MLB Arizona Diamondbacks player PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT "took part in a series of challenges" with the Big Bash League's Sydney Sixers cricketers at the Sydney Cricket Ground to "promote their historic series" with the L.A. Dodgers, which will open the MLB season "at the same ground in March" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 11/4). ... Jamaican sprinter USAIN BOLT has revealed in his upcoming autobiography "Faster Than Lightning" that his three-Gold-Medal performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was "fuelled by Chicken McNuggets, a total he now estimates to have reached 1,000 during his 10 days in the Chinese capital." Bolt said he started by eating a box of 20 of the "golden chicken treats" and eventually consumed "up to 100 a day." He even "turned to an apple pie to take the edge off" (London INDEPENDENT, 11/4). ... The int'l athletics federation (IAAF) has announced the three male athletes in contention for its 2013 World Athlete of the Year. The male and female winners will be announced in Monaco on Nov. 16 at the IAAF's World Athletics Gala. The male finalists are USAIN BOLT, BOHDAN BONDARENKO and MO FARAH (IAAF). ... Former world champion kayaker NATHAN BAGGALEY, a two-time Olympic Silver Medalist, "appeared in court on Monday accused of being part of a syndicate manufacturing and supplying amphetamines" (AFP, 11/4). ... Australia again approaches an Ashes series "involved in ugly interfamilial squabbling" while the English squad "sits by mute and presumably amused." Former Australian bowler SHANE WARNE "launched an extraordinary attack" on former Australian captain RICKY PONTING in an attempt to defend his "best friend" and current Australia captain MICHAEL CLARKE. The outburst "is the latest in a rolling argument" around revelations in Ponting's book, "At the Close of Play," that Clarke "was not as committed to the team off the field, or the vice-captain's role, as he could have been" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 11/5).
