Duran badly hurt in crash

Roberto Duran, the Panamanian former world champion, was seriously injured in a car crash in Argentina yesterday.

The former champion suffered multiple trauma injuries, including a collapsed lung and five or six broken ribs, and is in a hospital in Buenos Aires. Preliminary reports said that Duran's car crashed into another car on a highway in the Argentinian capital shortly after midnight, and both vehicles then crashed into a highway retaining wall.

The 50-year-old Duran was traveling with two Argentinian reporters and his son Roberto Jnr, who suffered minor injuries.

In June 1972, Duran knocked out Britain's Ken Buchanan to capture to the World Boxing Association lightweight title. In the 1980s, he racked up three titles starting with a 1980 bout that brought him the welterweight title. He won the super-welterweight belt in 1983 followed by the mediumweight title in 1989.

Britain's former world featherweight champion Naseem Hamed will launch his quest to reclaim the title he lost to Marco Antonio Barrera in England. He has severed his links with the American television company Home Box Office.