Athletics

Andreas Berger, the former European indoor sprint champion suspended in 1993 after testing positive for steroids, had his four-year ban lifted yesterday by a court in Vienna. Regardless of any International Amateur Athletic Federation ruling, the 34-year-old Austrian is unlikely to make a comeback. He said yesterday he regarded it extremely difficult for athletes to participate in top-level sports without certain drugs. "But I would differentiate between drugs and medication. What I took I would classify as medication and I could have stopped from one day to the next," he said.

Vincent Rousseau of Belgium, second fastest in the world last year, will run the London Marathon for the first time in A