Strobl Leads Downhill Sweep by Austria

Fritz Strobl led an Austrian sweep of the top four places Sunday, winning a delayed downhill for his first World Cup victory at Val D’Isere, France.

Strobl sped down the icy 2.1-mile Oreiller-Killy course in 1 minute, 51.61 seconds, edging Werner Franz by two-hundredths of a second.

Patrick Ortlieb, the world champion and 1992 Olympic gold medalist, was third at 1:51.72, with Josef Strobl, no relation to Fritz and the surprise 1994 winner at this site, fourth at 1:51.81.

“After [Josef] won here two years ago, people kept getting me mixed up with the other Strobl and congratulating me on the victory,” said Fritz Strobl, whose previous World Cup best was 16th in a super-G. “Now with my victory here I hope to show people there are two Strobls.”

The bright conditions put times more than five seconds faster than those during Saturday’s race, which was called because of fog after only 17 racers. Josef Strobl was the leader then at 1:56.79.

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Gunther Huber, Marco Menchini, Antonio Tartaglia and Massimiliano Rota of Italy turned in the two fastest runs to edge USA 1 and win a four-man bobsled World Cup race at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.

Italy 1 clocked 53.04 seconds in the first heat and :53.61 in the second for a total time of 1:46.65. The U.S. team of Brian Shimer, Bob Olesen, Chip Minton and Randy Jones was second in 1:47.03.

Shimer and Olesen combined Saturday to set a course record of :54.59 while winning a two-man race.

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Markus Prock of Austria, two-time Olympic silver medalist and defending world champion, benefited from mistakes to win his second World Cup luge race this season at Altenberg, Germany.

Prock, looking to win his eighth World Cup overall title, trailed fellow countryman Gerhard Gleirscher by over two-tenths of a second after the first of two runs. But Gleirscher encountered difficulty negotiating the tricky lower turns of the Altenberg track and stumbled back to third place.

Prock was timed in 54.154 seconds and :54.322 for a total of 1:48.476, .11 better than Jens Mueller of Germany.

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Slovenian teenager Primoz Peterka won a ski jumping event at Harrachov, Czech Republic and moved to first in the overall World Cup standings.

Peterka, 17, finished the sixth event of the season with 235.1 points, ahead of Austria’s Andreas Goldberger and Norway’s Kristian Brenden. Goldberger had 231.0 points and and Brenden 223.5 points.

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Norway, anchored by individual overall leader Bjorn Dahlie, overtook Italy to win a men’s cross-country World Cup 40-kilometer freestyle relay by 12 seconds at Brusson, Italy.

Russia dominated the women’s 20-kilometer freestyle relay, finishing first and second ahead of third-place Italy.

Norway leads the men’s overall Nordic World Cup standings and Russia leads the women after three relay events.

Dahlie, a world and Olympic champion, helped Norway complete its rally from what was a 39.3-second deficit after teammate Egil Kristiansen’s slow first leg. Anders Eide and Kristen Skjeldal were the other two members of the Norwegian quartet that finished in 1 hour, 34 minutes, 50.3 seconds.

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Veronica Brenner of Canada gained her second consecutive victory in the aerials event of the freestyle skiing World Cup at La Plagne, France.

Michele Rohrbach of Switzerland was second and Stacey Blumer of the United States was third. The women’s aerials event was postponed from Saturday due to fog.

In parallel moguls, Thony Hemery beat Johann Gregoire of France in the men’s final and Minna Karhu of Finland beat American veteran Donna Weinbrecht in the women’s final.

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Franziska Schenk of Germany won her fourth World Cup race of the season, finishing first in the 1,000 meters at Ikaho, Japan.

The 22-year-old Schenk, a bronze medalist at Lillehammer two years ago, finished in 1 minute, 21.73 seconds, .57 ahead of Kyoko Shimazaki. Christone Witty of West Allis, Wis., was seventh in 1:22.95.

Soccer

St. John’s won its first national championship in any sport, defeating Florida International, 4-1, in the NCAA men’s final at Richmond, Va.

The Red Storm (22-2-2) received goals 78 seconds apart in the first half from Jesse Van Saun and Wojtek Krakowiak. Ben Hickey and Medufia Kulego also scored for St. John’s, which had been 0-4 in the NCAA tournament before this year.

St. John’s scored the most goals in the NCAA final since San Francisco beat Indiana, 4-3, in overtime in 1980.

It was the most lopsided victory since San Francisco defeated Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, 4-0, in 1975.

Florida International (17-5-2), which had outscored four tournament opponents, 13-0, closed to 2-1 in the 64th minute on Ignace Moleka’s goal.

Cesare Maldini, who led Italy’s Under-21 team to three consecutive European titles but who was criticized for a poor showing at the Atlanta Olympics, was hired as coach of the national team.

Maldini, 64, replaces Arrigo Sacchi, who quit two weeks ago after nearly five years on the job to once again coach AC Milan.

Mounted police broke up fighting on the field after the Bristol Rovers scored a last-minute goal and tied Bristol City, 1-1, in an English match at Bristol, England.

Fans of Bristol Rovers ran on the field after the goal. City fans reacted by invading the field and chasing players.

Name in the News

Mary Slaney of Oregon won the invitational portion of the Palm Desert 5K in a time of 15:24. Colorado’s Mark Coogan won the men’s invitational race in 13:57.