Toms shares lead at Honda Classic
Wind played havoc Thursday at the opening round of the Honda Classic at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
David Toms made five straight birdies to highlight his 5-under-par round of 67, and he shared the first-round lead with Geoff Ogilvy, Ryuji Imada and Mathias Gronberg – the seventh alternate who didn’t know he was officially in the field until Wednesday morning.
Of the leaderboard’s top 18 players, 13 finished by lunch.
IDITAROD
Gebhardt surges ahead
At Cripple, Alaska, Iditarod dog teams rested in trenches of snow, among black spruce on a frozen swamp at the halfway point of the more than 1,100-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome.
Many leading mushers chose to take a mandatory 24-hour rest at the isolated tent checkpoint, deep in Alaska’s western interior, where morning temperatures plunged to 40 degrees below zero.
But Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof chose this spot to regain the lead he gave up to Montana musher Doug Swingley on Tuesday when Gebhardt’s sled slammed into a tree.
Gebhardt was sixth into Cripple. But while other mushers were hunkering down for a long rest, he departed with 15 dogs after a 5 1/2-hour rest.
Tennis
Father gets eight years
A father who drugged his children’s tennis opponents, leading to one player’s death, was sentenced in France to eight years in prison after being convicted.
Christophe Fauviau had confessed to the crime. Fauviau was accused of spiking the water bottles of his children’s opponents 27 times in tournaments across France from 2000 to 2003, using the anti-anxiety drug Temesta, which can cause drowsiness.
Skating
No worlds for Arakawa
Shizuka Arakawa is skipping the world figure skating championships, keeping up what has become a tradition for Olympic gold medalists.
Arakawa’s coach, Nikolai Morozov, said the Japanese skater decided after she won gold in Turin to skip worlds later this month in Calgary, Alberta.
•At Ljubljana, Slovenia, Kim Yu-na upset defending champion Mao Asada of Japan to win the women’s crown at the World Junior Figure Skating Championship – South Korea’s first title at a major international skating event. Christine Zukowski of the United States was third.
Miscellany
Patriots cut McGinest
The New England Patriots released linebacker Willie McGinest in a salary cap move, ending a 12-year relationship with the NFL’s all-time postseason sack leader.
The release of the two-time Pro Bowler was announced the day after the NFL owners voted 30-2 at their meeting in Grapevine, Texas, to extend the collective bargaining agreement with the players for six more years, resulting in a new salary cap figure of $102 million.
•At Faro, Portugal, the U.S. women’s soccer team opened the Algarve Cup by tying China 0-0.