Auto Racing
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Drivers Benny Parsons and Mark Martin and car owner Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress and Raymond Parks were inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Wednesday.
Parsons, the 1973 NASCAR premier series champion, was the first driver first driver to eclipse 200 mph. Parsons, also a longtime broadcaster, died in 2007 at age 65.
Martin won 96 races across NASCAR’s national series competition, including 40 on the Sprint Cup level. Hendrick won 14 owner championships, and Childress 11 across NASCAR’s three series.
Parks was the first car owner to win a title. He died in 2010 at 96. Martinsville Speedway founder H. Clay Earles won the 2017 Landmark Award for outstanding contributions to NASCAR.
College Golf
EUGENE, Ore. – Washington freshman Julianne Alvarez atoned for a three-putt bogey on the 18th hole with two tough par saves to win the decisive match in 20 holes Wednesday and deliver the Huskies their first NCAA golf title.
Washington won 3-2, with the final two matches decided in extra holes.
Lauren Kim nearly gave Stanford a shot at back-to-back titles when she won the last three holes to force extra holes with Alvarez. But the Washington freshman got up-and-down on the first extra hole to win.
Cycling
CASSANO D’ADDA, Italy – German rider Roger Kluge used his track cycling experience to take the biggest victory of his road career, winning the 17th stage of the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday with a well-timed counterattack.
Steven Kruijswijk of the Netherlands had little trouble protecting his 3-minute lead over Esteban Chaves on the mostly flat 196-kilometer (122-mile) leg from Molveno to Cassano d’Adda.
The president of cycling’s world governing body remains “very, very concerned” that the velodrome under construction for the Rio Olympics will not be completed by the opening in August.
Brian Cookson said that most of the cycling venues are ready, including the BMX and mountain bike courses. But the $43 million centerpiece facility has already missed several deadlines, forcing the cancellation of a test event at the velodrome scheduled for March.
Soccer
FRISCO, Texas – Darlington Nagbe scored his first international goal on a 90th-minute volley, and the United States beat Ecuador 1-0 in a Copa America tuneup on Wednesday night.
The U.S. defeated a South American team for just the third time in 21 tries (14 losses, 4 draws) since a March 2007 victory over Ecuador.
The Americans face Bolivia on Saturday in an exhibition at Kansas City, Kansas.
CHICAGO – Veteran defender Christie Rampone says she’s not healthy enough to be part of the U.S. national team’s training camp for a pair of matches early next month against Japan.
Rampone, 40, had arthroscopic knee surgery in December. She was on the World Cup-winning 1999 team, as well as the squad that won last summer’s World Cup in Canada.
In a statement, she said she was not at the level she needed to be to push for a spot on the Olympic roster right now.
Associated Press
