Hill Forces Formula One Showdown

Damon Hill defeated Michael Schumacher in a driving rainstorm Sunday to win the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, Japan, and force a showdown in Australia next weekend for the Formula One championship.

A victory would have made Schumacher the first German to win the title. Instead, the Briton pulled within a point of the lead.

As a result of Hill’s victory by 3.365 seconds in his Williams-Renault, the title will be decided in the final race of the season for the for the first time in eight years. The Australian Grand Prix is scheduled for next Sunday in Adelaide.

Hockey

Hockey’s international governing body says it will not interfere in Wayne Gretzky’s proposed tour of Europe with a team of locked-out NHL players.

“They’ve basically decided to let it evolve and not get involved,” Murray Costello, president of the Canadian Hockey Assn., said Sunday after returning from a weekend meeting of the International Ice Hockey Federation in Fribourg, Switzerland. “They’ve decided to let the individual federations decide.”

At Belleville, Canada, a team of locked-out NHL players beat the Belleville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League, 12-11. At Moscow, a group of top Russian NHL players lost the second game of its charity exhibition tour, 5-4, to Torpedo Yaroslavl.

Colleges

Eight people were injured when thousands of fans stormed both end zones and went for the goal posts with only seconds to go in Colorado State’s 35-24 victory over Wyoming on Saturday in Fort Collins, Colo. Two people were admitted to Poudre Valley Hospital with minor injuries and the rest were treated and released.

The University of Massachusetts is pondering disciplinary action against journalism instructor Steven Simurda, who invited a guest speaker, Springfield Union-News reporter Brad Smith, who gave Simurda’s students the academic records of black student athletes at the university.

The Boston Globe and the Union-News have reported recently on the academic records of black athletes at the school.

The Union-News apologized for Smith’s actions, quoting Smith as saying he had made “an error in judgment.”

Miscellany

Canadian ice dance champions Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz skated a flawless free program to win the gold at Skate Canada in Red Deer, Canada.

Faced with a Dec. 31 expiration of its contract with the Jockeys’ Guild, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations proposed to increase accident benefits for riders by more than 25%.

Major League Players Assn. head Donald Fehr said he hopes the maverick United Baseball League begins play next year, a year earlier than planned.