Lindh to Retire From U.S. Ski Team

Hilary Lindh, who became a world champion by taking advice from her coach, stopped listening Thursday.

Lindh, 27, who won the downhill gold medal in the world championships in February, said this season, her 13th on the U.S. ski team, is her last.

The ski team’s women’s coach, Herwig Demschar, “talked to me an hour and a half yesterday, trying to convince me that I should hold off on my decision,” Lindh said after Thursday’s races in the World Cup Finals at Vail, Colo. “The final agreement was that I would allow myself that possibility [of skiing next season]. I’m not planning on changing my mind, but I guess there’s always that option.”

Lindh, from Juneau, Alaska, has won three World Cup races and silver and bronze Olympic medals. Her final competitive race at a U.S. ski team member will be in next week’s U.S. Nationals at Sugarloaf, Maine.

*

Luc Alphand of France won another World Cup crystal globe at Vail, Colo., despite skiing poorly for the second day in a row and seeing his overall title hopes take another hit.

Alphand, 31, finished ninth in a super-giant slalom at the World Cup finals, adding the season’s super-G title to his downhill crown. But his lead in the overall standings was reduced to 106 points over Kjetil-Andre Aamodt of Norway.

Andreas Schifferer of Austria was the men’s super-G winner, in 1 minute 33.76 seconds, and Katja Seizinger led Germany’s sweep of the first three places in the women’s competition with her second consecutive World Cup victory in a super-G, in 1:15.73. By finishing second, Hilde Gerg won the season’s super-G title.

*

World Cup leader Primoz Peterka of Slovenia won his fourth ski jumping event this season with jumps of 103.5 and 109.5 meters for a total of 201.4 points at Falun, Sweden. . . . Two-time Olympian Ann Battelle of Steamboat Springs, Colo., won the first World Cup mogul freestyle of her career in the final event of the season, collecting 24.20 points on her solo run at Hundfjallet, Sweden. Tatjana Mittermayer of Germany was second at 23.63 to win her first World Cup title.

Golf

The stiff, spring winds of South Florida didn’t seem to bother Lee Janzen or Paul Stankowski, who each shot a five-under-par 67 to share the first-round lead of the Honda Classic at Coral Springs.

Janzen, the 1993 U.S. Open winner who did not win at all last year, used brilliant iron play to set up four short birdie putts and had two 20-foot birdies down the stretch.

Stankowski, who won the Hawaiian Open in a playoff earlier this year, began on the back nine and played it at 37, then turned on his game, finishing with an eagle on the par-five ninth hole when he holed a 90-yard lob wedge from a fairway bunker, backing the ball four feet into the cup.

Liselotte Neumann had eagles on two holes and birdied four for an eight-under-par 64 and a one-stroke lead at the Welch’s-Circle K Championship on the LPGA Tour in Tucson.

Julie Piers was second with a 65, with Tammie Green, Marianne Morris, Sherri Steinhauer and Annika Sorenstam were two shots behind at 66.

Football

Dallas Cowboy Coach Barry Switzer said he wants quarterback Troy Aikman to travel to colleges and work out with receivers the team is considering taking in April’s NFL draft.

The Houston Oilers have reached a multiyear agreement with unrestricted free-agent linebacker Lonnie Marts, who played for Tampa Bay the last three seasons, and with their own cornerback, Steve Jackson.

San Antonio’s Alamodome has been chosen as the site for the Big 12’s second championship game between North and South divisions on Dec. 6.

Free-agent defensive back Corey Harris, a cornerback last season with the Seattle Seahawks, agreed to terms on a $4.5-million, three-year contract with the Miami Dolphins, for whom he will play safety.

Tennis

Second-seeded Martin Damm of the Czech Republic defeated Nuno Marques of Portugal, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals of the Copenhagen Open. Guillaume Raoux of France upset third-seeded David Prinosil of Germany, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.

Yachting

The America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sports and yachting’s most coveted prize, was badly damaged in Auckland, New Zealand, by a man who struck it repeatedly with a sledgehammer.

Police said the 27-year-old Maori protester, whose name was not released, walked into the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron clubhouse and tried to smash the cup in its glass case.

Badly damaged, the Cup probably will be sent back to its manufacturer in England for repairs. The company apparently still has the original drawings of the trophy, made about 1850.

Team New Zealand became only the second foreign crew in 144 years to take the America’s Cup away from the United States when the black boat with the silver fern logo, dubbed “Black Magic,” completed a 5-0 whitewash of Dennis Conner’s Young America syndicate off San Diego on May 13, 1995.

Miscellany

The NHL draft drawing, a weighted lottery that will determine the order of selection for the first 10 picks in the June entry draft, will be held May 18 at the NHL’s New York office. The draft is set for June 21 at Pittsburgh.

Joe Repko, who played defensive tackle for the Los Angeles Rams in 1948 and ‘49, has died of natural causes at 76 in St. Louis.