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She’s versatile, that man

The Philippines’ brightest hope in women’s track turned out to be a man. The Philippine Sports Commission ruled last week that Nancy Navalta, a national sprint champion, is genetically male and from now on is banned from women’s sports.

Navalta’s parents raised him as a girl and his birth certificate identifies him as female. He is believed to have an underdeveloped penis, which an untrained midwife apparently mistook for a woman’s sex organ.

Navalta was an obscure runner before winning the women’s 100- and 200- meter sprints in the 1993 and 1994 national student games. The feats would have entitled Navalta to join the national training program. But competitors raised questions, citing Navalta’s muscled physique and wispy moustache.

After not competing for a year, Navalta competed as a male last month and lost. The next week he entered as a woman and won five gold medals.

It won’t be his rookie campaign

Now that Steve Forbes has decided to drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, he can turn his undivided attention to roller hockey.

Forbes was selected last month in the 10th and final round by the New Jersey Rockin Rollers in the Roller Hockey International’s annual draft of free agents.

At the time, Forbes proved diplomatic: “I look forward to my first start for the Rockin Rollers on opening night. If elected, no way will my duties in the White House interfere with my obligations to our team.”

Coach Jim Hughes picked Forbes with the idea he would replace traded goalie Manon Rheaume. “We’re looking for big things from him,” Hughes said. “I expect Forbes to flatten anyone who gets in our way.”

Anyone except the federal income tax, that is.

Good loss, guys!

Mississippi State’s upset of Kentucky over the weekend left coaches scrambling to come up with the proper spin. And no one was spinning faster than MSU’s Richard Williams or KU’s Rick Pitino. “I don’t know if they can get the emotion back,” Williams theorized.

Pitino managed to take a slightly more philosophical approach: “We couldn’t have made a great run in the tournament unless we lost tonight because things have come too easy,” a poker-faced Pitino said, as if he wanted his team to lose. “The loss will HELP us.”

And Chevy Chase really didn’t like Christie Brinkley in National Lampoon’s Vacation (“Nooo, she’s UGLY!”).

Let the fur fly

Before the Knicks could beat the Bulls by 32 on Sunday, they had to pick up some confidence against the Raptors. Last Wednesday’s 89-82 win over Toronto included an incident involving New York guard Derek Harper, who playfully ran over the Raptors’ mascot.

“Harper’s knockout of a guy in a fur dinosaur suit - playful as it was - served as an easy metaphor for the Knicks’ victory,” observed Newsday’s Barbara Barker. “What the Knicks did Wednesday night was akin to beating up on Barney. The Knicks, however, needed a win so badly that no one seemed to mind.”

The last word …

“It’s kind of depressing to realize that you’re probably in the final quarter of your life. I’m just hoping for a good overtime.”

- Jerry Reinsdorf, Chicago Bulls and White Sox executive, upon turning 60

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo