OLYMPIC roundup

TRIATHLON

Five-time champion to miss Olympics

MADRID

Five-time triathlon world champion Javier Gomez Noya will miss the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after breaking his arm during training.

The Spanish triathlon federation says Gomez Noya fell while riding his bicycle on Wednesday.

Federation general secretary Alicia Garcia says that “it is impossible for him to recover in time” after he undergoes an operation on Thursday.

A photo Gomez Noya has posted on social media shows his left arm in a sling.

The 33-year-old Gomez Noya won the ITU world championship in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015. He was the Olympic silver medalist in London in 2012 and placed fourth at the 2008 Beijing Games.

The men’s triathlon event will be held on Aug. 18.

CYCLING

Small loses case for spot on US team

Carmen Small had her Olympic dreams crushed for the second time in less than a month.

The veteran cyclist lost her arbitration case Wednesday for a spot on the four-member U.S. team headed for Rio, and will be forced to watch from the sidelines as the powerhouse women’s squad rides for gold.

Megan Guarnier was the only rider who earned a guaranteed spot on the squad by virtue of her bronze medal at the world championships. That left three discretionary picks that went to two-time and reigning Olympic time trial gold medalist Kristin Armstrong, veteran Evelyn Stevens and climbing specialist Mara Abbott. Amber Neben also lost her arbitration case.

The 36-year-old Small had argued that her handy victories over Armstrong and Stevens at the time trial national championships this year should have helped her earn a spot. She also highlighted the fact that she has been part of two world champion time trial teams and is a former world time trial bronze medalist.

“I am fighting this selection for the simple fact that all my involvement with USA Cycling and everything I’ve ever been told by them said race in Europe, do the big races, do the hard races and race against the best in the world,” Small wrote in a blog posting after her decision to seek arbitration.

RUGBY

Habana misses out on South Africa’s squad

JOHANNESBURG

Rugby sevens will also be missing a global star on its return to the Olympics next month, although it’s got nothing to do with Zika.

Bryan Habana, the World Cup-winning South African wing who set his sights on adding an Olympic medal to a career bursting with titles and honors in the 15-a-side game, failed Thursday to make South Africa’s final squad for the Rio de Janeiro Games.

Habana set aside his commitments with South Africa’s main Springboks team this season to return to sevens, which he hadn’t played at the top level for more than a decade, in the hope of going to Rio. He appeared in the world sevens series and was on an initial “Blitzboks” training squad named for the Olympics.

track and field

African discus champ dropped for doping

African discus champion Victor Hogan has been dropped from South Africa’s Olympic team and banned for two years for doping.

South African anti-doping agency chief executive Khalid Galant says in a text message that Hogan tested positive for methylhexaneamine at the national championships in April, where he threw a personal best. Hogan’s backup “B”’ sample also tested positive.

Hogan is a three-time African champion and retained his title at the continental championships last month in Durban, South Africa, two months after the failed test.

Galant says the South African athletics federation must now consider if Hogan, who turns 27 this month, should be stripped of any titles.

Wire reports