Austria’s Strobl Edges Maier to Win Lauberhorn Downhill

Austrian Josef Strobl had a simple explanation for winning the demanding Lauberhorn World Cup downhill at Wengen, Switzerland, and teammate Hermann Maier had an equally easy one for his failure in the race Saturday.

“It’s always a stroke of luck when you win on this course,” said Strobl, who tamed one of the world’s toughest layouts with a run of 2 minutes 29.17 seconds.

Maier, the World Cup overall leader and double Olympic and world champion who finished 0.16 seconds behind, blamed the defeat on caution.

“I didn’t take the ultimate risk, and that cost me the victory,” he said. “When I reviewed the video, I saw Josef had taken a tighter line than me in a few key places.”

Maier, favored to win, had been leading the race with a time of 2:29.33, holding a massive 1.29 lead over his nearest challenger, Italian Kristian Ghedina. But Strobl, the ninth skier out of the start hut, relegated Maier to second place.

Maier padded his lead in the overall standings. He has 1,100 points to 646 for Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt. Maier also leads the downhill standings with 460 points. Ghedina is second with 372 and Strobl third with 332.

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Corinne Rey Bellet of Switzerland blitzed down the hard, icy Kaelberloch course in 1:34.47 to win a World Cup downhill at Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria. It was her first victory of the season and third of her career.

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Russian Irina Slutskaya landed a triple lutz-triple loop, a move never before landed by a woman, to upset Michelle Kwan in the International Skating Union’s Grand Prix final at Lyon, France.

Kwan, the Olympic silver medalist and two-time world champion, couldn’t match Slutskaya’s audacious jumping and rare 6.0 mark for technical merit.

“I know I have . . . to push myself because the technical difficulty is getting stronger and higher,” she said.

Russia’s Yevgeny Plushchenko defeated Canada’s Elvis Stojko for the men’s title.

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Ricco Gross of Germany won his second consecutive biathlon World Cup event, a 10-kilometer race at Ruhpolding, Germany. Nathalie Santer of Italy won the women’s 7.5K race for her first World Cup triumph in six years. In earning his sixth career World Cup victory, Gross had no misses and finished in 24:41.1, defeating Vadim Sashurin of Belarus by 12.1 seconds.

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Kentaro Miyawaki, a 21-year-old from Japan, got his first World Cup snowboarding victory in a halfpipe event at Berchtesgaden, Germany. Miyawaki earned 42.4 points to defeat the world champion, American Rick Bower, who collected 40.8. . . . Carl Swenson of Boulder, Colo., and Nina Kemppel of Anchorage skied to victories at Midway, Utah, in the final day of the U.S. cross-country ski championships on the 2002 Olympic trails.

Baseball

The New York Mets avoided arbitration with pitcher Rick Reed, agreeing to a one-year contract with the right-hander worth $4,375,000. Reed was 11-5 with a 4.58 ERA in 26 starts last season, and made $1,687,500. . . . Also avoiding arbitration was Kansas City first baseman Mike Sweeney, who agreed to a one-year, $2.25-million contract with the Royals. Sweeney, who earned $265,000 last year, batted .322 with 22 homers and 102 runs batted in.

A year after taking part in San Diego’s spring training and raising $1.8 million for charity in the process, singer Garth Brooks said he wants to do it again this season. The Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees were mentioned as possibilities by Brooks.

Miscellany

Indy Racing League car owner Fred Treadway said his driver, Sam Schmidt, is a quadriplegic who will not drive or walk again.

The 35-year-old Schmidt, who got his only career victory last year in his hometown of Las Vegas, was injured Jan. 6 when his car spun and hit the retaining wall at Walt Disney World Speedway in Buena Vista, Fla. He was preparing for the season-opening Indy 200 on Jan. 29.

“Sam has the same injury as [actor] Christopher Reeve. His spinal cord got pinched between the third and fourth vertebrae,” Treadway said.

Race driver Denise Bennet, who won the national quarter-midget championship at age 9 in 1966, has died after battling cancer for nearly three years. She was 43. Bennet, who died Friday at Phoenix, was the Arizona midget champion in 1983. . . . Devereux Milburn Jr., a trustee of the New York Racing Assn. and a member of the Long Island team that won the 1950 U.S. Open polo championship, is dead at 82. Milburn died Monday at Naragansett, R.I.

Michigan receiver Marcus Knight had scoring receptions of 10, eight, eight and six yards at Palo Alto as the East defeated the West, 35-21, in the 75th Shrine game. Nevada’s Trevor Insley (San Clemente HS) had six receptions for 66 yards and a touchdown and Oregon’s Tony Hartley (Los Alamitos HS) had four catches for 87 yards.

Magnus Norman of Sweden outlasted Michael Chang, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, to win the Auckland Open at New Zealand. . . . Kim Clijsters, a 16-year-old Belgian, upset defending champion Chanda Rubin of the United States, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2, to win the Tasmanian International tennis tournament at Hobart, Australia.

Former World Boxing Assn. champion Raul Perez of Mexico stopped Jose Montes in the fourth round of their scheduled 10-round lightweight bout at Homestead, Fla.