Stars and Stripes, Prada Stay on Course

Stars and Stripes defeated AmericaOne and Prada beat Nippon today as both yachts stayed on track for a sailoff to determine the second finalist in the America’s Cup challenger series in Auckland, New Zealand.

Dennis Conner’s Stars and Stripes beat AmericaOne, which has already qualified as one of the finalists, by 22 seconds. Prada had an easier time, defeating Nippon by 2:01.

Prada is in second place with seven points, one ahead of Stars and Stripes. But Stars and Stripes has one race left--against America True--on Friday. If Stars and Stripes wins, it will pull Conner’s team level with Prada and necessitate a sailoff Saturday.

Soccer

Galaxy goalie Kevin Hartman and midfielder Clint Mathis were among six players cut from the U.S. national team before Sunday’s match against Iran at the Rose Bowl. Also trimmed were Miami Fusion midfielder Henry Gutierrez, Tampa Bay Mutiny midfielder Steve Ralston and midfielders Steve Cherundolo and John O’Brien.

Bayern Munich star Lothar Matthaeus, 39, scheduled to join the New York-New Jersey MetroStars in March, was quoted in a German paper as saying he was thinking of retiring at the end of 2000. . . . Former Argentine star Diego Maradona is expected to check into a Toronto-area drug-rehabilitation center this week, the Toronto Sun reported.

Boxing

Fernando Vargas, the unbeaten International Boxing Federation junior middleweight champion, and four others pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges in Santa Barbara.

The district attorney’s office also added an additional assault-with-a-deadly-weapon felony charge against Vargas, deputy district attorney Hilary Dozer said.

A trial date will be set Jan. 26.

Vargas, 22, and the others are charged with assault with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit a crime stemming from a July 25 altercation at a home in Summerland.

Tennis

Russian Anna Kournikova defeated American Jennifer Capriati, 6-4, 7-5, in the third round of the Sydney International in Australia.

In men’s singles, defending champion Todd Martin was surprised, 7-6 (13-11), 6-4, by 20-year-old Croatian Ivan Ljubicic.

Germany’s Tommy Haas, fighting flu and a hip injury, was beaten, 6-4, 7-5, by Spanish qualifier Juan Balcells at the Auckland Open in New Zealand and said he is questionable for the Australian Open because of the hip ailment. Michael Chang defeated fellow American Michael Sell, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-1), in 2 hours 31 minutes.

Top-seeded Amy Frazier held off Romania’s Catalina Cristea, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, in the quarterfinals of the Tasmanian International at Hobart, Australia.

Horse Racing

Ralph Dash, an administrative law judge, suggestedthat the California Horse Racing Board’s case against the owners of Free House could be jeopardized because the wrong laboratory may have done some of the horse’s postrace testing.

Free House, winner of some of California’s biggest races, won the $106,100 Bel Air Handicap at Hollywood Park in 1998, but the state’s testing lab reported that he ran with clenbuterol, a bronchial dilator not permitted for racing.

Neil Papiano, the attorney who represents John Toffan and Trudy McCaffrey--the owners of Free House--said the split sample was sent to Ohio State University, on the approved list, but the Ohio State lab declined to run the test and forwarded the sample to Industrial Laboratories in Denver, which confirmed that clenbuterol was in the horse’s system.

Miscellany

Charlie Jackson, a software and Internet businessman who lives near San Diego, revived women’s beach volleyball by founding the Beach Volleyball America Tour. The Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. folded in 1997. . . . Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada set a world record in the 1,000-meter sprint, winning the Canadian sprint speedskating championships in 1 minute 8.49 seconds in Calgary, Canada. His time beat the record of 1:08.55 set by Dutch skater Jan Bos last year on the same Olympic Oval in Calgary. . . . Two-time Olympic skier Marcus Nash of Maine won his second national title of the week at Midway, Utah, capturing the men’s 10-kilometer freestyle technique race on the 2002 Olympic trails. . . . Lothar Kipke, the former chief doctor of East Germany’s swim team, was convicted in Berlin of giving steroids to female swimmers without telling them.