SALVO, North Carolina (Reuters) – Struggling Russian Olympic pole vault champion and world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva said Saturday she would take an indefinite break from competition.

“I have been thinking over this very carefully the last three weeks and now come to the conclusion that a break from competing is absolutely necessary for me,” the 27-year-old said in a statement released by her agent.

“After more than eight years of very hard training and competing at the highest levels both indoors and outdoors each year I need to step back in order for my body to properly recover.”

The many-times world record holder announced her decision a month after failing to win a medal at the world indoor championships in Doha.

The failure marked the second consecutive world championship at which she had performed poorly. She did not clear a height at last year’s world outdoor championships in Berlin.

“It is my full intention to continue training and keep myself fit,” said Isinbayeva, who holds the world outdoor record at 5.06 meters and the indoor mark at 5.00.

“At this moment I cannot exactly say when I will return to competitions.”

SALVO, North Carolina (Reuters) – Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt’s 100 meters race with Jamaican compatriot Asafa Powell is proof the Diamond League will bring athletics to center stage, an official of the new circuit said on Monday.

According to Patrick Magyar, vice chairman of the Diamond League board and organizer of the Zurich meeting, the series will be for athletics what Formula One is to motor racing and the grand slam is to tennis.

“If you want to see the best, you are going to watch the Diamond League and the big championships,” Magyar told Reuters by telephone from Switzerland.

Bolt and Powell, the current and former 100 meters world record holders, will go head-to-head July 16 in Paris, organizers said on Monday in the first announced key match-up for the Diamond League.

“There will be more,” said Magyar, who was instrumental in forming the 14-meeting global circuit which launches May 14 in Doha.

Bolt, American record holder Tyson Gay and Powell — the three fastest men ever over 100 meters — are under contract to make seven Diamond League appearances with one guaranteed to compete in each of the 14 meetings.

Several competitions will feature two of the three sprinters and a select few will headline all three.

DOHA (Reuters) – The IAAF will recommend the U.S. women’s 2004 Olympic 4×400 meters relay team be stripped of its gold medal because of the doping suspension of relay alternate Crystal Cox, federation spokesman Nick Davies said on Monday.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has begun a disciplinary procedure involving Cox and the U.S. relay team, and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Council agreed the team’s result should be disqualified under its 2004 rules, Davis told reporters after a council meeting in Doha.

If the IOC accepts the IAAF recommendation, Russia would become the new Olympic champion and Jamaica would move up to the silver medal.

Cox was suspended for four years in January by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and all her competitive results since 2001 were disqualified because she used banned anabolic agents and hormones between 2001 and 2004, USADA said.

She ran in the preliminary round of the 2004 Olympics with the team of Monique Henderson, Monique Hennagan, Sanya Richards and Deedee Trotter later winning the final.

All would lose their gold medals under IAAF rules in place at the time.

Cox later denied using performance-enhancing drugs, saying in an email to family and friends she was innocent but signed the sanction because she did not have the financial resources to fight the charges.

DOHA (Reuters) – Cuban outdoor world record-holder Dayron Robles won a speedy 60 meters hurdles final to share the world indoor championships spotlight with a faltering Yelena Isinbayeva and Frenchman Teddy Tamgho on Sunday.

Robles equaled the third-fastest 60 meters hurdles of all-time with his run of 7.34 seconds for a photo-finish win over Terrence Trammell, who was two-hundredths of a second behind to tie the American record.

“The world indoor record (Briton Colin Jackson’s 7.30 in 1994) will fall one day,” said Robles, whose best time is 7.33 seconds.

“I am as excited as breaking the world (outdoor) record,” the Olympic 110 meters hurdles champion added.

American David Oliver took third and Chinese defending champion Liu Xiang, who continues to recover from Achilles surgery, was seventh.

SECOND FAILURE

Isinbayeva left the championships perplexed after unexpectedly crashing out of a second consecutive global championship without a medal.

DOHA (Reuters) – Kenyan-born American Bernard Lagat won his second 3,000 meters title six years after the first with a stirring last lap at the world indoor championships on Sunday.

Lagat, 35, surged past defending champion Tariku Bekele of Ethiopia with slightly more than a lap to go and handily won in seven minutes 37.97 seconds.

Spain’s Sergio Sanchez took second in 7:39.55 with Kenyan Sammy Mutahi third.

Bekele, the brother of Ethiopian distance great Kenenisa Bekele, faded to fourth.

“My kids woke up at 7 a.m in the morning to watch their daddy,” Lagat said. “So I needed to show them something.”

The former double outdoor world champion thrust his right arm into the air in celebration more than 20 meters from the finish and repeated it again before crossing the line in his season’s best time.

Abubaker Kaki of Sudan retained his title in the men’s 800, running 1:46.23 to Kenyan silver medalist Boaz Lalang’s 1:46:39.

