Circle News

The Australian Hockeyroos put up a terrific fight in the Samsung Champions Trophy at Sydney Olympic Park on 19 July, claiming the silver medal after losing to Argentina 4-3 in a nail-biting penalty shootout. Sunday's game was a brilliant performance from the national women's hockey team, who demonstrated poise, skill, and ability under pressure, in a titanic battle with Argentina.

The Hockeyroos's defence was strong in the first half of the final, forcing several errors and turnovers from the Argentine side. Argentina's two penalty shots from the corner did not threaten Australia's defence, and they responded with the game's first attempt on goal, a close shot that just hit the post.

Argentina lifted in the second half and gained possession, but a shot on goal from four-time hockey player of the year Luciana Aymar was blocked by Australia's Toni Cronk. The Hockeyroos's Nicole Arnold had two penalty shots in the 57th minute but still could not crack the Argentine defence.

The score was still nil all in the first half of extra time, with Kate Hollywood's shot on goal blocked by Argentina's Maria Belen Succi. The second half continued to be a hard-fought battle with neither side penetrating the attacking zone, and it came down to a penalty shootout which ended the match in a 4-3 win to Argentina.

Australian captain Madonna Blyth was disappointed by the result but said just making the final of the Champions Trophy was a huge boost for the team, especially for the young players.

The Hockeyroos's second place in the Champions Trophy (and fifth place at the Beijing Olympic Games) means that they do not automatically qualify for the World Cup in Rosario, Argentina.

Their next shot for World Cup qualification is against New Zealand and Samoa in the Oceania Cup, held 25-9 August in Invercargill, New Zealand.

Do you ever feel that working or living in a town centre that you're missing out on something?

Well don't worry, because on Saturday, 25th July, the Seaside comes to Ashford!
The Ashford Town Centre Partnership is throwing a beach party and with all the fun it can muster there will be party games and fun throughout the day including a 'Sea Theme' fancy dress competition for the under 12's, belly dancing displays, Punch and Judy shows, face painting, street theatre and balloon modeling, mini-roundabout and fairground stalls and a team of donkey's brought in especially for the event.

A great day of entertainment is provided with a show at the Bandstand by the boys and girls from the Ashford Hospital Broadcast Service who will bring a added sunshine to town centre.

The Town Centre Partnership would like to hear from teams willing to try the limbo challenge and individuals willing to take part in a knobbly knees contest, so come on down, get your shorts on, and have fun while you shop this summer in Ashford.

Australian Institute of Sport athlete Rosalyn Lawrence has capped off a great season with a gold medal in the women's C1 event of the International Canoe Federation World Cup Race 3, on 11 June in Augsburg, Germany.

Lawrence claimed victory with a time of 156.49 seconds, after picking up only one penalty, beating Marie Rihoskova from the Czech Republic and Nanqin Cen from China.

Australian team-mate Leanne Guinea finished in fourth place in 222.74 seconds, after picking up a 50 second penalty.

Calling all drummers and dancers!

Your talents are needed at this year's Ashford Visual Arts and Architecture Festival!

Now in its fourth year, the public arts festival is offering people of all ages the chance to get involved in creating its programme of installations, and see them displayed in Ashford town centre throughout September.

This year's theme is Hidden Passages, and will explore Ashford's network of hidden, historic passages and alleyways, with a series of stunning art installations – all created with the help of the general public – set up in key locations around the town.

Sites and displays will include a textile weave of old photographs and documents through the railings of St Mary's Church, a 3ft long book of original stories in The Bull Yard, and a film installation in an ancient underground prison cell.

The festival will close with a spectacular performance in the town centre on September 26th, with drummers, dancers and free-runners converging on the bandstand for a colourful celebration.

There will be various art workshops and chances for the public to submit photographs, original writing and stories to the festival in July and August.

On Saturday 26th July, talented drummers and dancers can audition for a part in the festival's final celebrations, a special workshops being held at Create Music Festival 2009.

Anyone who thinks they have what it takes should come along to Noise Ensemble's audition workshop at Create (and enjoy great free live music while they are there!) at Victoria Park from 12noon.

Former Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athlete Todd Woodbridge has been appointed as the new coach of the national Davis Cup team.

The tennis great will play a lead role in the development of Australia's young tennis talent.

Woodbridge has had a highly successful tennis career, beginning with an AIS scholarship from 1986 to 1990. The Olympian has won an amazing 83 ATP World Tour doubles titles and 16 Grand Slam men's doubles, including 11 with team-mate Mark Woodforde.

As the new Australian Davis Cup coach, Woodbridge will collaborate with the national captain to identify and develop the next generation of tennis talent.

The Australian team is currently in preparation for the Asia and Oceania games of the 2010 Davis Cup.

Woodbridge's new role will involve working closely with the AIS Tennis program to guide and nurture the development of talented players.

In May, Woodbridge visited the AIS Tennis facilities, which recently returned to Canberra from Melbourne. He described the program’s facilities, which include newly constructed clay courts modelled on the French Open surface, as fantastic.

The AIS Tennis program works with Tennis Australia to support the ongoing training and development of young tennis talent and to help improve the performance of Australian players.

Four-times world champion Shane Kelly, AFL Hall of Fame member Dale Weightman, Olympic bronze medallist Hannah Davis and Olympic gold medallists Malcolm Page and David Crawshay - to name a few - will help over 100 000 Aussie kids raise awareness about diabetes and learn how sport plays a big part in keeping them healthy.

The Turning to Sport for Good Health initiative kicks off around the country during National Diabetes Week (12-18 July) with a series of events in every state.

The initiative is the result of the Australian Sports Commission's Active After-school Communities (AASC) program and Diabetes Australia joining forces to promote the preventative health benefits of sport to primary school children. Children will have the opportunity to learn a fun song 'Turn to Sport and Play for Life' and will participate in a huge sporting challenge as part of the initiative.

Diabetes Tasmania CEO Caroline Wells, who will be attending the event in Tasmania, is pleased to see that Australian children will be learning about diabetes in an engaging and interactive way.

'Teaching children that playing sport contributes to a healthy life is definitely the message that Diabetes Tasmania supports. Together with good nutrition, being active is one of the best ways to avoid type 2 diabetes.'

Turning to Sport for Good Health kicks off this week - National Diabetes Week (July 13-18) - and will culminate in a nationwide sporting challenge (August 17-28) with over 100 000 kids taking part. Children will be joining together in their region or state to achieve 1.5 million sporting passes: one sporting pass for every Australian with diabetes.

A music video for the 'Turn to Sport and Play for Life' song celebrating the campaign has also been created, with help from children in the AASC program.

With its theme of 'mind, body and soul' the 2009 Floriade spring festival is proving a natural partner for the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), which will sponsor this year's event.

Annually, more than 400 000 people visit the southern hemisphere's largest spring festival in the Australian Capital Territory and this year the ASC will have a strong presence throughout the 30-day event.

Between 12 September and 11 October, the ASC's Community Sport programs will showcase a number of activities with structured games and sports being delivered almost every day.

A new study that found that a lower-calorie diet slowed the aging process in monkeys could be the best proof yet that restricted diets might do the same for humans.

"The big question in aging research is, 'Will caloric restriction in species closely related to humans slow aging?'" said Richard Weindruch, senior author of a paper appearing in the July 10 issue of Science. "This is the first clear demonstration that, in a primate species, we're inducing a slowdown of the aging process -- showing increased survival, resistance to disease, less brain atrophy and less muscle loss.

"This predicts humans would respond similarly," added Weindruch, professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an investigator at the Veterans Hospital in Madison.

Another expert noted that, despite some highly publicized studies in certain species, the link between restricted eating and longer lifespan has been far from proven.

"The idea that dietary restriction extends lifespan in all species is not true. Many strains of rats and mice do not respond. In some strains, it's actually deleterious," explained Felipe Sierra, director of the biology of aging program at the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), which supported the new study. "The fact that it didn't work in some mice but it does seem to work in monkeys is surprising and it gives us hope."

But there's a larger question: how to change humans' increasingly lax eating habits. "This [finding] doesn't give me hope that humans are going to go into dietary restriction," Sierra said.

Another expert agreed. "I think this is wonderful and it has promising benefits but the problem is not that we don't know this stuff, the problem is doing it, is getting people to eat less," added Marianne Grant, a registered dietitian at Texas A&M Health Science Center Coastal Bend Health Education Center in Corpus Christi.

As Sierra sees it, the ultimate value of this and other research like it will be to unveil the physiological mechanisms behind a slowdown in the aging process, and then come up with ways to mimic those processes with drugs or other interventions.

Previous research had shown that calorie restriction can increase survival and stave off many diseases in yeast, worms, flies and, as Sierra pointed out, in some strains of mice.

The new, two-decade-long study ultimately involved 76 rhesus monkeys, all of whom started the study as adults (aged 7 to 14 years). Thirty-three monkeys are still alive, 13 of whom are allowed to eat as they like. The other 20 are allowed a diet with 30 percent fewer calories.

