponsor for front of jerseys: Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake became the first professional U.S. sports team to sell a sponsorship on the front of its jersey in an agreement with XanGo, a nutritional juice drink.

Financial terms of the agreement with Lehi, Utah-based XanGo weren't disclosed. MLSNet.com said the package was worth more than $4 million.

The agreement "represents a significant threshold in the continued growth and popularity of professional soccer in the U.S.," MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. XanGo's name will appear on the jerseys beginning in the 2007 season under the agreement.

No other U.S. professional sports league allows advertising on team jerseys, a practice accepted in soccer around the world.

Golf

First drug tests negative: The first drug tests conducted at an international golf championship all produced negative results, top officials of the two organizers said.

The tests at last month's World Amateur Team Championships in Stellenbosch, South Africa, failed to find any signs of steroids or recreational drugs, said David Fay, U.S. Golf Association executive director, and Peter Dawson, Royal & Ancient Golf Club secretary.

Boxing

Hopkins not ready to retire: Just six months after retiring from the ring, Bernard Hopkins has decided he is not ready to hang up his gloves after all.

Instead, the long-time middleweight champion wants to win the heavyweight title, and has targeted World Boxing Council champion Oleg Maskaev of Kazakhstan.

Seattle Times news services