Sprinters Lewis, Christie to Race in England

World record-holder Carl Lewis and Olympic champion Linford Christie finally will race against each other.

The distance: 100 meters. The date: July 30. The place: Gateshead, England. Each will get about $15,000 a second--$150,000 reportedly is what each sprinter agreed to.

The long-awaited race was announced Tuesday by organizers of the Vauxall Invitation meet in northeast England. Negotiations for the showdown have been in the works ever since Christie won the gold medal in Barcelona last summer. An ailing Lewis had failed to qualify for the 100 meters at the U.S. trials.

Plans for a race in Tokyo last September fell through, as did proposals for a meeting in Las Vegas in May.

Andy Norman, who advises Christie on his racing schedule, secured the deal after weeks of negotiations with Lewis’ manager, Joe Douglas. It will be the first meeting between the two since the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, where Lewis took the gold in a world record 9.86 seconds and Christie finished fourth in a European record 9.92 seconds.

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Jurisprudence

Philadelphia 76er center Manute Bol, his cousin and four U.S. Marines could be charged with a misdemeanor carrying a one-year jail term after a barroom brawl in a hotel, authorities said in Nairboi, Kenya.

Nairobi police spokesman Jeremiah Matagaro said an investigation was being conducted into the Saturday night incident.

Hockey

Citing his oft-injured back and the birth of his second child, New York Ranger forward Jan Erixon said he will not return to the NHL next season and will play in Sweden.

While not ruling out returning to the NHL in the future, Erixon noted his playing time in recent years has been curtailed because of a bad back. Taken by the Rangers as their second choice in the 1981 Entry Draft, Erixon joined the NHL team for the 1983-84 season, when he played in 75 games, the most of his career.

Saying they’ve outgrown the makeshift but intimate arena that contributed to a successful inaugural season, the Tampa Bay Lightning is moving to the spacious Florida Suncoast Dome at St. Petersburg.

The announcement ended months of speculation about where the team will play next season, but it didn’t answer the lingering questions of if, when or where a permanent home will be built. The Lightning played its first season in the 10,400-seat Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. Plans call for the Lightning to play in nearby St. Petersburg for a minimum of two seasons. The move means the Lightning will be leaving one of the smallest arenas in the NHL to a facility with the largest seating capacity (about 28,000) in the league.

College Football

Season packages as well as single game tickets for the six-game UCLA home football schedule are on sale at the UCLA central ticket office and all TicketMaster outlets. UCLA opens the season Sept. 4 against the California Golden Bears.

Names in the News

Andre Agassi, Patrick McEnroe and Richey Reneberg will be part of the U.S. Davis Cup team when it is announced today at a news conference in Charlotte, N.C. Captain Tom Gorman will make the official announcement of the U.S. squad when he names the four members of the team. Jim Courier, Mal Washington and Ivan Lendl have been mentioned as candidates for the other singles player in addition to Agassi. The U.S. plays the Bahamas in a relegation round match, Sept. 24-26, at the Olde Providence Racket Club. . . . Alexander Volkov, a member of the former Soviet national team who spent three seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, has agreed to play with Panathinaikos of Athens.

Kellee Booth of Coto de Caza, the top-ranked girls’ junior golfer in the United States, shot a one-over-par 73 to lead qualifying in the 67th Women’s Western Golf Assn. Junior Championship at Knollwood Country Club at Granger, Ind. . . . The Keeneland July Selected Yearling Sale made a modest gain as the Maktoum brothers of the United Arab Emirates accounted for 26% of the gross sales. Forty-nine yearlings sold for $11.92 million, an average of $243,265.