Eighty percent of the original monkeys eating fewer calories are still alive, versus half of those in the control group, the researchers reported.

Among the benefits enjoyed by the lower-calorie group: fewer cancers, less cardiovascular disease, better preserved brain health (especially in regions of the brain involved in motor control and memory) and no diabetes whatsoever, despite this being a common problem in monkeys.

Weindruch said his group is continuing to study the monkeys, a process that could go on for 15 years. Meanwhile, they are collecting a new group of monkeys to more closely study mechanistic processes.

The NIA currently supports a study looking into calorie restriction in humans although, Sierra pointed out, such a study is difficult to conduct.

"Studies in humans can be done but they're not going to address longevity and it's a self-selected group," he said. "Monkeys are the closest we can get."

The findings come a day after U.S. researchers reported in Nature that rapamycin, a drug typically given to transplant patients, significantly extended the lifespans of mice.

Play ball! Just do it safely, says the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

In 2007, more than 203,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 14 were treated for baseball-related injuries in hospital emergency departments, doctors' offices and other medical settings, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission notes.

"Little League has become a very popular sport among children today," said Dr. Donald J. Zoltan, an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine and a spokesman for the academy. "Coaches and parents need to remember that a child's bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons are still growing, making them more susceptible to injury, especially from overuse."

Among Little League pitchers, overuse injuries related to throwing too many pitches have become so common that they are often referred to as "Little League elbow."

But it's possible to play baseball or other sports and avoid injuries. And to do that, the academy suggests that youngsters:

• Keep in good physical condition and don't play while in pain or feeling tired.
  
• Pay strict attention to following the rules of the game.
  
• Use protective gear, such as batting helmets, athletic supporters and shoes with plastic cleats, and make sure the equipment fits properly. Catchers also need catchers' mitts, chest guards, face guards, and knee and shin pads.
  
• Avoid injuries by warming up muscles before playing. Perform several minutes of light exercise followed by slow, gentle stretches, and hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds.
  
• Stay away from steroids or other performance-enhancing substances.

In addition, parents and coaches of young baseball players should:

• Watch the pitchers pitch-count. There is no set guideline, but 80 to 100 pitches per game and 30 to 40 pitches in a practice would usually be considered reasonable.
  
• Take the child out of the game or the practice session if they are experiencing persistent pain.
  
• Learn to recognize the symptoms that are signs of steroid use.
  

The academy stresses that youth sports are supposed to be fun. While team members, their parents and coaches may all fall into the trap of wanting to "win at all costs," this attitude can lead to injuries. Parents and coaches can protect their young athletes by teaching them not to ignore the signs of injury and not to play in pain.

Researchers say they have discovered that one of the most common amino acids in vegetable protein seems to lower blood pressure.

Analysis of data from an international diet study shows that a 4.72 percent higher intake of glutamic acid as a portion of total dietary protein correlates with a 1.5- to 3-point reduction in average systolic blood pressure (the higher of the two blood pressure readings, when the heart beats) and a 1 to 1.6- point lower diastolic pressure (the lower reading, when the heart rests between beats). The report appears online July 6 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the journal Circulation.

The point difference might not sound like much, but high blood pressure is a leading risk factor for heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular problems, and a reduction on that scale could cut stroke death rates by 6 percent and coronary heart disease deaths by 4 percent, said study author Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, professor emeritus of preventive medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

However, the worry is that people could take the finding as a reason to pop glutamic acid pills rather than making vegetables a larger part of their diet, Stamler said.

"We make a clear statement that there are no data on supplements of glutamic acid to tell us anything one way or another about their value," Stamler said.

Protein, animal and vegetable, consists of chains of amino acids. Glutamic acid is the most common of those amino acids, accounting for 23 percent of vegetable protein and 18 percent of meat protein.

The relationship between higher glutamic acid intake and lower blood pressure seen in the study of 4,680 people in China, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom was not unexpected, said Ian J. Brown, a research associate in epidemiology and public health at Imperial College London, and a member of the research team.
"It is compatible with earlier findings that a diet high in vegetable proteins, those found in beans, whole grains, rice, soy products and bread, is associated with lower blood pressure," Brown said.

"The fact that the most important amino acid in vegetable protein is related to blood pressure supports the inference that a diet high in vegetable protein and low in animal protein has favorable effects on blood pressure," Stamler added.

