Sports Shorts

* SUZUKA – Japanese driver Takuma Sato was disqualified from his final Japanese Grand Prix for the BAR-Honda team here Sunday after being blamed for a collision with Italian Jarno Trulli.

Sato came together with Trulli on the tenth lap, putting the Toyota driver out of the race, and although he was able to carry on and finish in 13th place, he was later thrown out of the results by the race stewards. In a statement the governing body the FIA said: “The stewards viewed the video of the incident and presented the same to Takuma Sato and his team manager Ron Meadows and independently to Jarno Trulli and his team manager Richard Cregan.* LAS VEGAS – Jorge Arce retained his World Boxing Council interim flyweight title with a technical knockout of Australia’s Hussein Hussein in the second round on Saturday.Arce, who boosted his record to 41-3-1 with 31 KOs, knocked Hussein down twice before Hussein’s corner threw in the towel and the fight was stopped at 2:50 of the second.This was a rematch of their March battle, which was also won by Arce.* LEVERKUSEN – Bayer Leverkusen hired Michael Skibbe as its new coach yesterday.The 40-year-old former assistant coach of Germany, who has been in charge of the country’s under-18 team, signed a contract with the Bundesliga club until the end of the 2007 season.Terms of his contract were not released.He replaces Klaus Augenthaler, who was released three weeks ago because of Leverkusen’s sluggish start to the season.-Reports by Nampa-Reuters, AFP and APIn a statement the governing body the FIA said: “The stewards viewed the video of the incident and presented the same to Takuma Sato and his team manager Ron Meadows and independently to Jarno Trulli and his team manager Richard Cregan.* LAS VEGAS – Jorge Arce retained his World Boxing Council interim flyweight title with a technical knockout of Australia’s Hussein Hussein in the second round on Saturday.Arce, who boosted his record to 41-3-1 with 31 KOs, knocked Hussein down twice before Hussein’s corner threw in the towel and the fight was stopped at 2:50 of the second.This was a rematch of their March battle, which was also won by Arce.* LEVERKUSEN – Bayer Leverkusen hired Michael Skibbe as its new coach yesterday.The 40-year-old former assistant coach of Germany, who has been in charge of the country’s under-18 team, signed a contract with the Bundesliga club until the end of the 2007 season.Terms of his contract were not released.He replaces Klaus Augenthaler, who was released three weeks ago because of Leverkusen’s sluggish start to the season.-Reports by Nampa-Reuters, AFP and AP