Martin Doktor has been successfully reinstated on appeal

Sport, of course, and after his disqualification from the Games in Sydney, the defending Olympic canoeing champion Martin Doktor has been successfully reinstated on appeal.

The International Canoe Federation cleared Doktor to compete in Sunday's 500m Final and the one kilometre event after the Czech had been thrown out for veering off course during a trial on Wednesday. The CAS agreed with the Czech team that there was insufficient evidence of irregularity to warrant the disqualification.

Doktor had been accused by the German team of coming within 5 metres of their own competitor, Andreas Dittmar, thus allowing the Czech to surf the German's wave.

However, ICF President Ulrich Feldhoff said after Doktor's reinstatement: "We did not have 100 percent proof that the five-metre distance was breached."

Away from Sydney to football now and Sparta Prague picked up their first points of their Champions League campaign with a 3-2 victory of the Ukrainians Shaktar Donetsk here in Prague on Wednesday. The champions had to wait until the 54th minute before the deadlock was broken; Sparta's teenage sensation Tomas Rosicky played a beautiful one-two with Sionko before firing past the Donetsk goalkeeprt Virt.

Zubov equalized with a superb curled shot but headers from Hornak and Labant confirmed the Czech's dominance. Abramov scambled a late second for the Ukrainians but the Sparta defence held out. The result means that they now stand third in the group, three points behind the Italians Lazio.

Speculation is mounting that one of Sparta's goalscorers on Wednesday, Tomas Rosicky, may be set to join the Italian club Inter Milan. The Serie A giants have reportedly offered a fee in the region of $11,000,000 for the player.

The move is far from certain, though, as Inter already have their full quota of 5 non-EU players. However, one of those is on the verge of obtaining Austrian citizenship, thus freeing up a place for Rosicky.

The youngster is widely regarded as the hottest new talent in Czech football, and Sparta rejected an approach from Inter's main rivals AC earlier this year.