Juve have an insurmountable 10-point lead over Parma, with two matches remaining, although the two clubs will meet again in next month’s two- leg Italian Cup final. It was sweet revenge for the Turin side, beaten 2-1 on aggregate by Parma in midweek in the two-leg Uefa Cup final.
Roberto Baggio celebrated his first Serie A title by playing a key role in the first three goals. Baggio is currently negotiating an extension of his contract with the club, which expires in June. He has been offered a two-year extension, on condition he accepts a pounds 400,000 pay cut from his annual income of pounds 1.5m.First he masterminded a counter-attack from deep in his own half for Fabrizio Ravanelli’s 11th-minute opener. Then in the 38th minute, Baggio’s neat back-heel set up Didier Deschamps. Midway through the second half, a superb through-ball laid on Gianluca Vialli’s 16th goal of the season. Four minutes later, Ravanelli completed the humiliation with his second goal of the game.Aron Winter’s 81st-minute winner for Lazio dealt a blow to Sampdoria’s Uefa Cup hopes.

Lazio’s win over the Genoa side moves them into joint third place with the European Cup finalists, Milan, whose owner, Silvio Berlusconi, is facing a court case. On Saturday, Milan prosecutors formally asked a judge to indict him on corruption charges.Genoa’s hopes of staying in Serie A were boosted by their 3-0 win over fellow strugglers Foggia, who now look certain to join Brescia and Reggiana in Serie B next season.. Kenya’s five-times world cross country champion, John Ngugi, banned for four years in 1993 after refusing an out-of-competition drug test, has been cleared to compete by the International Amateur Athletic Federation. The IAAF’s 23-man council, meeting in Gothenburg yesterday, voted unanimously to reinstate the 33-year-old former Olympic 5,000 metres champion, a decision that reflects widespread doubt about the case and vindicates the campaign Ngugi and the Kenyan athletic association have waged in the last two years. It will also do no harm to Primo Nebiolo’s standing with African Council members as he seeks re-election to the IAAF presidency.
The Council concluded Ngugi was not well informed about the procedure and had had difficulty understanding instructions given to him at the time in English.The ban was imposed after Ngugi refused a random dope test at his home 125 miles north of Nairobi, in February 1992. He claimed the IAAF officer, Britain’s former European 1500m champion John Whetton, had not properly identified himself and was not with a Kenyan official.Whetton, conducting the first IAAF out-of-competition testing in Kenya, claimed Ngugi was an experienced international athlete with a reasonable command of English, and insisted he had followed procedure.

The IAAF said Whetton had “acted correctly.”The Kenyan Amateur Athletic Association had nothing in its rules about out-of-competition testing, and the IAAF’s position in enforcing it was open to question. As with the Katrin Krabbe case, the IAAF has found its authority as ultimate arbiter of sporting justice challenged. The Council agreed yesterday to appeal against this week’s finding that its two-year ban on Krabbe for doping was unconstitutional.The 1997 World Championships will be in Athens. They were to be in Mexico City, but Mexico withdrew citing economic problems. Athens beat off bids from Madrid, Stanford in California, New Delhi and Helsinki..

No wonder Australia are favourites for the World Cup. They have won all their matches during the past year without the world’s greatest centre – since Tim Horan’s knee was shattered – and last night were so confident about the opening match against South Africa in Cape Town on Thursday that, although Horan is back in superb condition, he was still left out. It helps when you have an alternative as good as the 21-year-old Daniel Herbert but Horan, himself just 25, has looked marvellous during training and will now definitely be set upon the Canadians in Port Elizabeth next Tuesday. Then, as long as his reconstructed knee takes the strain, the renewed centre partnership of Horan and Jason Little will probably see the Wallabies through the World Cup.
“If we get selection right first time against South Africa, it will be a miracle,” Bob Dwyer, Australia’s coach, said. Which means it will not be until the pools finish, and he has had the chance to fulfil his stated intention of giving each member of his squad at least one game, that his mind will be made up.The only change from the Australian team who started against Argentina three weeks ago is Willie Ofahengaue’s restoration on the flank for Troy Coker and even with Horan, Coker and Tony Daly missing this match, there will still be eight of the 1991 World Cup winners on the field at Newlands.The Springboks followed the Wallabies last night with four changes from the side which overwhelmed Western Samoa last month.

In particular Andre Joubert, the outstanding player of South Africa’s autumn tour of Wales and Scotland, is fit to resume at full-back and the captain, Francois Pienaar, plays in the back row despite persistent hamstring trouble.The great prize for Thursday’s winners will be to avoid England in the quarter-finals, assuming Will Carling’s team turn awesome training form into the anticipated dispatch of Argentina, Italy and Western Samoa.Yesterday the squad worked off the frustration of their enforced day- trip to Cape Town for Saturday’s welcome lunch with as precise and efficient a session as they have put together since the the start of the last domestic season.This was made more impressive by the intensity of the morning heat at King’s Park, where England have trained since they arrived in Durban. This was followed by an afternoon downpour that fell on them while they were conducting one of their off-field commercial opportunities, a barbecue, at a seaside resort 10 miles to the north of the city.Dean Richards had been able to scrummage even though his hamstring injury – the first, he says, of his career – kept him out of most of the rest of the session and, conveniently, Saturday’s visit to Cape Town. The No 8 anticipates full fitness by tomorrow, just in time for selection for England’s match against Argentina on Saturday.As the Argentines, Italians and Samoans all agree they are battling for second place in Group B, it is being suggested here that England’s pool opposition may take it easy against them in order to preserve themselves for each other. If only it were so, Jack Rowell, the England manager, would be perfectly happy. “If you can organise that, I would appreciate it,” he said.Scotland’s injury problems persist. Prop Dave Hilton has an ankle injury and is almost certainly out of their opening Group D game against the Ivory Coast at Rustenburg on Friday, and wing Kenny Logan faces a few days of intensive treatment on a hamstring strain to prove his fitness for the game.Canada have opted for experience and mobility in naming their team for their first outing in Group A against Romania in Port Elizabeth.