Horse Racing: Fiery Australian jockey Danny Nikolic has been banned from thoroughbred horse racing for two years for making threats against the chief steward of Victoria state. A racing tribunal last month found the 37-year-old guilty of threatening steward Terry Bailey and his family at a race meeting in Seymour, near Mel-bourne. Nikolic had pleaded not guilty to the charges and alleged Bailey had issued his own threat to derail his career but an appeals board yesterday upheld the verdict.

Basket, NBA: Newcomers Dwight Howard and Steve Nash joined Los Angeles Lakers for Monday’s first day of training camp as Kobe Bryant looks for a sixth career NBA title and Pau Gasol bids for his third. The Lakers signed Canadian Nash, a veteran point guard still seeking his first NBA crown, in the off-season and added centre Howard from Orlando in a four-team deal last August to become a favourite in the championship quest. “All the pieces fit. We all do different things,” Bryant said. “We all fit together naturally. We just have to keep doing the things we have been doing our entire careers.”

Cricket: England captain Stuart Broad has admitted his inexperienced team was “not good enough” after the defending champions crashed out of the World Twenty20. England’s 19-run defeat against Sri Lanka in Pallekele on Monday was their second loss in three Super Eights games and paved the way for the hosts and the West Indies to advance to the semi-finals from group one. “You can look at the missed opportunities. But I think throughout the whole tournament, we’ve not quite been good enough,” Broad said as his team prepared for the long journey home.

Davis Cup: The 2012 Davis Cup finals between the Czech Republic and holders Spain on November 16-18 will be held in Prague, organisers from the Ceska sportovni agency said yesterday after some haggling over the venue. The finals will take place at Prague’s O2 Arena, sitting about 14,000 people, after Ceska sportovni struck a deal with the organisers of a dance show originally scheduled for Novem-ber 17. On November 3-4, the largest indoor venue in the country will also host the women’s tennis Fed Cup finals between holders the Czech Republic and Serbia.

Tennis: Rafael Nadal has entered the Mubadala World Tennis Champ-ionship in December as he seeks to prove his fitness ahead of the Australian Open. World number four Nadal has not played since his shock defeat to Lukas Rosol at Wimbledon in June due to a knee injury. He admitted recently the problem may keep him out of next season’s first major in Melbourne in January but he has nevertheless put his name down for the exhibition event from December 27-29 in Abu Dhabi.

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