NEWSWIRE

Busch series champion Jeff Green finally found the winning touch this year, holding off Matt Kenseth the final 25 laps to win the SunCom 200 at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.

Green, whose team switched from Chevrolets to Fords this season, beat Kenseth out of the pits on lap 123 and finished less than a second in front for his first victory at the track.

Green earned $68,059. His average speed was 128.742 mph.

*

Jeff Gordon gained his third consecutive pole in Darlington’s spring race after qualifying was canceled because of fog. It was his fourth career pole at the track as he seeks his sixth Darlington victory in today’s Carolina Dodge Dealers 400. . . . Mark Pawuk ended a drought of 183 events without a top qualifying position when he was the fastest in the NHRA’s pro stock division at the Mac Tools Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla. Pawuk had a Gainesville Raceway record run of 6.846 seconds at 200.68 mph.

*

The Audi team of Rinaldo Capello, Michele Alboreto and Laurent Aiello defeated another Audi team by .482 seconds in the closest finish in the 49-year history of the 12 Hours of Sebring sports car endurance race. The race was run without a caution period in front of a crowd estimated at 168,000, the largest sports car race attendance ever in the United States.

*

Davey Hamilton’s hopes of winning four races at Phoenix International Raceway started off right when he won the Supermodified Racing League opener in a 25-lap race. But the four-for-four dream ended when Michael Lewis won the U.S. Auto Club midget feature as Hamilton finished 12th.

Winter Sports

Sweden’s Magdalena Forsberg won the 10-kilometer pursuit at Oslo for her 14th World Cup victory this season. Forsberg, who already has won the overall title, overcame a record starting handicap of 1 minute 46 seconds. Frode Andresen led a Norwegian sweep of the top four spots in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit. . . . Sweden’s Per Elofsson won the overall World Cup title in cross-country skiing at Falun, Sweden, despite finishing eighth in a 15-kilometer classic-style race at the Swedish Ski Games. Russia’s Mikhail Ivanov won the men’s race. . . . Finland won the World Cup team title in ski jumping for the second consecutive year. The team of Risto Jussilainen, Veli-Matti Lindstroem, Tami Kiuru and Jussi Hautamaeki recorded 1,575.6 points at Planica, Slovenia. . . . Jasey Jay Anderson of Canada won the bordercross final at the Snowboard World Cup Finals at Ruka, Finland, to clinch the event’s season title and the overall men’s crown. Karine Ruby of France won the women’s overall and bordercross championships, despite not making Saturday’s final.

Miscellany

Four-time world champion Johnny Tapia used a barrage of right-hand punches and left jabs to stop Famosito Gomez of Mexico in six rounds in their non-title super-bantamweight bout at Albuquerque. Tapia (49-2-2 26 KOs) scored a lopsided win over the game Gomez, whose face was covered in blood when the fight was stopped after the sixth round.

Minnesota ended Iowa’s decade-long domination to win its first NCAA wrestling championship at Iowa City and became the first team to capture the national title with no one in the finals.

The Golden Gophers racked up 29 points from their 10 wrestlers in the consolation rounds to finish with 138 1/2. Iowa, the six-time defending champion, finished with 125 1/2.

Natalie Coughlin of California continued her record-breaking performance with a victory in the 200-yard backstroke, and Georgia won its third consecutive team title in the NCAA Division I women’s swimming championships at East Meadow, N.Y.

Cycling’s governing body will begin testing riders for the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO. The testing will begin at Belgium’s Tour of Flanders, which starts April 8.

Henry Kaelarne, a Swedish runner who set two world records and won a bronze medal at 5,000 meters in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, died at 88 in Stockholm.

Paul Williams of Anchorage had a goal and two assists in the Aces’ 5-1 West Coast Hockey League victory before 6,652 at the Long Beach Arena.