Similar but lesser effects on lowering blood pressure have been found for other amino acids more common in vegetable protein, such as proline, phenylalanine and serine, Brown said.

"The solution to improving blood pressure is not based around a single nutrient," he said. "We are looking at a whole series of dietary elements that act together. Combined, they have a large effect."

But diet is not the only factor to be considered in attacking high blood pressure, Stamler said.

"We must also consider obesity, high salt intake, high alcohol intake and high potassium intake, among other risk factors," he said.

Still, the study provides evidence why the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, reduces blood pressure, Stamler said. The DASH diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean poultry, nuts and beans.

"It's just as mothers and grandmothers have been saying for years," Brown said. "Eat your vegetables, avoid fatty foods, and avoid excess alcohol."

Higher levels of a protein created by fat cells are associated with a lessened risk of type 2 diabetes.

The protein, adiponectin, appears to have anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitizing capabilities, according to a study published in the July 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Our finding was that adiponectin is associated with a low risk of type 2 diabetes, and the effect is quite pronounced," said the study's senior author, Rob M. van Dam, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Van Dam said that he and his colleagues believe that adiponectin isn't just a marker for a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, but that the protein actually exerts a causal effect on the development of the disease. He said that in animal studies, when adiponectin is injected, metabolic differences occur. And, according to the study, adiponectin acts as a hormone with both anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitizing properties.

That's important because in type 2 diabetes, the body often becomes resistant to insulin and doesn't use it effectively. Almost 24 million Americans have diabetes, and about 6 million of them don't yet know it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Untreated, the disease can lead to serious complications, including kidney failure, amputations and blindness.

What this study doesn't mean, however, is that you should add fat to increase your adiponectin levels. Fat tissue also produces other signaling molecules, according to van Dam, and most of these are destructive, not helpful. Additionally, although adiponectin is produced by fat tissue, the heavier you get, the less adiponectin you're likely to produce.

For the current study, he and his colleagues reviewed 13 studies in a meta-analysis. In all, they included almost 15,000 participants and 2,623 people who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

All of the studies found a reduced relative risk of type 2 diabetes with higher levels of adiponectin. The average risk reduction was 28 percent for each incremental increase in adiponectin.

The researchers adjusted the data for body mass index and for lifestyle factors and found that the results were consistent across different ethnic groups, according to van Dam.

He said that adiponectin levels might eventually be used to predict who could develop type 2 diabetes, although much more research would be needed to ensure that this added new and accurate information to the risk assessment process.

Another practical implication that might eventually develop from these findings is a different type of medical intervention that would increase levels of adiponectin pharmacologically, van Dam noted.

For the moment, he said, "this study reinforces how important body fatness and adipose tissue is in the development of type 2 diabetes. Fat tissue is not just a storage organ that's just sitting there," he stated.

If you're concerned about preventing type 2 diabetes, van Dam said that losing just 5 to 10 percent of your body weight and maintaining that weight loss can have a big impact on your diabetes risk.

"This study is a really interesting observation, but everything that adiponectin is suggested to be doing could be attributed to less obesity," said Dr. R. Paul Robertson, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association. "So, we don't know if there's a cause and effect relationship."

Robertson echoed van Dam's advice for preventing diabetes: "Avoid obesity." And if you're already overweight, try to lose weight. "So many things get better as you lose weight," he said.

Five promising Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) archers will compete in the Youth Archery World Championships held in Ogden, Utah in the United States, from 12 to 19 July 2009.

AIS archers Elisa Barnard, Alice Ingley, Ben Nott, Ryan Tyack and Taylor Worth make up the youth team bound for the United States this Friday.

Although the AIS squad is young, they boast plenty of experience in competing at the national and world level.

This year marks 18-year-old Ryan Tyack's third youth championships — in 2006, he won the gold medal in the men's individual event and last year he teamed up with Taylor Worth to win gold in the men's doubles event.

Other members of the squad have competed at previous youth championships, including Ben Nott and Elisa Barnard, who was ranked 11th in 2008.

Sixteen-year-old Alice Ingley is the newcomer to the AIS team, but she has already impressed archery fans with a silver medal in the women's recurve at the senior National Archery Championships, held earlier this year in Adelaide.

Australian elite archery is currently undergoing significant change with the appointment of former AIS scholarship holder, 2000 Olympic Games gold medallist Simon Fairweather as the national archery coach. Coached by Fairweather, AIS archers performed well at the national training camp in June.

