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Sports Briefs

■ Marathon
Gebreselassie wins in Japan
Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie won the Fukuoka International Marathon yesterday, just missing out on a meet record. Gebrselassie, winner of this year's Berlin Marathon, pulled ahead of two-time world champion Jaouad Gharib of Morocco and Ukrainian Dmytro Baranovskyy with 3km left before crossing the finish line in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 52 seconds. Gebrselassie, who won the Berlin race in September, finished just one second outside the meet record set by Japan's Atsushi Fujita six years ago.

■ Swimming
Phelps picks up more golds
Two-time Olympian Michael Phelps won two events on Saturday at the US Open Swimming Championships, giving him six gold medals during the three-day meet at Purdue's Boilermaker Aquatic Center. Phelps won the 100m freestyle in 49.16 seconds and the 200m butterfly in 1:55.77, but his bid for seven golds came up short when Club Wolverine's 400-freestyle relay was disqualified for a false start. Mary Descenza won her third gold at the US Open, taking the women's 100m freestyle in 56.19. She also finished third in the 200m butterfly. Katie Hoff won her third event, the 800m freestyle in 8:33.35.

■ Golf
Love's share lead
Davis Love III and 13-year-old son Dru shot a 13-under 59 on Saturday for a share of the first-round lead with defending champions Bernhard and Stefan Langer in the Del Webb Father/Son Challenge. Love, a 3-handicapper, turned 13 on Saturday. "Players like Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie have gotten so good and so accomplished at such a young age, it makes it even more and more popular," Davis Love said. "It's amazing how good the kids are these days." Last year, at age 15, Stefan Langer became the youngest son to win the scramble event at Champions Gate Golf Club.

■ Boxing
Wright outpoints old buddy
Winky Wright knocked down Ike Quartey late in the second round and went on win the 12-round middleweight fight between two old friends with a unanimous decision on Saturday night. The former junior middleweight champion, a St. Petersburg resident fighting on home turf for the first time since 1992, improved to 51-3-1 with 25 knockouts. Quartey (37-4-1) fell to 3-2 since resuming his career last year after taking more than four years off following a pair of disappointing losses in 1999 and 2000. Buddies since the early 1990s, Wright and Quartey had no problem putting their friendship on hold for a night in hopes of positioning themselves for a big-money fight in the near future. The judges scored the fight for Wright, 116-110, 116-110 and 117-109.

■ Luge
Zoeggler nears record
Armin Zoeggeler won his second straight race on Saturday and moved to within one of equaling the luge World Cup record of 33 career victories. The Italian clocked a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 30.112 seconds on the track where he won the first of two Olympic gold medals at the 2002 Salt Lake Games, to pull within one win of the record held by Austria's Markus Prock and Germany's Georg Hackl. Earlier, three-time Olympic medalist Silke Kraushaar-Pielach won her second straight women's race to lead a German sweep of the top four places and stretch her nation's World Cup winning streak to 66 races.

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