Tuesday's sports briefs

Six positives turn up in IOC retests

Eight months after the closing ceremony, the IOC is uncovering more drug cheats from the Beijing Games.

The International Olympic Committee said Tuesday that six athletes have been nabbed by retesting blood samples for CERA, an advanced version of the blood-boosting hormone EPO.

A person familiar with the results told the Associated Press the latest tests caught three track and field athletes, two cyclists and a weightlifter. The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the names haven't been released by the IOC, said a male track and field athlete who won only one gold medal was one of the athletes. The other medalist was in cycling.

The IOC did not identify the athletes or sports involved, saying it was notifying the competitors through their national Olympic committees.

The IOC reanalyzed 948 samples from Beijing, focusing mainly on endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and track and field.

Former UNLV star Gondrezick dies Glen Gondrezick, a UNLV basketball star who sparked storied Runnin' Rebels teams in the 1970s, died at age 53 in Henderson, Nev. His close friend, Bobby Gleason, said the apparent cause was complications following a September heart transplant.

Gondrezick played two years with the New York Knicks and four years with the Denver Nuggets before returning to Las Vegas, doing color commentary for UNLV games.

Djokovic wins in Rome Novak Djokovic overcame a lapse midway through the first set and started off the defense of his Rome Masters title by beating Albert Montanes 7-6 (5), 6-0.

Djokovic, who needs to win the clay-court tournament again to hold on to the No. 3 ranking, wasted a 5-2 lead and was broken while serving for the first set at 5-3. But Djokovic regained his focus and won four straight points to take control of the tiebreaker, then cruised through the second set in 25 minutes.

Tommy Robredo beat two-time Grand Slam champion Marat Safin 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2.

• Dinara Safina turned her first match as No. 1 in the world into a rout, overwhelming Sara Errani 6-0, 6-1 in 51 minutes to reach the second round of the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany. No. 2 seed Elena Dementieva also won, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 over Anna-Lena Groenefeld.

Argentina's Guillermo Coria announced his retirement at age 27. Coria, a French Open finalist in 2004 and formerly ranked third in the world, said he had been considering stepping down for months.

Auto racing: David Poole, who spent 13 years covering NASCAR for The Charlotte Observer, died Tuesday of a heart attack at home near Charlotte. He was 50. Poole, who joined the Observer in 1990, covered Sunday's race at Talladega, Ala, which ended when Carl Edwards' car flew into a safety fence on the last lap and injured seven fans. Poole, who also hosted "The Morning Drive" weekday show on Sirius NASCAR Radio, was a four-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association's writer of the year.

WNBA: Basketball Hall of Famer Anne Donovan has been hired as an assistant coach with the New York Liberty. Donovan was 112-100 as a WNBA head coach with Charlotte and Seattle ... Chen Nan, the 6-5 MVP of the Women's Chinese Basketball Association and an Olympian in 2004 and '08, has signed to play with the Chicago Sky.

Horse racing: Kentucky Derby contender Square Eddie is out of the Run for the Roses. Trainer Doug O'Neill said his 3-year old colt had a reoccurrence of a shin problem that hindered his training over the last three months. O'Neill said Square Eddie developed a hot spot in the shin at Churchill Downs over the weekend.