Zanardi to Return to Driving

Former Formula One and CART driver Alex Zanardi will drive full time with the BMW Italian team in the 2004 European touring car championship.

Zanardi, who lost both legs in a horrific crash during a CART series race in Germany two years ago, returned to racing in Monza, Italy, last October with encouraging results for the BMW team.

Italian team manager Roberto Ravaglia announced Zanardi’s full-time return Thursday.

Driving a specially modified BMW, Zanardi placed seventh in the second run of the closing European Championship event, rallying from an eighth-row start.

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The new owners of the financially strapped CART open-wheel series have eliminated the Miami race.

The race will not be included in the 2004 Champ Car World Series schedule, said Paul Gentilozzi, one of three partners in the Open Wheel Racing Series LLC that is purchasing most of CART’s assets and will take over the 25-year-old series.

The race drew 70,000 fans in September but lost $9 million in its first two years of existence.

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Tennis

Andy Roddick will compete in the 2004 Athens Games.

“Athens 2004 -- we’re definitely going,” Roddick’s coach, Brad Gilbert, said.

The top-ranked Roddick is eligible for the Summer Games because he plays in Davis Cup competition.

The Olympic tournament is Aug. 15-22, ending eight days before the start of the U.S. Open, where Roddick will defend his first major title.

Two former No. 1 players recently said they will skip the Olympics.

Two-time major champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia said the Athens competition is too close to the U.S. Open. Kim Clijsters of Belgium pulled out because she won’t be allowed to wear apparel from her sponsor.

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Skiing

Cross-country skiers Olga Danilova of Russia and Johann Muehlegg of Spain were stripped of Olympic gold medals by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, for failing drug tests.

Muehlegg earlier had to give up one gold medal from the 2002 Games and Danilova was disqualified from a race because they tested positive for the banned endurance-boosting substance darbepoetin.

The International Olympic Committee allowed the skiers to keep medals from other victories at Salt Lake City, though, because they passed drug tests after those events.

But the Court of Arbitration for Sport overruled that.

So Danilova’s gold medal from the 5-K pursuit event goes to Beckie Scott of Canada. Scott actually crossed the finish line third in Salt Lake City, but she was moved to second place when original silver medalist Larissa Lazutina was punished because of a failed drug test.

Muehlegg now must relinquish gold medals from the 10-K combined pursuit to Norwegians Thomas Alsgaard and Frode Estil -- who previously shared the silver after tying for second place -- and from the 30-kilometer freestyle to Austrian Christian Hoffmann.

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Miscellany

Keith Magnuson’s family said they don’t fault driver Rob Ramage for the crash that killed the former Chicago Blackhawk player and coach.

Ramage, formerly of the Toronto Maple Leafs, was charged with impaired driving causing death in the accident Monday outside Toronto.

Ramage and Magnuson, 56, were returning from a funeral when their vehicle crossed into an oncoming lane and struck a sport utility vehicle, which then was hit by another vehicle.

“We told him how much Keith loved him and that he was certainly not to blame for what happened,” the Magnuson family said in a release.

“Keith was a loving and forgiving man and in our hearts we all know that he would want us to support Rob during this difficult time.”

Edwin Valero of Venezuela ran his career-opening streak of first-round knockouts to 12, stopping Tomas Zambrano of Mexico in a scheduled 10-round junior lightweight fight in Irvine.

Valero floored Zambrano (16-7) twice. Referee James Jen-Kin stopped the fight after the second knockdown without a count.