Young Russian Ends Bonaly’s Skating Reign

Irina Slutskaya gained the first title for a Russian or former Soviet woman’s singles skater as she ended Surya Bonaly’s bid for a record-equaling sixth consecutive crown at the European Figure Skating Championships on Saturday in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Slutskaya, 16, and last year’s world junior champion, had an outstanding routine to a medley of American music while easily landing six triple jumps, including two in combination.

Rapidly maturing, she could be a contender for the 1998 Olympic gold medal at Nagano, Japan.

“Of course, I was nervous but I pulled myself together and I just thought about skating well,” Slutskaya said.

Slutskaya got scores of 5.7 to 5.9 on both technical merit and artistic impression and firsts from all nine judges in the final free skating, worth two-thirds of the total score.

Bonaly failed in her attempt to tie Sonja Henie and Katarina Witt as a six-time European winner.

“I didn’t skate my best,” Bonaly said.

Maria Butyrskaya of Russia, who fell on one jump and scaled down two others, finished third.

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Mario Reiter used an acrobatic second run for a combined time of 1 minute 58.79 seconds in his first World Cup slalom victory in leading a 1-2-3 Austrian sweep at Sestriere, Italy. Thomas Sykora finished second and Thomas Stangassinger was third. World Cup leader Alberto Tomba skidded out in the first run, failing in an attempt for his seventh victory on his favorite “home” track.

A women’s World Cup downhill was canceled after American Picabo Street led a strong protest by the leading skiers about the setting and safety of the course at Sestriere, Italy.

Canada’s Stephane Rochon received 26.20 points and won his second consecutive World Cup moguls event at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, while Minna Karhu (24.63 points) of Finland collected her first victory in the women’s contest. Jonny Moseley of Tiburon, Calif., was third at 24.59 behind Rochon and moved into first on the moguls points list while Jim Moran (23.88) of Frisco, Colo.

American snowboarders continued their medals run in the inaugural FIS World Championships at Lienz, Austria, collecting gold and silver as Jeff Greenwood of Granby, Conn., overtook teammate Mike Jacoby of Hood River, Ore., with a time of 1 minute, 50.18 seconds for the first giant slalom title. Jacoby finished in 1:50.97 on the next-to-last day of the first FIS World Championships, the final step before snowboarding becomes an Olympic event at Nagano, Japan, in 1998.

Noake Hiroyuki of Japan won the men’s 1,500 meter speedskating World Cup at Baselga Di Pine, Italy, in 1 minute 56.22 seconds, while K.C. Boutiette (1:57.29) of Tacoma, Wash., finished third, a career best for him on the tour. He had never finished higher than ninth.

Boxing

Mark Breland, a former two-time WBA welterweight champion who had been idle since retiring in November 1992, started a comeback by stopping Riccardo Smith of Syracuse, N.Y., 30 seconds into the third round of a scheduled 10-round junior middleweight bout in New York.

Breland (31-3-1), 32, who admitted retiring because the desire the fight had left him, used a right uppercut to send Smith (7-11-1) down.

“My plans are to fight once a month,” Breland said. “There’s also some talk of getting on the same card with Tommy Hearns here in New York, possibly in April or May.”

Baseball

Free agent Vince Coleman agreed to a minor-league contract with the Cincinnati Reds, who are looking for a leadoff hitter. Coleman, 34, faces competition from several others, including Brian Hunter, Eric Anthony and Eric Davis. Coleman split last season between Kansas City and Seattle, batting .288 with five homers, 29 RBIs and 42 steals in 58 attempts.

Track & Field

A Super Bowl Sunday tradition continues today with the 18th running of the Redondo 10K, but this year there is a little embellishment.

Several runners with Olympic credentials, including marathoners Linda Somers and Bob Kempainen, will participate as part of their training for qualification races for the Olympic Games.

For Somers, who has won the last two Redondo runs and who was the first American woman to finish in the 1995 Boston Marathon and 1995 World Track and Field marathon in Sweden; and Kempainen, the American marathon record-holder (2 hours 8 minutes 47 seconds in Boston in 1994), today’s race will be their final tuneups before the U.S. Olympic marathon trials, on Feb. 10 in Columbia, S.C., for the women and Feb. 17 in Charlotte, N.C., for the men.

Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia broke the men’s world indoor 5,000-meter record with a time of 13 minutes 10.98 seconds, at the Sindelfingen indoor track and field meet in Germany. Gebrselassie’s time was nearly 9 1/2 seconds faster than the mark of 13:20.4 set by Suleiman Nyambui of Tanzania on Feb. 6, 1981.

British shot putter Judy Oakes, who beat two Russians in Birmingham, England with a throw of 61 feet 1 1/2 inches as she bids to compete at this year’s Olympics at age 37, is pursuing her case to receive a bronze medal from 1984 after third-place finisher Gael Martin of Australia admitted taking drugs. Oakes was fourth.

“I don’t want any money, or anything--just to be able to hang the medal I deserve on my wall,” Oakes said.

Swimming

Sophomore Emily Short won both breaststroke events to lead the seventh-ranked USC women’s team to an upset 153-147 victory over top-ranked Stanford at the McDonald’s Swim Stadium at USC. Short won the 100-meter race in 1 minute 12.03 seconds and the 200-meter event in 2:33:56.