U.S. soccer team rolls past China, 5-0
The U.S. national soccer team's vanishing offense resurfaced in a big way yesterday.
"When you're able to execute like that, you're going to bury teams and that's basically what happened today," Eric Wynalda said after the Americans' 5-0 victory over China.
Wynalda and Hugo Perez each had two goals to help pull the United States out of its offensive drought.
Dominic Kinnear had the other goal for the Americans, who had been winless in their last five games (0-4-1), and are 2-5-1 this year. The U.S. team managed just one goal in those five games, all played on the road over a five-week span.
"The last couple of games, we haven't been as fortunate in front of the net," Wynalda said. "This week, we concentrated a lot harder on our finishing. We played two college teams while we were here and were able to put in 12 goals in the two [practice] games. So coming into today, we felt really confident that if and when we got our chances, we'd be able to finish them."
Track and field
Nigeria's Olapade Adeniken of Texas-El Paso ran the fastest 100 meters in the Texas Relays' 65-year history with a legal clocking of 9.97 seconds, fastest in the world this year.
Adeniken, pushed by a light wind of 1.2 meters per second, eclipsed the 15-year-old record of 10.14 by Johnny Lam Jones of Texas. It made Adeniken, 22, the 10th-fastest performer all-time in the event.
Adeniken also beat the Memorial Stadium record of 10.07 by Ed Preston of Arkansas State in 1976. Adeniken's previous best was 10.10.
It was the second fastest 100 meters by an African. Brigham Young's Frankie Fredericks of Namibia ran a 9.95 in the world championships last year.
Henry Neal of Blinn Junior College was second in 10.09 and Ray Stewart, formerly of Texas Christian, was third in 10.17.
* An appeals panel of the German athletics federation postponed until today a decision on the appeal of Katrin Krabbe's four-year suspension for drug-test tampering.
The three-man panel sat through 13 1/2 hours of testimony and deliberation on the world sprint champion and her banned teammates, Grit Breuer and Silke Moeller. They were banned for four years because of suspicious drug test results.
The panel proposed ending the suspensions on May 15, three months after they began.
German track and field federation officials, after a brief discussion, turned down the panel's recommendation.
Krabbe had been given a good shot at winning a gold medal at the Barcelona Games. She won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the World Championships.
* Roger Kingdom, faced with the obstacles of age and reconstructive knee surgery, made it clear he wants to extend his reign in the Olympic 110-meter hurdles.
After an absence of a year and a half, the 1984 and 1988 gold medalist returned to competition at the Miami Track and Field BTC Classic, where he finished second to friend and six-time Pittsburgh all-American, Elbert Ellis.
The two training partners, racing under the auspices of Bad Boys International, finished the race laughing hand in hand, Ellis at 13.86 seconds and Kingdom at 13.87.
* Jim Bush of Southern Cal announced he was relinquishing duties as coach of the women's track team because of comments he made to a reporter about coaching women.
In a story in Friday's Los Angeles Times, Bush was quoted as saying, " . . . If you try to coach women the same as men, you are going to be in trouble. The main thing is, women are more emotional."
Bush was in his second year as head coach of Southern Cal's combined men's and women's track and field program, and has coached men for 39 years.
Friday, Trojans assistant coach Barbara Edmondson was named head coach in charge of the women's team.
Colleges
Retired Air Force Col. John J. Clune, former athletic director at the Air Force Academy, has died, the academy announced. He was 59.
He learned last March he had a cancerous tumor in the bone marrow of his left leg. The tumor was successfully removed, but the cancer spread to other parts of his body, including his sternum, doctors said.
Clune had served as the academy's athletic director from November 1975 until his retirement last summer. He was a 1954 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Survivors include his wife Patricia and four children, Cathy, John, Mike and Tim.
Rowing
A gamble by American captain Joe Michels paid off as Oxford beat Cambridge for the 16th time in 17 years in their 138th annual Boat Race on the River Thames. The margin of victory, 1 1/2 lengths, was the closest since 1980.
"This has put vitality back into the Boat Race," Michels said, reflecting on the one-sided races of recent years. "It was an epic race, it was anything but a procession."
It was Oxford's 68th victory, compared with Cambridge's 69. There has been one tie. Cambridge's only victory in the last 17 years was in 1986 when it won by seven lengths.
Pro football
John Kissell, an all-pro defensive tackle with the Cleveland Browns in the 1950s, died of cancer Friday. He was 68. Cleveland coach Paul Brown once called Kissell "the best defensive tackle I have ever seen."
He played on the championship teams in 1950, '54 and '55, and was named to the all-time best Cleveland Browns.
* Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Bubby Brister faces a tentative June 4 trial date on charges stemming from a dispute outside a Monroe nightclub in March.
The tentative date was set by Monroe City Judge Larry Lolley during Brister's arraignment on charges of simple battery on a police officer, interfering with an officer and disturbing the peace.
Brister was arrested by three off-duty Monroe police officers March 21 at the Honky Tonk nightclub, along with his two sisters -- Danna F. Witty, and Donna L. Van Veckhoven, and his brother-in-law, James M. Van Veckhoven.
Shelton, Tarango reach River Oaks title match
Fourth-seeded Bryan Shelton used 24 aces in overpowering top-seeded MaliVai Washington, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), yesterday in the semifinals of the $200,000 River Oaks International tournament.
Shelton will play third-seeded Jeff Tarango in today's final for the $40,000 first prize. Tarango eliminated unseeded Jared Palmer, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Palmer took a 5-2 lead in the first set but had to beat off Tarango's comeback to win the set. Palmer was broken while serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set.
Tarango closed out the second set and won the first three games of the final set, taking control of the match.
Washington, ranked No. 29 in the world, served five aces but couldn't keep up with Shelton's blistering serve. One of Shelton's aces came on match point.
* Aaron Krickstein and top-seeded Alexander Volkov won rain-delayed quarterfinal and semifinal matches to reach the final of the South African Open.
Krickstein, the fourth seed, started the day by completing a 6-2, 6-2 victory over South Africa's Gary Muller in a match suspended on Friday. He then beat Canadian Chris Pridham 6-3, 6-4, to set up a championship match against Volkov.
The Russian dispatched third seed Wayne Ferreira of South Africa 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) after defeating unseeded Carl Limberger of -- Australia 6-3, 6-0 in a match postponed Friday because of rain.
Pro football
At age 35 and after nine operations in 13 years, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana said he's coming out of "retirement."
"I'm reaching the end of my career, and everyone is looking for that one thing that's going to make me step away," Montana said. "And I think a lot of people felt like this might be it."
But six months after surgery on his right passing elbow, Montana said that he's ready to play. He said the joint was "probably pretty close to 100 percent."
Montana, who has led the 49ers to four Super Bowl victories, has dropped organized rehabilitation on his elbow and left knee, on which he had arthroscopic surgery last month. The team described it as minor.
Montana has undergone nine operations since joining the team in 1979, six in the last four years. He came back from career-threatening back surgery in 1986.