Kipketer Sets Record in 800

Wilson Kipketer, a native of Kenya living in Denmark, broke the world indoor record Friday in the 800 meters with a time of 1 minute 43.96 seconds at the World Track Championships in Paris. Kipketer’s performance, in a preliminary heat, broke the record of 1:44.84, set by his former Kenyan teammate, Paul Ereng, in 1989 in Budapest, Hungary.

In finals, two-time Olympic champion Gail Devers won her second world indoor 60-meter title in 7.06, unheralded Haralambros Papadias of Greece took the men’s 60 in 6.50, Yuriy Bilonoh topped a 1-2 Ukraine finish in the men’s shotput at 68 feet 11 3/4 inches and Sabine Braun led a 1-2 German finish in the pentathlon with a 1997 world-best 4,780 points.

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The International Olympic Committee pared down a record field of 11 candidates for host city of the 2004 Summer Olympics by selecting Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, South Africa; Stockholm and Rome as finalists. The winner will be named Sept. 5.

Golf

Greg Norman, trying for his fourth victory in eight years in the Doral-Ryder Open in Miami, and David Duval, trying for his first tour title, shared the lead at 10-under-par 134 after 36 holes. Nick Price was a stroke behind the leaders at 135. Masters champion Nick Faldo, last week’s winner in Los Angeles, shot a 68 to get to 139.

Motor Racing

John Force, motor racing’s driver of the year, has been dropped by Pontiac from its drag racing team.

Force was in a Pontiac when he led first-day funny car qualifying at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

Robby Gordon won the pole for Sunday’s Primestar 500 Winston Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway by breaking the track qualifying record with a lap of 186.507 mph in Felix Sabates’ Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Jurisprudence

Former tennis star Roscoe Tanner was released on $5,000 bond in Naples, Fla., after spending the night in the Collier County jail for nonpayment of child support. He paid $40,000 of overdue payments before being released.

Miscellany

Six weeks of Olympic-style horse show jumping competition will end Sunday with the $150,000 Grand Prix of the Desert at 2 p.m. at HITS Horse Park in Indio. . . . The San Francisco 49ers signed unrestricted free-agent running back Garrison Hearst to a two-year contract. . . . Veteran free agent quarterback Warren Moon, 41, agreed to a $1.65-million, two-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks to become a backup to John Friesz. . . . Washington State, which was considering moving its Aug. 30 football game with UCLA to Seattle’s Kingdome, decided to play all six of its home games in Pullman. . . . Defending champion and top-seeded Goran Ivanisevic advanced in the ABN AMRO world tennis tournament at Rotterdam, Netherlands, when Czech Petr Korda withdrew because of a back injury. Richard Krajicek won, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3), over unseeded German Michael Stich.

Winter Sports

Donna Weinbrecht won her 46th World Cup moguls title, edging France’s Candice Gilg by 0.08 of a point at Altenmarkt, Austria. . . . Roberta Pergher of Denver won her second consecutive slalom title and Izidor Jerman of Alaska Anchorage won the men’s slalom in the NCAA Division I ski championships at Stowe, Vt.