Russian Skaters Areon Top Despite Errors

The top Russian women figure skaters stumbled through the opening round of their last competition before the Salt Lake City Games.

Defending champion Irina Slutskaya fell face-first on a routine double axel, and teammate Maria Butyrskaya failed to make a required jump combination during qualifying rounds of the European Figure Skating Championships on Wednesday at Lausanne, Switzerland.

But despite the falls and sprawls, both women won their groups.

“It’s good it’s right now,” Slutskaya said. “We are just warming up for a good competition.”

Alexei Yagudin leads going into the men’s final.

Tennis

Sweden’s Mats Wilander, who won seven Grand Slam singles titles, and doubles specialist Pam Shriver of the United States were elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, R.I. They will be inducted July 13.

Wilander, 37, was ranked No. 1 in 1988, when he won the Australian, French and U.S. opens. He won three Australian, three French and one U.S. Open title.

Shriver, 39, won 21 singles titles and 112 doubles titles in 18 years as a professional, including a record 109 doubles victories with Martina Navratilova.

College Football

UCLA Coach Bob Toledo has exercised the rollover in his seven-year contract, extending it through the 2008 season. The move is a formality and is initiated annually by Toledo.

The perpetual seven-year deal ensures that Toledo, 55, will get lucrative severance pay if he is fired.

Another compensation issue is still pending.

When Athletic Director Pete Dalis announced several months ago that he would retire in June, he said buyout terms in the contracts of Toledo and basketball Coach Steve Lavin would be increased.

Neither of the new contracts has been finalized.

Auburn gave Coach Tommy Tuberville a one-year contract extension....Washington State junior quarterback Jason Gesser played in the Sun Bowl with a broken bone in his throwing hand but didn’t tell Coach Mike Price.

Jurisprudence

Lawyers do not know if the death of a Las Vegas waitress makes moot her battery and sex harassment lawsuit against Dennis Rodman.

Gloria Chapa, 62, was found dead Sunday in her home at Henderson, Nev.

An autopsy determined she died of a heart attack.

Rodman’s lawyer, Corey Eschweiler, said U.S. District Judge Philip Pro has scheduled a hearing Feb. 4 at which he could dismiss the case.

The civil lawsuit, filed in July 1999, accuses Rodman of pinching Chapa and grabbing her breasts in June 1998.

A federal law credited with transforming women’s athletics discriminates against men in low-profile college sports, coaches and athletes said in a lawsuit against the government filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit blames a 1996 rule clarifying the 1972 statute known as Title IX, which prohibits any school or college that receives federal funding from discriminating based on sex in sports or academics.

Filed against the Education Department, the lawsuit contends that as a result of those rules and court decisions interpreting them, many schools have come to see trimming men’s sports as the only way to achieve equality.

Robert Balderman, 19, has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia against the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn. and the Daily Racing Form for $103,000, claiming he shouldn’t have been thrown out of a handicapping contest last year for being underage.

Balderman also is seeking additional unspecified damages, saying he was defamed in the Daily Racing Form’s coverage of the incident, his attorney said.

The lawsuit says Balderman was leading the contest when he was ejected, so he’s seeking the $100,000 grand prize.

Miscellany

McKinley Tennyson scored off Moises Canalongo’s assist in the 66th minute as the Galaxy defeated South Korea’s national team, 1-0, in an exhibition in Fullerton.

The Fresno Falcons defeated the Ice Dogs, 4-2, at the Long Beach Arena.

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T.J. Simers is on assignment.