Chief of cycling warns of sport’s grim future

The head of cycling’s governing body warns that the sport risks becoming a “travesty” and “fraud” unless it unites to fight doping.

In a conference attended by the sport’s divided leadership, International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid urged colleagues Monday to move past their differences and recognize that the survival of cycling is at stake.

“Either we fix this beyond doubt or cycling as we have known it – in all its glory – will become a travesty of a sport, a fraud for the public, and a shame for us in this room,” said McQuaid.

UCI anti-doping manager Anne Gripper said the organization hopes to increase the number of tests from 9,000 this year – mostly in-competition tests and blood screens – to 15,000 in 2008.

Basketball

NIT changes format

Each team in the NIT Season Tip-Off will play four games next year under a new format that includes third- and fourth-round games at campus sites.

The announced change will be the third in as many years to the format of the 16-team preseason tournament.

The NIT moved the first two rounds to participating campus sites for this year’s tournament. Each team will play twice, but only the four second-round winners will continue playing in the semifinals at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Nov. 21.

Next year, the 12 teams that do not advance to New York will be seeded and assigned to three campus sites for two more games each.

•Kara Lawson scored 20 points off the bench to lead the U.S. Select Team to a 93-49 win over the Canberra Capitals in their opening game at the FIBA World League Tournament in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

•Brigham Young basketball coach Dave Rose has agreed to a contract extension that runs through the 2010-11 season.

Terms of the deal were not released.

Auto racing

Raikkonen to keep title

Kimi Raikkonen will keep the Formula One drivers’ title – for now.

McLaren confirmed that it will appeal FIA’s decision not to penalize four drivers investigated for fuel irregularities following the Brazilian Grand Prix won by Raikkonen.

•Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti will make his Busch Series debut Saturday at Memphis Motorsports Park.

• Jeremy Mayfield will take over a new NASCAR Nextel Cup ride four races early, replacing Jeff Green in the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing entry for the rest of the season.

Miscellany

AIBA proposes league

The International Boxing Association hopes to launch its own world league of boxing as early as next year and bring amateurs and professional fighters under one organization.

On the eve of the World Boxing Championships, delegates to the AIBA congress endorsed a long list of recommended reforms, including one to create the boxing league.

•Arron Oberholser pulled out of golf’s World Cup with a recurring hand injury that will require surgery.

•The Golden Gate Yacht Club argued in court that the Swiss winners of the 2007 America’s Cup have been trying to rig the rules of next year’s race to help their chances of winning again.

•In Berea, Ohio, Bob Packard, the winningest football coach at Baldwin-Wallace, has died, the school announced. He was 64.

Packard, who coached current Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, died Saturday of a heart attack, according to Baldwin-Wallace.