Dufresne Wins Top-Story Award

A story by Chris Dufresne of The Times, on American skier Tommy Moe’s downhill victory at the Lillehammer Olympics, won the top sports event story category in the Associated Press Sports Editors’ national writing contest.

Other Times reporters honored in APSE results announced Tuesday were Lisa Dillman and James Bates, second place in the investigative category for their series of stories on the fall from power and into bankruptcy of Bruce McNall, former Kings’ owner; Bill Plaschke, third place in the event category for his story on the 1994 L.A. Marathon; and Mike Downey, fourth place in the feature story category for his look back at the George Foreman-Muhammad Ali boxing match in Zaire.

Also in the the large-paper category, Mark Alesia of the L.A. Daily News was fourth in enterprise reporting.

The only other winner from Southern California was Shaun O’Neill of the Escondido Times-Advocate, who topped the event-story category in the small-paper division. In the middle-sized paper grouping, Bob Keisser of the Long Beach Press Telegram was fourth in enterprise reporting, and Bill Shaikin of the Riverside Press Enterprise was second and Mike Davis of the San Bernardino Sun third in event reporting.