Following the world championships, the AIS's junior archers will rejoin the rest of the squad in preparing to qualify for the New Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) tennis player Sally Peers teamed up with Thailand's Noppawan Lertcheewakarn to win the girl's doubles title at the Wimbledon tennis tournament on Sunday 5 July.

The unseeded Peers and Lertcheewakarn defeated the number two seeds, Kristina Mladenovic of France and Croatia's Silvia Njiric, winning the title 6-1 6-1 in just 47 minutes.

Peers and Lertcheewakarn played an impressive game, especially since this was the first time the pair had competed together. They had just nine unforced errors between them, compared with 18 misses by their opponents.

The win is a great confidence-building result for the 18-year-old Peers, particularly given her recent loss to British number two seed Laura Robson in the second round of the singles event.

Peers will go on to compete in a number of tennis tournaments in Spain before returning to Australia.

The AIS Tennis program in Canberra works closely with Tennis Australia to support the ongoing training and development of the nation's best young tennis talent.

Children with type 1 diabetes are more likely to be overweight than those without the disease, increasing their risk of serious health complications, researchers say.

The finding is from a major study that explored the weight problems faced by U.S. youngsters with type 1 diabetes, a less common form of the disease that usually shows up in childhood or in young adults. The study, part of the "Search for Diabetes in Youth Study Group," was reported online in the journal Pediatric Diabetes.

"The links between type 2 diabetes and excess weight are well documented, but are less clear in type 1," said lead researcher Dr. Lenna Liu of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital, in a news release from the journal's publisher.

"Knowing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and young people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes is very important as it helps us to identify those individuals -- by age, gender or race/ethnicity -- who face the greatest risk of the clinical complications associated with excess weight," Liu added.

The researchers examined data from nearly 4,000 diabetic and more than 7,500 non-diabetic children and young people aged 3 to 19. The diabetic patients were evenly split between boys and girls and the group included various ethnic groups.

The study findings showed that, overall, approximately one in eight, or 13 percent, of type 1 diabetes patients were obese. Among black type 1 diabetes patients, 20 percent were obese, while roughly 17 percent of Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander patients were obese. White patients with type 1 diabetes had the lowest rate of obesity at 11 percent.

In type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks and destroys certain cells in the pancreas, an organ behind the stomach. Obese patients are at increased risk for heart disease and other serious complications.

Britain's scientists and engineers have just eight days left to apply for the UK Sport Garage Innovators Award 2009, which close on 10 July. The Garage Innovators Award, worth up to £25,000 in research and development funding and now in its second year, is designed to find the best and most innovative solutions to aiding success in Olympic and Paralympic sport.

This award forms part of the UK Sport Ideas4Innovation programme which acknowledges and harnesses outstanding research and innovation concepts designed to improve the performance of elite athletes, supporting the mission to 2012 and beyond.

The award is aimed at individuals with a passion to see the Great Britain team succeed. The prize of £25,000 will enable the inventor to realise their idea, whilst enabling UK Sport to utilise any outcomes prior to 2012 during a period of exclusivity.

In its pilot year, the Garage Innovators Award received 57 applications from individuals based throughout the UK with a variety of backgrounds from engineering, to sports science and the arts.

Last year's winner Alasdair Wylie designed a novel device for canoeing and was delighted to have an opportunity to make it a reality. Wylie says: "Winning this award gives us the funding for the project and also the access to those within the sport itself, which will be the key to making it a success. Since winning the Garage Innovators Award UK Sport has been liaising with experts in their network to obtain additional knowledge to maximise the performance impact of the project. My idea might actually enhance Team GB's performance in 2012 and I'd recommend anyone with an idea that can improve the performance of British athletes to put it forward to UK Sport and see it realised."

UK Sport's Head of Research and Innovation, Dr Scott Drawer said of last years winning idea "The project excelled in its simplicity, application and ability to directly impact on some of the UK's medal winning sports. Alasdair's winning idea came from an observation during the Beijing Games. This really highlights how something can be taken for granted when you are immersed in the environment day in and day out."

Alison Neall, UK Sport's Ideas 4 Innovation coordinator said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for individuals to apply their knowledge to help us achieve British sporting success and as Alasdair highlights, successful applicants would also have access to our extensive network of contacts in world class research and innovation."

Neall also commented on what she is expecting from this year's applicants: "Your idea or design should be a novel, based on sound research or evidence, and you should be able to demonstrate how it can have a clear performance impact on Olympic or Paralympic sports and athletes. The idea should fill a gap in our current knowledge base and should not conflict with the rules and regulations of the sport. Some of the most effective innovations are often the most simple so don't be afraid to state the obvious."

