National Team Has Olympic Flavor

Tiffeny Milbrett, Christie Pearce, Kate Sobrero, Siri Mullinix, Michelle French, Lorrie Fair and Nikki Serlenga, all members of the U.S. Olympic soccer team, were chosen for the U.S. women’s national team. The team will travel to China to play the Chinese national team Jan. 11 and Jan. 14.

The remainder of the 18-member team is made up of five collegiate players and six players who were high picks in the Women’s United Soccer Assn. player draft.

Miscellany

Infielder-outfielder Mark Johnson and right-handed pitchers Pete Walker and Paul Wagner have been invited by the New York Mets to their spring training camp at Port St. Lucie, Fla.

In Australia’s annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race, leader Shockwave retired in the face of gale-force winds and 1997 winner Brindabella withdrew with a damaged hull in the second day of racing. Shockwave led the 82-yacht fleet out of Sydney Harbor at Tuesday’s start of the 630 nautical mile race before skipper Neville Crichton elected to withdraw because he was “apprehensive about the forecast and how they might fare.” In the 1998 race, six sailors died in rough seas.

Yevgeny Plushchenko took the lead after the men’s short program in the Russian Figure Skating Championships at Moscow after he landed a clean quadruple-triple toe loop combination while his top rivals faltered.

Irina Slutskaya skated a flawless program to take the women’s lead. Former world champion Maria Butyrskaya made two major mistakes and was in fourth.

Three-time world champion Alexei Yagudin stepped out of his quadruple-triple combination to land only a double toe loop. In an attempt to save his presentation, he then mixed the jumps and failed to fulfill a set of required elements.