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Sport Briefs

■ Basketball
Yao Ming highly popular
Yao Ming is more than 60,000 votes ahead of Shaquille O'Neal in the race to finish No. 1 overall in NBA All-Star game balloting. Through two rounds of voting, Yao -- the center for the Western Conference's Houston Rockets -- has 1,373,458. O'Neal, traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Miami Heat in the offseason, tops the Eastern Conference with 1,311,762. Fans can vote through Jan. 23, and All-Star starters will be announced Feb. 3. The game is Feb. 20 in Denver.

■ Football
Reggie White had true grit
Reggie White was remembered as a man of goodness and humor at a private funeral attended by many current and former NFL players. Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, a longtime teammate of White, was a pallbearer and led a contingent of about 50 members of the Packers organization at the University Park Baptist Church. White, 43, died after being taken to a hospital on Sunday. White played for the Packers from 1993-1998 and helped Green Bay to a Super Bowl title in a victory over New England after the 1996 season. He played for Philadelphia from 1985-1992 and finished his career with Carolina in 2000.

■ Skiing
Manninen wins Combined
Finland's Hannu Manninen overcame a 2-minute deficit to win his 23rd combined Nordic World Cup event, beating German Ronny Ackermann by 47.6 seconds in the 15km ski race in Oberhof, Germany. Manninen finished in 41 minutes, 25.3 seconds to win his second race of the season. Ackermann leads the overall standings with 440 points, followed by Manninen at 386 and American Todd Lodwick with 240.

■ Athletics
Agency suspends Grimes
Sprinter Mickey Grimes of the US was suspended for two years after testing positive for steroids, the US Anti-Doping Agency said Friday. Grimes, 28, tested positive for the anabolic steroid norandrosterone from a sample collected in May as part of an out-of-competition testing program. The suspension began Dec. 16 and will end July 18, 2006. Grimes earned credit for a provisional suspension he accepted after testing positive for ephedrine at the 2003 Pan American Games. He was stripped of the 100m gold medal, and the US 400m relay team's gold also was taken away because of Grimes' test. He had faced a lifetime ban for two doping infractions.

■ Sailing
Ailing crewman rescued
A rescue helicopter was scheduled to rendezvous with the Global Challenge race yacht Imagine It. Done off the Chatham Islands on Saturday to airlift a sick crewman to hospital. John Masters, a New Zealander living in England, was reported in a serious but stable condition with an abdominal infection. Imagine It. Done was racing between Buenos Aires and Wellington on the second leg of the round-the-world race when Masters, 59, became ill after a fall. Skipper Dee Caffari diverted to the Chatham Islands, 400km off New Zealand's east coast, on the advice of race medical officials when Masters' condition worsened. He is being treated daily by David Roche, a British doctor who is among the yacht's crew. Imagine It. Done was expected to reach the Chatham Islands on Friday but was slowed by heavy seas.

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