Cal Ripken, who has played 2,239 successive games without breaking a bone, broke his nose during a team photo session before the major league All-Star game in Philadelphia yesterday. His 84-year-old trainer, Eddie Futch, was recently forced to climb into the practice ring and demonstrate moves to Bowe. “When you have a fighter seven years, you don’t think you have to show him,” Futch complained.All will be revealed tonight – to precious few paying customers – but Bowe’s experience should bring the powerful but ponderous Pole’s downfall inside eight rounds.. I need to fight Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson to secure my place in history. But when I’ve fought them, I’m outta here.”Bowe, floored for the first time as a pro in his previous fight, weighed in at a career-highest 18st, prompting speculation of further lapsed dedication. A common accusation is that promoter Eugene “Rocks” Newman has negotiated Bowe out of title shots.Pointing to his battle-scarred slit of a left eye, Bowe complained: “You think I need this? I got plenty of other things to do in life. I could be in the park playing ball with my son, or taking my daughter to ballet class.

But times have changed.
Bowe profited handsomely from the four-year absence of Mike Tyson, succeeding his former schoolmate as undisputed heavyweight champion in November 1992. But Bowe ate himself out of the titles within a year and, although one of boxing’s highest earners, he has been outside looking in ever since.The only man to have held the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organisation heavyweight titles is now absent from all four top 10s. A far cry from February 1993, when the Brooklyn-born Bowe, on his last home-town appearance, broke MSG box- office records with his 139- second win over Michael Dokes. Replacements: Swart, Stransky, Roux, Swart, Drotske, Atherton.. New York exhales, having escaped fallout from Hurricane Bertha, but the promoters of tonight’s fight at Madison Square Garden between the former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe and the undefeated Andrew Golota braced themselves for a direct hit on the box office. As of yesterday, only 4,400 tickets had been sold for the 17,000 capacity arena. Entrance on the day will cost pounds 10, up from pounds 7 last season.The club say they need to raise extra money to pay their players, although they are set to unveil details on Friday of major financial backing from the greetings card tycoon Andrew Brownsword.SOUTH AFRICA (v Australia, Sydney, Saturday): Joubert, Small, Mulder, Venter, Hendriks, Honiball, van der Westhuizen, Teichmann, Kruger, Pienaar (capt), Andrews, Ackermann, Hurter, Allan, du Rant.

The Wallabies, smarting from their 43-6 loss to New Zealand last Saturday, have made four changes – the stand-off Pat Howard, scrum-half George Gregan, flanker Daniel Manu and prop Andrew Heath.
English double champions Bath are more than doubling season-ticket prices for next season. The South African full-back An- dre Joubert has passed a fitness test on a sore hamstring and will play against Australia in Saturday’s Tri-Nations Test in Sydney. South Africa have made two changes to the team who beat Fiji 43-18 eight days ago, with centre Brendan Venter replacing the injured Hennie Le Roux and the wing Pieter Hendriks preferred to Justin Swart. “I won here 12 months ago but this time I have a Grand Slam title in my pocket, which makes a difference.”The Wimbledon runner-up, MaliVai Washington of the United States, was brought back to earth when he lost to Spain’s Francisco Clavet 7-6, 6- 1.. “If I go down in my rankings next year, people will say bad things and if I don’t go to Atlanta they’ll do the same, so I’ll be insulted no matter what I do.”In other first-round action, the holder and new French champion, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, had little trouble dispatching Spain’s Roberto Carretero 7- 5, 6-1.”It’s good to be back on this surface, good to be back on track,” Kafelnikov, who lost in the first round at Wimbledon, said.

I’ll lose four or five weeks of tournaments.”He said he wished he had won the French Open or Wimbledon so that he would not have considered missing the Olympics.”For people the Olympics mean everything but not for me,” Rosset said. I announced a long time ago I’d go [to Atlanta], but as the weeks go by I’ve realised it’s not a good thing for me. If it were up to me today I’d choose not to go to the Olympics.”
Leading 1-0 in the third set, the 26-year-old Rosset lost his momentum with a second rain delay. Gross, ranked 210 in the world, then broke Rosset to take the lead 2-1.Rosset managed to break back and level at 2-2, but was unable to prevent the German from coming back to win the next four games.Rosset said he had been losing sleep over trying to move up in world rankings “I’m 16th in the world My goal is top 10,” he said. “I lost points at Wimbledon and here and I’ll lose more by going to the Olympics.