Auto Racing
Pennsylvania teen will drive the Indianapolis 500
INDIANAPOLIS – High school senior Sage Karam will race in his first Indianapolis 500 next month in a car fielded jointly by Chip Ganassi Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Kingdom Racing.
Karam, from Nazareth, Pa., is the reigning Indy Lights champion, but the 19-year-old was unable to parlay that into a full-time IndyCar ride. Instead, he’s hooked on with Ganassi in a driver development role. He’ll drive the No. 22 Chevrolet in his Indianapolis 500 debut under a deal announced Tuesday.
College Basketball
Missouri hires one of its (ex) own as next head coach
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Missouri chose a familiar face as its new men’s basketball coach Monday: Kim Anderson is a former star player and longtime aide to former Missouri coach Norm Stewart.
Anderson won a Division II championship at Central Missouri this season and replaces Frank Haith, who left for Tulsa earlier this month.
The 58-year-old Anderson was the NABC national coach of the year this season after going 30-5, molding a roster that had just one returning player who averaged more than 4.7 points per game.
Anderson was 274-94 at Central Missouri, a .743 winning percentage, and is among the top 10 in career winning percentage in Division II.
Cycling
Kwiatkowski wins prologue at the Tour of Romandie
ASCONA, Switzerland – Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland carried over his one-day classics form to win the prologue of the Tour of Romandie on Tuesday.
The Polish rider, who placed third at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Walloon Arrow last week, clocked 6 minutes, 22 seconds for the 3.5-mile course near the Italy-Switzerland border.
Rohan Dennis of Australia trailed Kwiatkowski by four seconds. Third-place Marcel Kittel of Germany had the same time.
Defending champion Chris Froome, the reigning Tour de France champion, was 13th-fastest, trailing by 10 seconds; the winner of the six-day Romandie race has won the Tour de France for the past three years.
NHL
Panthers need new direction, fire their interim coach
SUNRISE, Fla. – With a relatively young team, Florida Panthers’ general manager Dale Tallon is of the belief that the club needs an experienced coach behind the bench. And with that, Peter Horachek’s time as interim coach is over.
The Panthers fired Horachek on Tuesday after Florida went 26-36-4 under him last season. Horachek had no previous NHL coaching experience before replacing Kevin Dineen on Nov. 8, and while Tallon lauded the interim coach’s work with the club, he simply thinks that a change in direction is needed.
Tennis
Prize money at Wimbledon gets a 10-percent bump
LONDON – Total prize money for this year’s Wimbledon tournament will reach $42 million, an increase of 10.8 percent that mostly will favor the early-round losers.
The All England Club said Tuesday the men’s and women’s singles champions each will receive $2.9 million, a 10-percent increase on last year’s top prize won by Andy Murray and Marion Bartoli.
By comparison, this year’s French Open champions will receive $2.3 million, while Stanislas Wawrinka and Li Na earned $2.65 million for their wins at the Australian Open in January. U.S. Open organizers have yet to announce the prize money for this year’s tournament.
In keeping with player demands for a larger slice of Grand Slam revenues, all four majors greatly have increased their prize money in the last two years.
The French Open now offers more than $34.5 million, while the U.S. Open increased its purse to $34.3 million and the Australian Open went up to $31 million.
Associated Press
