Parra sets aside troubles while making Olympic team
Derek Parra put his personal problems aside – if only for a day – and earned another trip to the Olympics.
The winner of gold and silver medals at the Salt Lake City Games, Parra has been an emotional mess since his marriage fell apart this summer. His skating suffered as well, raising doubts about whether he could qualify for his third Olympics.
But Parra finished third in the 1,500 meters Friday at the U.S. speedskating championships in Kearns, Utah, even with a near-fall that forced him to scrape his left hand along the ice.
Now, it’s on to Turin.
“I tried to remember what it was like when I was a kid just getting into sports,” said Parra, likely to be the oldest member of the team at 35. “I tried to feel young again. I tried to feel the passion again.”
•In a sport filled with lots of bumps, jumps, ice and ifs, the closest thing to a sure thing over the past 12 months has been a Colorado football player.
At the Olympic trials at Steamboat Springs, Colo., Jeremy Bloom showed his mastery of his “other” sport yet again, maneuvering through the moguls to secure the spot on the U.S. freestyle skiing team that everyone knew he’d probably get.
Hannah Kearney joined Bloom in earning an automatic spot on the 14-person freestyle team. With a score of 26.66, Kearney edged out 2002 silver medalist Shannon Bahrke.
In the aerials competition, hometown boy Ryan St. Onge secured his spot and Emily Cook wrote another chapter in her comeback story, making the Olympic team four years after she qualified for the Salt Lake City Games, only to sit it out after breaking her feet on a landing two weeks later.
•U.S. Olympic women’s skeleton coach Tim Nardiello has been accused of sexual harassment since 2002 by some members of the team, The New York Times reported on its Web site.
Skating
Bill hastens Belbin’s citizenship
Ice dancing champion Tanith Belbin will become an American citizen today, one day after President Bush signed an appropriations bill from Crawford, Texas, to speed up the process. A provision of the bill allows Belbin, who is from Canada, to immediately gain American citizenship. Belbin and partner Ben Agosto, the U.S. champions, are considered strong medal contenders for the 2006 Games.
•At Banff, Alberta, Olympic pairs champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were married.
Miscellany
CART announces liquidation plan
Two years after its racing assets were sold to Champ Car in federal bankruptcy court, the stockholders of Championship Auto Racing Teams Inc. approved the company’s plan to dissolve and liquidate its assets.
•Eric Blum and Matthias Joggi scored power-play goals in the third period to help Switzerland rally for a 2-2 tie with the United States in the world junior hockey championship at Vancouver, British Columbia.
Bobby Ryan and Geoff Paukovich had first-period goals for the United States (2-0-1), which must beat Canada (3-0) tonight to win Group A.
•Outfielder Eric Byrnes has agreed to a one-year, $2.25 million contract with Arizona. Byrnes hit .226 in a nomadic 2005 season that had him playing for Oakland, Colorado and Baltimore.
•Roberto Clemente Jr., the son of Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente, will head today to Nicaragua from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to distribute humanitarian aid – mirroring a trip that claimed the life of his father 33 years ago.