There was good news this week for would-be competitors in January's World Swimming Championships with the announcement that the two main distance races taking place in the Indian Ocean will go ahead as planned despite three recent shark scares.

Co-ordinator of the ocean events, Kevin Holtom (playing the role of the mayor in Jaws) said the incidents had caused some concern, but plans for the five-kilometre and 25-kilometre events were not expected to be changed.

Late last month, a giant white pointer shark attacked two men who were on a surf ski in the area. A few days later another white pointer, estimated to be 18 feet long and to have weighed about two tonnes, was seen feeding on a huge sea lion off Mullaloo beach.

Since then another shark, identified as a hammerhead, was sighted at Swanbourne and Cottesloe beaches (which the 80 or so competitors in the races must pass), causing petrified swimmers to flee the water.

The organisers have decided that each competitor will be followed by a boat - just in case - but they insist that there is no need for particular concern. One of the organisers, who is definitely going to look pretty stupid if somebody gets eaten, said: "statistics show there is a far greater chance of being killed in a car accident than being bitten by a shark."

An event staged in waters somewhat closer to home has won a prestigious marketing prize with the European Surfing Championships, which took place a few weeks ago in Donegal, grabbing the Marketing Achievement Award for 1997 in the annual Hospitality, Sales and Marketing Association honours list.

Previous winners of the award include Noel C Duggan for his achievement in luring RTE down to Millstreet for the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as the organisers of the Guinness Jazz festival. This year's short-list included the Aquadome in Tralee, the new five-star Merrion Hotel, and A Touch Of Ireland, which organised the largest conference of the year here.

"It's great for a sports organisation to win something like this in the face of so much competition from the corporate sector," said Brian Britton of the Irish Surfing Association, "and hopefully it will be a major boost to our effort to bring the World Championships here in 2002 or 2004."

Back in Australia, meanwhile, the country's most famous and successful female athlete is under pressure to boycott the Sydney Olympics because of her indigenous roots.

Cathy Freeman, the reigning world champion over 400 metres, has been asked by a Perth-based Aboriginal group to boycott the 2000 Games in protest at the government's stance on indigenous land rights.

"Cathy Freeman, we ask you not to run," the Nyungah Circle of Elders said in a statement at the weekend. "Stand and mourn with us."

Freeman, who also won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, has yet to respond to the demands, but her manager, Nick Bideu, accused the group of cashing in on her popularity. "These people have tried to use her fame for their own cause," Bideau told reporters, adding that, "they didn't approach or discuss this with us - they've just come out and made this statement and put a lot of pressure on her that she doesn't need."

The 24-year-old athlete, who caused considerable controversy when she carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags on her lap of honour after winning the gold medal in the last Commonwealth Games, may be somewhat embarrassed by her best-known supporter, however.

Prime Minister John Howard, the man who has announced his intention to see the abolition of Aboriginal claims on their ancestral homelands through parliament, weighed in on the runner's side, remarking that: "it is contemptible that this sort of pressure should be put on an outstanding young Australian."

On The Sidelines is always keen to support those who support Irish football, so when the need arose to pick up a couple of tickets for the forthcoming London derby between Spurs and Chelsea, we got straight on to Ticket King.

They, you see, are the sponsors of the chairman's notes in the St Patrick's Athletic programme and, in their advertisement, they boast that they can lay their hands on tickets for any Premiership match.

Asked to quote a price for the White Hart Lane match the helpful man on the other end of the phone chirpily replied that he "couldn't be absolutely sure about that one, but £90 (face value would be around £20) would be about right". Now it's not often that we end up buying tickets in these sort of circumstances, but given that the last time involved the purchase of two £70 tickets for the European Championship final at Wembley last year for £100 apiece, there was a certain sense of shock after hearing this estimate.

It's difficult, make that impossible, to believe that one could fare any worse by simply going to the ground on the day and dealing with the sort of characters who are at least entirely straight up about the fact that they are aiming to rip you off. We can only presume that his involvement with Ticket King is part of Pat Dolan's campaign to convince us that going local is best.

One man going free to a World Cup match in France next summer is Stephen Finn, a member of the Star's soccer writing team.

Finn, along with many of the country's football media, was invited to a recent promotion at Richmond Park for Nestle, who, under the banner of some of their food brands, are running a competition for customers to win trips to games.

In order to encourage journalists to show up for the morning, an extra trip was promised to the winner of a special, reporters' only, penalty shoot-out. Sure enough, a throng (three) of media types descended on Inchicore for the morning, while a fourth, the photographer the Star had sent along, decided he might as well give it a go too.

Saints keeper Trevor Wood saved the first three efforts (from Eamonn Scott of the Evening Herald, Stephen Bennett and Gerry Mooney of the Star) before Finn stepped up to the spot. "The goalkeeper hadn't really had to move to make a save yet and I figured he wouldn't fancy getting dirty to stop mine," said Finn, "so I just made sure it was on target and rolled it into the bottom corner."

If only our team are as clear headed this evening, sure we'll all be off to France.

A group of people from Arklow have been holding a vigil outside Jury's hotel over the past couple of days to raise funds for the Christopher Healy Trust Fund and they will be joined for today's game at Lansdowne Road by around 100 friends of the 19-yearold student who was seriously injured in a ruck while playing rugby for the town's team late last year.

Christopher has been a patient in the National Rehabilitation Centre in Rochestown Avenue for most of the year and his teammates and friends are hoping that the money raised this week will help towards any long-term medical assistance he requires.

Members of the All Blacks panel gave their support to the cause on Thursday when they dropped along to Jury's to help with the collecting and it's hoped that the fans will do their bit today (if everybody let on that their ticket cost just 10 per cent more and chucked the balance in the buckets, it would come to £100,000).

For those of you not going to the game, there are accounts at Arklow branches of Bank of Ireland (No: 29543957) and AIB (No:12123050) to which donations may be made.

The internet is being used by the organisers of no-rules fighting in order to evade censorship of the "sport" being imposed by cable companies, as well local regulations in the United States according to a report in the Financial Times.

Collision Course, the latest beat-your-brains-out promotion by the Ultimate Fight Championship (UFC), was available to just 15 million homes, less than 10 per cent of the total that have pay-per-view facilities. and the number is expected to continue to decline with major Many operators, like market leader TCI, are refusing to carry the organisation's programming.

With one eye firmly on the future, UFC offered Collision Course to internet subscribers too. Although only 1,000 people paid over the $20 fee to view the event, the medium may end up provide a major outlet for "total combat" organisers.

UFC's next promotion is to be staged in Japan, where the norules approach is still welcome. The time difference means that Brazil, where they recently held an event, would have been preferable but fact that the fight itself was temporarily drowned out by the sound of gunfire from amongst the spectators. That, it seems, was a little rule free for even these people.

And finally . . . Aberdeen's Dean Windass will be out of action until Christmas after receiving a massive 22 penalty points for what amounted to three sendings-off at Dundee United on Sunday.

Windass was initially dismissed for two bookable offences. His further dissent to referee Stuart Dougal earned the equivalent of another red-card. To compound matters, Windass ripped up the corner flag and threw it into the ground on his way to the tunnel, securing another eight points. The ban means he will be out until December 27th.