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■ Swimming
Eleanor Holm Whalen dies
Eleanor Holm Whalen, a two-time swimming gold medalist in the 1932 Olympics who was kicked off the 1936 US team after she was caught drinking champagne and shooting dice, has died. She was 91. Whalen died Saturday from kidney failure, said friends and relatives. She was dismissed from the US Olympic team set to compete in Berlin in 1936 because she was caught drinking champagne and shooting dice on the ocean liner en route to Europe. Whalen, who won 21 US swimming titles, never returned to the Olympics as a competitor. "What broke my heart made me a star," Whalen told The Associated Press in a 1990 interview. Following those 1936 Games, Whalen starred in Billy Rose's "Aquacades," a traveling show. In 1938, she played Jane in "Tarzan's Revenge," with Glenn Morris, the 1936 Olympic decathlon champion, in the starring role.

■ Baseball
Koizumi, Giuliani agree
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will throw the first pitches at the baseball season opener between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays next month in Tokyo, organizers said yesterday. The two leaders will simultaneously throw the ceremonial pitches to start the March 30 game, the MLB Opening Series secretariat said in a statement. The Yankees and Devil Rays will play two games on March 30 and 31 at Tokyo Dome, the home field of Yankee outfielder Hideki Matsui when he played for Japan's Yomiuri Giants team. This will be only the second time that regular-season Major League games have been played in Japan. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs played a two-game series here in 2000. The games will be the first played by the Yankees outside the US and Canada since 1955, according to the baseball Hall of Fame. Before their opening series, the Yankees and Devil Rays will play split doubleheaders against the Yomiuri Giants and the Hanshin Tigers, both popular Japanese professional teams.

■ Sailing
Francis Joyon sets record
French yachtsman Francis Joyon completed the first nonstop solo circumnavigation of the globe in less than 80 days yesterday, wrapping up his epic voyage in 72 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes and 22 seconds. Joyon's trimaran "IDEC" crossed the finish line off the Brittany port of Brest at 7.54am (0654 GMT), his press agency said. The 47-year-old smashed the single hull record of 93 days held by Michel Desjoyeaux and Olivier de Kersauzon's multi-hull record of 125 days.

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