Jarrett Makes Move at Phoenix

Dale Jarrett overcame a bad break and won Sunday’s Dura-Lube 500 at Phoenix, tightening up the Winston Cup championship race as points leader Jeff Gordon came close to disaster.

Jarrett moved past Mark Martin into second place in the standings, trailing Gordon by 77 points with only the season-finale Nov. 16 remaining. Martin also gained ground on Gordon, finishing sixth and moving to within 87 points.

“I’ve been saying all year it’s going to go right down to Atlanta and, boom, here it is,” Gordon said.

Jarrett made an early pit stop and lost a lap to the leaders when Ward Burton’s crash brought out a caution flag moments later on lap 129. He got back on the end of the lead lap and was 16th after the leaders pitted during the ensuing caution.

When the green flag flew again for the start of lap 139, Jarrett began an amazing charge.

He shot past Rusty Wallace into the lead on lap 240.

Gordon, 26, the 1995 series champion and last year’s runner-up, was running in the top five when he began to experience a tire problem on lap 240.

He began to fade and was running 10th when he slowed dramatically and nearly hit the third-turn wall on lap 273 before driving slowly to the pits.

But Gordon was able to slice through traffic, finally passing Ernie Irvan by a nose at the finish line to wind up 17th.

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Chris Trickle, a promising stock car driver, has emerged from a coma nearly nine months after being shot in the head by a gunman on a Las Vegas freeway overpass.

Trickle, the nephew of NASCAR Winston Cup regular Dick Trickle, overcame long odds by beginning to process thoughts and talk again Oct. 26 at a local hospital.

Olympics

The U.S. Olympic Committee unanimously agreed to bid for a record ninth Olympics. The USOC board approved a timeline for selecting a candidate city from among 10 hopefuls that adds an additional two years to the domestic bidding process tentatively set last summer.

In a performance he hopes will lead to Olympic gold in February, Elvis Stojko skated a long program to win the Nations Cup figure skating title at Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The three-time world champion delivered seven triple jumps and scored three 5.9s and a balance of 5.8s out of a perfect 6.0.

Tennis

Jana Novotna, the top-seeded and world’s No. 2 player, beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan, 6-3, 6-4, in a sloppily played final of the Kremlin Cup at Moscow.

The doubles final ended abruptly when Caroline Vis of the Netherlands cursed the umpire, who disqualified her and partner Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia in the first set. The victory was awarded to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain and Natasha Zvereva of Belarus.

Pete Sampras was bothered by a sore arm but was able to defeat Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, in the final of the Paris Open. According to ATP Tour information, the victory assures Sampras the world’s top ranking at the end of the year.

Top-seeded Jimmy Connors beat the 1990 French Open champion, Andres Gomez of Ecuador, 6-3, 3-6, 10-8, to advance to the final of $150,000 NTT Data Champions senior tournament at Tokyo. In today’s final, Connors will play Mel Purcell, who beat Bjorn Borg of Sweden, 6-2, 4-6, 10-8.

Top-seeded Francisco Clavet of Spain defeated Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti, 6-3, 6-3, to win the Colombia Open clay-court at Bogota.

Running

Sammy Korir of Kenya ran away with the Amsterdam Marathon, winning in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 24 seconds. Kamel Ziani of Morocco was second in 2:10:18, while Andres Espinoza of Mexico, considered the pre-race favorite, was third in 2:10:22.

Miscellany

Richard Gnida, the driver of a limousine that crashed and left two Detroit Red Wings disabled, is to be sentenced today and he can expect time behind bars.

Gnida, who pleaded guilty Oct. 20 to a misdemeanor charge of driving without a valid driver’s license, faces up to a year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine.

“With all the publicity, they have to give him jail time,” said Gnida’s lawyer, James O’Connell. “If it were anyone else, they would be fined and given probation.”

The June 13 crash in suburban Detroit left defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov and team trainer Sergei Mnatsakanov with severe brain injuries. Gnida and Red Wings defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov had less serious injuries.

Doctors have said Mnatsakanov will never walk again, and Konstantinov may never speak again.

Manufacturers of items that carry the Duke University logo soon will be required to sign a pledge that they don’t use sweatshop labor.

The code of conduct now being worked on by Duke and Collegiate Licensing Co., an Atlanta firm that negotiates trademark deals for 160 universities, will require companies to fully disclose working conditions in their factories.

“We are totally opposed to products being manufactured in sweatshops or forced labor or abusive conditions,” said Jim Wilkerson, director of Duke Stores operations and trademark licensing.

Roy McMillan, a former major league shortstop with Cincinnati who won the first three Gold Gloves awarded at the position, died Sunday at 68. Playing from 1951-66, the first 10 seasons with Cincinnati, he won the Gold Glove from 1957-59 and was a National League All-Star in 1956 and ’57. He was a scout in the Montreal Expos organization at the time of his death.

Results of a 20-month-old NCAA investigation into Texas Tech should include many allegations of rules violations that have appeared in newspaper reports over the past 2 1/2 years, Athletic Director Gerald Myers said.

“You can pretty well assume all the things that have been in the media over the last several months are probably going to be in there,” Myers said of an NCAA official letter of inquiry the school planned to release today.

The Houston Chronicle in March 1995 began a series of stories containing a variety of alleged violations the athletic department, including possible grade irregularities, questionable coursework and recruiting violations, mostly in the men’s basketball and football programs.