Shanghai  - Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton Friday topped the timesheets in the first practice for the Chinese Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver completed the fastest round of the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai circuit in 1:37.334 minutes, 0.116 seconds ahead of GP Brawn driver Jenson Button.

Button's Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello came third, followed by McLaren's Heikki Kovaleinen, indicating a closing gap between the two teams.

Tokyo-Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged his government's full support for Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Games as a delegation from the International Olympics Committee began an inspection Thursday.

"It is my earnest desire to invite young Olympians from around the world to Tokyo to experience what I felt and learned as a young athlete," Aso told the 13-member IOC evaluation team.

Zurich  - Blood doping in Austria, and elsewhere, was an open secret in the cycling community, the former advisor of ex-Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich said in an interview published on Thursday.

Speaking in the wake of allegations that a Vienna blood bank was part of a doping scheme in Austria, Rudy Pevenage told Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) that "many in cycling knew three years ago that there was a nest in Vienna."

Moscow - Spartak Moscow have sacked their Danish coach Michael Laudrup after just seven months due to poor results, the Russian football club announced on Thursday.

Laudrup, 44, who took the Spartak job in September 2008, had to leave the day after Spartak lost a cup match 3-0 against Dynamo Moscow, with manager Valeri Karpin now acting as caretaker.

Spartak finished a modest eighth last season and also had a poor start into the domestic league with one win from four games for 10th place.

Cape Town (South Africa), Apr. 16 : Former Australian leg spinner and captain of the IPL franchisee Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne, has praised the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for selecting former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower as the England cricket team director.

"England have taken a step in the right direction by appointing Andy Flower, and I think the new job title as team director is the right one," Warne wrote in The Times newspaper.

Karachi, Apr. 16 : Pakistan is hoping that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will adopt a sympathetic stance towards it while taking a final decision on its status of a co-host of the 2011 World Cup during the upcoming ICC Executive Board meetings.