Emotional Street Ends Two-Year Absence

After two years away from racing because of assorted leg injuries, a tearful Picabo Street returned to World Cup skiing Wednesday, finishing 34th in a super-G won by Regine Cavagnoud of France at Val D’Isere, France.

The 29-year-old American is the Olympic champion in this event but she finished far back, 2.56 seconds behind the winner.

“I’m satisfied with the fact I made it to the finish and that’s all I really expected from myself today,” said Street, wiping tears from her eyes after the race. “I feel such relief. That’s why I keep crying.”

She was joined in her comeback by two other veterans. Alexandra Meissnitzer of Austria, the 1999 World Cup overall, super-G and giant slalom champion, finished a respectable seventh in 1:29.89. Pernilla Wiberg of Sweden, the 1997 overall World Cup champion, was 23rd, 2.17 seconds off the pace.

Cavagnoud won her first World Cup super-G title of the season after finishing runner-up twice in North America, completing the Oreiller-Killy course in 1:28.72.

Jurisprudence

Rae Carruth urged a woman to wait before cooperating with a private investigator involved in his murder case, the woman testified in Charlotte, N.C.

Prosecutors played a voice-mail message that Carruth left on Tanya Ferguson’s cell phone on Jan. 10 and that she saved.

“This is Rae,” Carruth says in a muted tone on the message, which was difficult to understand in the courtroom. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Former Kentucky guard Jeff Sheppard has won a surprise court ruling that could spell the end of foreign player limits in Italy’s basketball leagues.

The decision, handed down Tuesday by a judge in the central Italian city of Giulianova, prohibits using a player’s nationality to prevent him from competing.

The ruling allows the Roseto squad, which already has two Americans on its roster, to sign Sheppard, a 6-foot-3 guard who played on Kentucky’s 1998 NCAA title team before brief stints with the Atlanta Hawks and Toronto Raptors.

Six of the nine men accused of fixing more than a dozen horse races at Penn National Race Course entered guilty pleas before a judge in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, Pa.

Another man involved in the alleged scheme has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors but was unable to make it to court. George D. Berryhill is one of two horse owners involved and will be arraigned at another time, said U.S. Attorney David M. Barasch.

Besides the two owners, seven jockeys at the thoroughbred track near Harrisburg have been charged. Last week, Barasch announced that seven of the nine had agreed to plead guilty.

Miscellany

Alex Zanardi will return to the CART series next year, the Mo Nunn racing team said.

The 34-year-old Italian was rookie of the year in 1996 and CART series champion in 1997 and 1998. He drove for the Williams Formula One team in 1999. He sat out this season because Williams bought out the final year and replaced him with Jenson Button.

Swedish tennis star Thomas Enqvist had surgery on his foot and shoulder and is expected to be sidelined at least until March.

Olympic figure skating champion Tara Lipinski, not fully recovered from hip surgery 10 weeks ago, will not defend her World Professional Championship title this weekend at Winnipeg, Canada.

Major League Soccer still intends to expand by two teams in 2002, MLS Commissioner Don Garber said, even though one of them may not have a place to play.

Garber said this year that MLS would put another team in the New York area for the 2002 season and a second in either Philadelphia, Atlanta or Houston.

But New York-New Jersey MetroStars investor-operator Stuart Subotnick, whose Empire Soccer LP owns the operating rights to the MetroStars and those of a New York-area expansion team, said the new club is restricted from playing in Long Island’s Mitchell Field in Uniondale, N.Y., because of local legislation.

Alfonso Mondelo, director of player development for MLS, was hired as coach of the Tampa Bay Mutiny.

Atlas bounced back twice in its home city of Guadalajara to tie Toluca, 3-3, in the first leg of Mexico’s winter soccer semifinals. Nelson Esqueda scored the tying goal with two minutes to go.

A 12-year-old Massachusetts boy died after being struck in the back of the head with a puck during hockey practice.

Quinn Connally, a seventh-grade student in Adams, died about 18 hours later at Baystate Medical Center. An autopsy was scheduled, said a spokeswoman for the state Medical Examiner’s office.

Yale’s varsity heavyweight crew has been suspended during an investigation into possible violations of student regulations.

Keitaro Hoshino of Japan won the WBA’s 105-pound title with a unanimous decision over champion Joma Gamboa of the Philippines at Yokohama, Japan. . . . Coley Welch, who once fought Jake LaMotta and was boxing’s third-ranked middleweight, died of congestive heart failure Monday in Las Vegas. He was 81. . . . Eddie Marcus of Los Angeles, who won the 1937 Golden Gloves featherweight championship and fought main events for years in Southern California, died in Torrance on Saturday. He was 85.

Dodger General Manager Kevin Malone is one of three people who will be honored at a Dec. 16 dinner benefiting Parents Against Cancer. Also scheduled to be honored at the Dodger Stadium Club event are Dr. Stuart Siegel of Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and General Manager Augustine Martinez of Channel 34.

The San Diego Gulls defeated the Ice Dogs, 4-2, at San Diego to climb into a tie for first place with Long Beach in the West Coast Hockey League’s Southern Division.

In the latest consolidation of sports agencies, Assante Corporation of Winnipeg has acquired Santa Monica agent Dan Fegan’s basketball representation practice, merging it with a growing operation that includes the Steinberg, Moorad & Dunn firm headed by Leigh Steinberg in Newport Beach.