Neal Wrestles Way to Olympic Berth

In his first world competition, former Cal State Bakersfield All- American Stephen Neal won the gold medal at 286 pounds in the World Freestyle Wrestling Championships Sunday at Ankara, Turkey. The victory earned Neal a berth at his weight in the 2000 Olympics.

Russia won the team title with four medals as the United States won three and finished second over Turkey on a tiebreaker.

“I gave myself a birthday present,” Neal said after defeating Russian Andrei Shumilin, 4-3. “I turned 23 [Saturday].”

Neal, an NCAA champion in 1998 and 1999 and a current Bakersfield assistant coach, surprised Shumilin with attacks to his legs which resulted in flips throughout the match.

America’s No. 2 wrestler, Eric Guerrero of Stillwater, Okla., was eliminated in the 127 3/4-pound class by gold-medal winner Haran Dogan of Turkey in a quarterfinal.

Motor Sports

In a fitting farewell, retiring Scott Parker won the Del Mar Mile at Del Mar Fairgrounds, the final race of the 1999 Grand National Series.

Parker, from Swartz Creek, Mich., defeated Nicky Hayden by 0.713 seconds in the 20-lap race. The victory is the 93rd of Parker’s 20-year dirt-track career, 51 more than his nearest chaser, and his 35th victory on a one-mile track.

Tommy Johnson Jr. defeated Tony Peregon at the NHRA AutoZone Nationals at Millington, N.C., to claim his second Funny Car victory of the season. Doug Herbert (dragster), Mike Edwards (pro stock), Angelle Seeling (pro stock motorcycle) and Brad Jeter (pro stock truck) won their pro categories at the $1.7-million race. . . . A steady rain forced NASCAR officials to postpone the UAW-GM Quality 500 at Concord, N.C., to this morning.

Tennis

Top-ranked Martina Hingis won her seventh title of the year when she defeated Mary Pierce, 6-4, 6-1, in only 65 minutes in the final of the $520,000 Porsche Grand Prix at Filderstadt, Germany. . . . Slovakia’s Karol Kucera needed four hours to defeat defending champion Tim Henman of Britain, 6-4, 7-6 (12-10), 4-6, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), to win the $1-million Swiss Indoors at Basel.

Arnaud Di Pasquale of France won the $350,000 ATP Palermo men’s clay-court tournament at Sicily, defeating Alberto Berasategui of Spain, 6-1, 6-3. . . . Rain from a typhoon washed out the final in the Heineken Open at Shanghai, China, between Marcelo Rios of Chile and Magnus Norman of Sweden. It was rescheduled for today.

Miscellany

A recurring problem of staying on the uneven parallel bars nearly cost America’s women gymnasts a chance at a World Championships medal at Tianjin, China.

Not even aware of their perilous position, Vanessa Atler, the last American to compete, clinched a place for the United States in the six-team medal round with a 9.762 in the floor exercises. The medal round begins Tuesday.

It was the fifth-best score of the qualifying round in that event, and enough to lift the Americans into fifth place, behind defending champion Romania, Russia, Ukraine and China. Australia finished 0.313 behind the United States for the final spot. The Americans also were safely into the top 12 that qualify for next year’s Olympics in Sydney.

Alter scored a 9.475 on the bars, though U.S. champion Kristen Maloney fell the wrong way out of a handstand to score only 8.975. In the same event, Jamie Dantzscher managed only 8.312 as she lost her grip on the lower bar at one point.

After meeting with New York Coach Jeff Van Gundy and General Manager Scott Layden for 45 minutes, Latrell Sprewell was benched for the Knicks’ first exhibition Tuesday.

Sprewell, who had been missing from camp before Sunday, said he had simply ignored the Knicks’ phone messages as he drove from Oakland to New York, which he did because he wanted to pick up some things in Milwaukee and he wanted to be sure that his car, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, made it to New York.

Dwight W. Patterson, responsible for bringing the Chicago Cubs spring training camp to the Phoenix area in 1951, died Friday in Mesa, Ariz., according to the Tribune. No cause of death was given. He was 87.

Baltimore first baseman Jeff Conine won a gold and a silver medal in the U.S. National Doubles Racquet ball Championships at Baltimore.