DOHA (Reuters) – Dwain Chambers claimed his first global sprint title and Jessica Ennis posted the fourth-best pentathlon score of all-time on a golden day for Britain at the world indoor championships on Saturday.

Chambers, banned for doping for two years in 2003, won the 60 meters with the year’s fastest sprint time, an impressive 6.48 seconds.

American Mike Rodgers took second in 6.53 with Antigua’s Daniel Bailey third at 6.57.

“I will enjoy this moment for a while and will work hard,” said Chambers, who hopes to win the European 100 meters title this summer. “I’m so grateful to be here.”

World heptathlon champion Ennis won the pentathlon with 4,937 points.

Only world record holder Irina Belova of Russia and Sweden’s Carolina Kluft have posted better scores than the 24-year-old Briton. She topped Kluft’s championship record by four points.

“I know the world record is within reach,” said Ennis, who had victories in the 60 meters hurdles and high jump, a season’s best in the shot put and personal bests in the long jump and the concluding 800 meters.

DOHA (Reuters) – Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang’s chances of defending his world indoor title this weekend are almost impossible, one of his country’s top coaches said on Wednesday.

“He felt he should come,” Feng Shuyong, technical leader of the Chinese world championship team, said of Liu’s first global meeting since a heartbreaking Achilles injury left him unable to start the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“But the purpose of coming here is not to go for the medals. It’s almost impossible,” Feng told Reuters in a telephone interview. “He just likes to experience the atmosphere of the championships.

“There may still be a chance for a medal but I think it will be quite difficult.

Slow recovery from his Achilles surgery plus a recent cold have left Liu in not very good shape, said Feng, who has closely followed the former world record holder and 2004 Olympic champion’s career.

“He is getting better slowly but there are still problems,” the coach said. “When he does high intensity training, it needs two or three days to recover.”

The U.S. doctor who performed Liu’s surgery said test results during a visit showed the tendon was good but noted more time would be needed for full recovery.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Ivory Williams, America’s newest sprint champion, knows all too well how mental errors can destroy dreams.

A year ago the 2004 world junior champion went to the U.S. indoor nationals primed for victory but a false start left him on the sidelines while training partner Mark Jelks roared to the 60 meters title.

“He was probably physically ready (to win) last year, but he was mentally not ready,” Al Hobson, Williams’s coach, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Kansas City last week.

“The two critical times people could have recognized him, there was a goof-up, mental mistakes,” Hobson said of Williams’s false start indoors and slow start at the U.S. outdoor nationals that left him seventh in the 100 meters.

So the coach, who was retired world-record holder Maurice Greene’s early tutor, worked on patience, starting and strength with Williams.

The reward came on February 28 in the sprinter-friendly thin air of high-altitude Albuquerque, New Mexico. A solid start, now Williams’s trademark, sent the 24-year-old to the year’s fastest 60 meters, with a personal best of 6.49 seconds, at the U.S. championships.

The triumph was Williams’s fifth consecutive win of the season and thrust him into a favourite’s role for this week’s IAAF world indoor championships in Doha, Qatar.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Major League Baseball is planning to begin blood testing of minor league players for the banned substance human growth hormone (HGH) later this year, anti-doping sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Major League Baseball (MLB) said it was consulting experts on the issue “concerning immediate steps for our minor league drug program” but a source familiar with the plans said he understood the tests would definitely be implemented.

“The commissioner remains committed to the position that we must act aggressively to deal with the issue of HGH,” MLB said in a statement adding that it was also considering “the next steps for our major league drug program.”

The National Football League (NFL) also has proposed blood testing its players for HGH, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

“Our position is that HGH blood-testing has advanced to the point where we are taking steps to incorporate it into our program,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the newspaper.

The NFL Players Association (NFLPA), who must consent to the testing, said in a statement to Reuters it looked forward to discussing the proposal at its next meeting with the league.

Baseball’s decision follows this week’s announcement that a British rugby league player had been suspended for testing positive for HGH, which athletes use to boost their performance.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – NBA All-Stars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were among nine members of the gold-medal winning 2008 U.S. Olympic team named to the 2010-12 U.S. men’s national team program Wednesday.

Players from the 27-member pool will be eligible to play for the U.S. team in the 2010 world championships and, assuming the Americans qualify, the 2012 London Olympic Games.

“I think we have taken a step up from the last quad (quadrant),” team head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who led the U.S. to the Beijing gold, told a teleconference.

“We’ve got a great mix of players who are now experienced in the international game and some of the most promising and exciting players coming up though the USA Basketball program,” Krzyzewski, the Duke University coach, said in an earlier statement.

Fellow 2008 Olympic gold medalists Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets, Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz, Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets, Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat and Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz joined Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers) and James (Cleveland Cavaliers) on the team.

“The reason they’re back is because they are deserving of being back,” said USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo.

“Their performance in Beijing was truly a team effort in every respect, he said, “and if you can keep something going like that, you do.”