Mancuso bows out at World Championships

Julia Mancuso’s hopes of world championship gold are over. Her next goal is becoming the first American woman to win the overall World Cup title in 24 years.

After leading the opening leg of the giant slalom Tuesday in Are, Sweden, the Olympic champion managed only a fifth-place finish under the floodlights. She plans to return home and skip Friday’s slalom, saying the world championships have been “just too much for my body.”

Austrian Nicole Hosp, who was fourth after the opening leg, won with a combined time of 2 minutes, 31.72 seconds.

Horse racing

Barbaro owners donate

The owners of Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner euthanized last month, started a $3 million endowment at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school to study equine diseases.

The endowment from Roy and Gretchen Jackson was named for Dean Richardson, the veterinary surgeon who treated Barbaro at Penn’s New Bolton Center since May 20, when he shattered three bones in his right rear leg at the start of the Preakness Stakes.

•Trudy McCaffery, who co-owned Santa Anita Derby and Pacific Classic winners Came Home and Free House and bred thoroughbreds, has died at 62 at her home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., after a long battle with cancer.

Miscellany

Ullrich wins in court

A court upheld a gag order on behalf of cyclist Jan Ullrich against a German doping expert who alleged he knew details about the former Tour de France winner’s role in the Spanish doping scandal.

Werner Franke told a German television station he had seen documents from the Spanish police investigation and claimed that Ullrich paid Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes $46,000 one year for performance-enhancing drugs.

•Sports officials from North and South Korea failed to reach any agreement on forming a single team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, South Korea’s Olympic committee said.

During the one-day meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the two sides failed to agree on how to compose a unified team, the committee said in a statement. The committee did not say when they would meet again.

•Baseball teams improved to 4-0 in salary arbitration when the Washington Nationals beat pitcher John Patterson and the Florida Marlins defeated reliever Kevin Gregg.

Patterson was awarded $850,000 by arbitrators, less than half the $1.85 million he asked for. Gregg will get the Marlins’ offer of $575,000 instead of his request for $700,000.

Eight players remain scheduled for hearings, which run through Tuesday.

•Former Montana State University wide receiver Edward Sullivan, 23, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of selling marijuana to a police informant in June 2006.

•Illinois-Chicago head basketball coach Jimmy Collins, who has been on leave since Dec. 23 because of illness, said he expects to resume his full-time duties this spring.

•The WNBA Houston Comets hired Karleen Thompson as their new head coach and general manager.