Sporting Digest: Athletics

BRITISH athletics received a pounds 2m fillip yesterday when McDonald's extended its sponsorship for another two years. The restaurant chain will back the indoor international against Russia in Birmingham on 28 January and the meeting at Crystal Palace on 27 August.

THE European Athletics Association is to introduce pole vault and hammer events for women at the next European Championships in 1998. Its general secretary, Heiner Henze, said yesterday that the ruling body had also decided at a weekend meeting in Copenhagen to scrap the women's 3,000 metres in favour of the 5,000m in Budapest.

TAIWAN'S successful Asian Games team will share a Taiwan dollars 244m ( pounds 5.3m) bonus after winning 43 medals in Hiroshima.