Ghedina Dominates Downhill

Even the Herminator couldn’t better the run put together by Kristian Ghedina on Friday.

The Italian attacked the fast and bumpy downhill course at Val Gardena, Italy, for his 11th World Cup victory, by a whopping 1.35 seconds.

“Beating the Austrians--especially Hermann Maier, who is in superb shape--was one of my goals,” Ghedina said. “Today I did it, and it proves I have the potential to do it again.”

Olympic and world champion Maier finished a disappointing sixth--his worst result this season.

Reaching speeds of 85 mph, Ghedina was timed in 2 minutes, 2.99 seconds. Austrian Josef Strobl, winner of five World Cup events, was second at 2:04.34.

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Italy’s Isolde Kostner reaffirmed her status as the World Cup’s new speed queen and moved closer to taking the overall crown with her second downhill victory of the season. Kostner, the winner of the season-opening downhill in Lake Louise, Canada, stormed down the sun-bathed Corviglia course at St. Morita, Switzerland, in 1:37.81, .08 seconds ahead of German Regina Haeusl. The Italian has dominated the Alpine ski speed scene this season, having won back-to-back downhills and a super-G.

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Chad Fleischer, the top downhiller for the U.S. Ski Team, will be sidelined the rest of the season after undergoing surgery to repair an injured left shoulder. Fleischer crashed while competing in a Europa Cup super-G, which he was using as practice for Friday’s World Cup downhill. . . . Former U.S. figure skating champion Nicole Bobek, 22, said she will not turn professional and instead will remain eligible for Olympic competition despite her latest setback that will keep her out of the 2000 national championships. Earlier this week, Bobek’s request for a medical bye into the U.S. Championships was turned down by the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. Various illnesses had kept Bobek out of qualifying events.

College Football

Colorado linebacker Andy Peeke has been suspended from the Insight.com Bowl for violating team rules and ethics, Coach Gary Barnett said. Peeke and wide receiver John Minardi, both 20, were arrested Dec. 11 on suspicion of stealing a woman’s bicycle on campus. Barnett said Peeke was suspended because he had two offenses. The arrest was Minardi’s first offense and he will be allowed to travel to Tucson for the bowl game against Boston College on Dec. 31.

Utah and Fresno State, once rivals in the same league, meet today in the Las Vegas Bowl for the first time since the breakup of the Western Athletic Conference. Fresno State (8-4) shared the WAC championship with San Jose State; Utah (8-3) won a share of the inaugural Mountain West Conference title.

Southern (11-1) will be going for a 12-victory season and its second victory this season over Hampton (7-4) when the teams meet in the Heritage Bowl today at Atlanta.

Henry White, an 18-year-old redshirt freshman linebacker on the Georgetown football team that plays today for the NAIA championship against Northwestern Oklahoma State, was killed Friday in a car crash at Elizabethtown, Ky. . . .Todd Berry of Illinois State was hired as Army’s coach after the team went 3-8 the last two seasons. . . . Jack Bicknell III, who coached Louisiana Tech to its first top 25 ranking, signed a five-year contract extension.

Miscellany

Dale Earnhardt underwent spinal column surgery at Winston-Salem, N.C., to remove a disk the champion driver ruptured in March, his spokesman said. Earnhardt, a seven-time Winston Cup champion, will have to stay off the track for at least six weeks while he recovers from the two-hour operation. . . . Brazilian Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello of the Ferrari team will undergo surgery today to remove calcified tissue from his rib cage.

Russian referee Sergei Khusainov was suspended until July by European soccer’s governing body following allegations he got drunk before a game in September. . . . Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett’s attempt to break the record for sailing a catamaran across the Atlantic ended in failure at Newport, R.I., one day after he departed from New York. The 105-foot catamaran PlayStation limped into Newport Harbor with a broken mainsail.

The world’s national Olympics committees have voted Brazilian soccer star Pele as No. 1 in their top five athletes of the century--even though he’s the only one of the five who didn’t take part in the Olympics. Behind Pele were Muhammad Ali, winner of the Olympic light-heavyweight title in 1960 before becoming three-time world heavyweight champion; Carl Lewis, winner of nine track and field gold medals in four Games from 1984-96; basketball great Michael Jordan, a gold medalist in 1984 and ‘92; and Mark Spitz, winner of seven swimming gold medals at the ’72 Games.

Unbeaten Paul Spadafora successfully defended his International Boxing Federation lightweight title, stopping Australian Renato Cornett in the 11th round in Pittsburgh’s first championship bout in 18 years.

Mike Waldner of the South Bay Daily Breeze is the winner of the Bob Hunter Award, given by the Los Angeles-Anaheim chapter of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.