He finished seventh fastest, 3min 56sec slower than Armstrong.”Because of the wind the time trial was very tough, but there were great crowds and that helps a lot,” Millar said. “The long straights were psychologically difficult and because there was no end in sight it made the course even harder. I cannot say that I had a good Tour but I finished well, and I have learned a lot over the three weeks.”Millar, too, will be in Sydney for the big race against the clock, and so will Chris Boardman, who missed what would have been his last Tour which, but, Olympics apart, he has a new target before retirement. The world hour record-holder is attacking the world hour record mark set by Belgian legend Eddy Merckx 28 years ago. It is a case of attempting to put the record straight.Rule changes have eliminated the hi-tech bikes such as that used by Boardman to win Olympic gold in 1992 and set the world hour record at 56.375km. He wants to set a world hour record on a standard track bike and is aiming at Merckx’s mark, 49.431km, set at altitude in Mexico, and the last ridden on a standard bike.”Chris’s record is losing credibility because no one can attack it,” Boardman’s business manager, Peter Woodworth, said.. A commission probing corruption in South African cricket is to resume public hearings on 2 October, the commission’s secretary, John Bacon, announced yesterday.

A commission probing corruption in South African cricket is to resume public hearings on 2 October, the commission’s secretary, John Bacon, announced yesterday.
The probe, headed by the retired Judge, Edwin King, was set up after the national team captain, Hansie Cronje, admitted to taking a single illicit payment from a bookmaker, sparking the country’s biggest sporting scandal.Testifying before the commission last month, Cronje confessed to taking five separate payments totalling about $100,000 (£60,000) from gamblers and bookmakers and said a $20,000 deposit into his account could have been for match information as well. He has denied ever having fixed a match, however.Bacon said it had not yet been decided whether it was necessary to ask Cronje to appear at the hearing for a second time.”We haven’t determined who all the witnesses will be yet,” he said. A first round of hearings was adjourned on 26 June to give King time to write up an interim report for the county’s President, Thabo Mbeki, by 11 August.Bacon did not know how long the second round of hearings would last. “We want to sit until we are finished,” he said.The commission has still not managed to get access to tapes made by the Indian police of conversations Cronje had with bookmakers earlier this year – evidence that sparked the scandal “We are still battling.

We did write another letter and hopefully this time, we followed the correct procedure,” Bacon said “Hopefully this time we will be successful.”. Tax investigators wound up a two-day search of the homes and offices of leading Indian cricketers yesterday after sealing some bank lockers and seizing documents that could be incriminating, officials said. Tax investigators wound up a two-day search of the homes and offices of leading Indian cricketers yesterday after sealing some bank lockers and seizing documents that could be incriminating, officials said.
The raids were the latest chapter in a match-fixing scandal that has embarrassed cricket over the past few months.”All the searches were over early morning [yesterday] Some lockers have been sealed. They’ll be opened on Monday or Tuesday,” a senior income tax official, who asked not to be named, said. Asked if investigators had seized evidence that could show wrongdoing by players or cricket officials, the official said: “Some documents are incriminating”, but did not give other details.Kapil Dev, India’s national team coach, and the former captain, Mohammad Azharuddin, were among those targeted in the hunt for evidence of undisclosed income which began on Thursday.Officials visited 84 offices, including 36 in Delhi, in searches which were triggered by a series of revelations that surfaced after New Delhi police accused the former South Africa captain, Hansie Cronje, and three of his team-mates of “cheating, fraud and criminal conspiracy” during a one-day series in India last March.A C Muthiah, the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said he welcomed the raids but called for an early end to the crisis.