"Most importantly, you should be able to demonstrate an application to elite sport on the front line. The idea could be related to any one of the research and innovation work streams - athlete equipment and accessories, coaching technologies, training science or performance medicine - and there's no limit to how many ideas each applicant can enter."

Inventors with a passion for sport and a winning idea are asked to submit their application by 10 July 2009. Finalists will be invited to UK Sport's head office in London to present their idea to an expert panel that will include Ideas4Innovation Ambassador and Olympic gold medallist Jason Queally.

It has been announced that the UK will host the prestigious Laser World Championships in 2010, with the backing of UK Sport's World Class Events Programme.

The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has confirmed that Largs Sailing Club in Ayrshire, sportscotlands championship sailing venue and home of the Scottish Sailing Institute, will welcome two out of four sailing regattas comprising the Laser World Championships: the Laser Radial Womens World Championships from 7 - 14 July 2010 and the Laser Radial Mens and Youth Worlds from 18 - 25 July 2010.

In addition to the two regattas which will come to Scotland, the further two regattas which make up the 2010 Worlds, the Laser (standard) Senior and Junior World Championships from 27 August - 5 September 2010 and the Laser Masters Worlds from 11 - 19 September 2010, will be staged at Hayling Island Sailing Club in Hampshire.

The announcement was made by Skandia Team GBR Laser Radial sailor Charlotte Dobson in Glasgow. Dobson, from Helensburgh, was a Youth Worlds bronze medallist in the Laser Radial in 2004 and was also a strong contender for selection to the Laser Radial class at Beijing in 2008. She said: Having sailed and competed all over the world, I really appreciate just how sensational Scotland is as a destination for the sport. Not only is it a challenging environment, it is also rewarding in that it offers up spectacular scenery and warm hospitality.

Hosting the Worlds in 2010 is a fantastic opportunity to compete on home waters and an opportunity to showcase Scotland as a sailing destination around the world. Hopefully it will also inspire sailing fans locally and Scotland wide to develop their skills and get out there and enjoy the coastline.

The Laser World Championships have been secured for Britain and will be hosted by the RYA and supported through a partnership of UK Sport, EventScotland (the national events agency) North Ayrshire Council, the Scottish Sailing Institute and Scottish Enterprise.

The RYA is both delighted and excited to be staging these key events, said RYA Racing Manager John Derbyshire. The Laser Worlds will not only provide high quality racing opportunities so close to home for our British sailors, but also give us the opportunity to increase the profile of sailing throughout the UK during a crucial period for the development of the sport. Largs Sailing Club offers ideal sailing conditions and shore-side facilities, and is a fine example of what world class sailing venues we have throughout the UK.

UK Sport Events Consultant, Esther Nicholls, said: The 2010 Laser World Championships will provide a great opportunity for British sailors to compete at the highest level on home waters ahead of London 2012, which is key to UK Sports events strategy.

Australia has claimed silver and bronze medals in the womens C1 at the ICF Slalom Canoe Kayak World Cup 1 in Pau, France.

Rosalyn Lawrence (AIS) finished in second place, while Leanne Guinea (AIS) claimed third place in the first running of the womens C1 category at world cup level. Lawrence and Guinea were both competing for the first time at international level

Chinas Nanqin Cen took the gold medal ahead of the Australian pair with a time in the final of 149.56, ten seconds clear of second place Lawrence (159.92). Guinea was made to pay for a 50 second penalty for missing a gate, recording a time of 204.91.

Earlier in the day, Kate Lawrence (NSW) missed out on qualifying for the final of the womens K1.

Lawrence, who won gold in the final world cup event in 2008, had suffered a disrupted build up due to illness and recorded a semi-final run of 125.91, with two seconds of penalties to finish in 15th position. Sarah Grant (VIC) finished in 22nd place after the qualifying runs on Saturday, with Rosalyn Lawrence in 34th.

Robin Bell (WA) finished in 16th place in the semi-final of the mens C1 to also miss out on a place in the ten person final. Bell notched a time of 114.71, recording four seconds of penalties on the tricky French course. Ian Borrows (NSW) had finished in 22nd place after the qualifying runs, while Robin Jeffery placed 25th, with both paddlers missing out on places in the 20 man semi-final.

All three Australian K1 paddlers were not able to qualify for the semi-finals after their two qualifying runs. Warwick Draper (VIC), 22nd, Anthony Brown (NSW), 39th, and William Forsythe (NSW), 60th, must now aim to bounce back in the second world cup event next weekend.