Leading scorer Wambach breaks leg

U.S. leading scorer Abby Wambach broke her left leg in a violent collision in the first half of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s 1-0 win over Brazil Wednesday in San Diego. Wambach is expected to be out for 12 weeks and will miss the Olympics, which start in three weeks in Beijing.

Wambach fractured both her tibia and fibula and will have surgery today to have a titanium rod inserted into her leg.

Wambach is the team’s leading scorer this year with 13 goals and 10 assists.

•Morgan Hamm’s spot on the U.S. Olympic team is secure.

USA Gymnastics said that a warning Hamm received earlier this month for getting a prescribed anti-inflammatory shot without proper clearance from anti-doping authorities did not affect his qualification to the team.

“It’s really a relief,” Hamm told The Associated Press from Colorado Springs, Colo., where he is at a training camp. “Now I can concentrate on gymnastics without having any other distractions.”

•Double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius fell short of the 400-meter qualifying time he needed to make the Olympics, though the personal best time he ran in Lucerne, Switzerland, could still get him to Beijing in the relay.

•USA Boxing reinstated Luis Yanez to the Olympic team, more than two weeks after the light flyweight was kicked off the Beijing roster for missing several weeks of workouts.

Auto racing

Unser files lawsuit

Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Sr. contends sheriff’s deputies violated his civil rights and harmed him physically when they arrested him in 2006 during a fracas at an Albuquerque, N.M., roadblock.

Unser filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court against Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White and Deputies Jason Katz, Shureke Covington and Anthony Medrano.

The lawsuit was filed after failed attempts to reach settlement, said Bob McNeill, an attorney for Unser.

•Troubled General Motors has notified two racetracks that run NASCAR events that their current contracts will not be renewed as part of an overall $10 billion cost-cutting program.

That seems to be just the first step in what could be a huge drop in support by GM, Ford and Chrysler for tracks and teams in NASCAR’s top three professional divisions, the NHRA and other racing series in the face of the weakest U.S. auto sales in a decade.

Miscellany

TSU penalized

The NCAA has penalized Texas Southern for major violations in its softball and tennis programs.

The softball program was placed on four years of probation and is banned from postseason play in 2009. The men’s and women’s tennis programs were disbanded in the spring of 2007 and will lose one scholarship in each of the next two academic years.

•Former Arizona State football coach Bruce Snyder issued a statement through the university’s sports information office confirming that he has cancer, though he wasn’t specific about the kind or severity.

•Terry Murray has been hired as the new coach of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.

•A subcommittee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission unanimously recommended an anabolic steroid ban in horse racing.