World Championship

I have a little bit of a daredevil in me," said Chris Eatough of Ellicott City. "I like to go fast - very fast." But it takes more than speed to be a six-time winner of the World Solo 24 Hours of Adrenalin championship mountain bike races, held once a year at grueling courses in the United States and Canada. "Most of the race, to be honest - you're fighting the instinct to want to stop, to quit," said Eatough. "You're in some pain - it's not an easy thing. The good moments are few and far between.

Mission accomplished barely.After letting a 10-goal second-half lead slip away, the U.S. national lacrosse team needed two overtime goals and a save by Sal LoCascio with five seconds left to edge Canada, 15-14, for the World Championship before 10,793 at Homewood Field last night.Parading the American flag under a sky of fireworks in celebration, the U.S. team (6-0) truly had to sweat out its fifth straight world title and 26th consecutive victory in World Championships competition. Canada (4-2)

Still hurting from Wednesday's American League Championship Series loss to the Cleveland Indians, Orioles general manager Pat Gillick and assistant Kevin Malone say they will attempt to preserve as much of this year's team as possible while pursuing a quality starting pitcher, preferably through free agency.At the same time, the Orioles brain trust says the club will press to re-sign free agents Randy Myers and Brady Anderson.Gillick confirmed the intended direction less than 24 hours after the favored Orioles were denied a World Series invitation they have been waiting for since 1983 by an Indians team that won 86 regular-season games and was outscored in the ALCS.

The hits just keep coming for Kick Connection.fTC The Pasadena-based martial-arts school recently returned from the Third World Arnis Tournament in Los Angeles with five world champion titles and many other trophies and awards."

What showed on the scoreboard was three more hard-earned -- yet highly debatable -- points for the Green Bay Packers. A tie at 10-10. Then came overtime, sudden death and ultimately the most devastating defeat the Baltimore Colts ever absorbed. A title was to be decided because of the questionable validity of a field goal. Was it in or out? Good or bad?It became, without a doubt, the most talked-about incident in Baltimore sports history, setting off repercussions that resulted in the National Football League changing the rules, an admission of guilt, and unfortunately, depriving the Colts of at least an otherwise well-deserved championship opportunity.

NEW YORK -- The outcome of the 92nd World Series was not predictable, and neither will be the aftermath. The New York Yankees are on top of the baseball world, thanks to an unlikely six-game victory over the heavily favored Atlanta Braves, but it might be hard to tell the winners from the losers in the next few weeks.The Braves' organization, clearly disappointed at its failure to secure a second straight world championship, nonetheless is preparing to move toward 1997 without rancor or self-doubt.

Thori Staples wasn't surprised when she heard the stories about the arrival of the U.S. women's national team after winning the 1991 World Championship in China.After capturing the first major honor in world soccer, the team was greeted at the airport by . . . no one. There wasn't a huge welcoming rally. Not even one television camera or reporter.What's surprising to Staples is how the sport has changed in four years. The national team is set to defend its title in Sweden today in a first-round game against China, and now it seems as if everyone knows about its success.

George H. Stram's house is full of wooden ducks, which have provided him with a hobby, a little extra cash and a world championship ribbon.Mr. Stram of Forest Hill took first place recently at the Ward World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition in Ocean City with his carving of a red-breasted merganser duck. The championship is an international event at the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art in Salisbury."I'm not the greatest carver in the world," Mr. Stram said. "I do pretty well though."About 1,000 carvers from seven countries went to Ocean City to compete in five different carving classes: youth, novice, intermediate, open and world.

BETHESDA -- When the canoeing brothers, Fritz and Lecky Haller, were invited to throw out the first ball at an Orioles game this month, their minds began to roam.There they were, brushing shoulders with baseball millionaires. The Hallers won their first world two-man canoe championship in 1983, the same year that Cal Ripken was the American League's MVP and led the Orioles to the world championship.World championship? Major-league baseball's world doesn't stretch beyond the United States.

George Goldsborough's roots are buried deep in Maryland's Eastern Shore. His ancestors were among the founders of Talbot County and its county seat, Easton, where he lives with his family.His life has taken many turns. By the time he was 17, he was a charter-boat captain. He went on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and eventually to earn a law degree from the George Washington University School of Law. He's retired from practicing law, but has continued lecturing and serving as a panelist for bar associations and medical societies.

One of manager Dave Trembley's starting pitchers made it past the fifth inning last night, an occasion that should have brought the same champagne celebration that broke out after the Orioles' 1983 world championship. The timing would have seemed appropriate. The showers that followed didn't come from a bottle. Two batters into the sixth, Jeremy Guthrie had allowed the tie-breaking run as the Camden Yards grounds crew waited behind the tarp and the rain picked up in intensity. Umpires halted play with two outs, the Toronto Blue Jays' Lyle Overbay at third base and a 1-0 count on Scott Rolen.

For most athletes, international playing experience comes well after high school, if it comes at all. Not many return to their high school teams after competing in a world championship. This spring, however, John Carroll's Ally Carey, Broadneck's Karri Ellen Johnson and Severn's Josie Owen are all back on their high school teams after helping the United States win its third straight International Federation of Women's Lacrosse Associations' Under-19 World Championship last August in Ontario, Canada.

If you think the Phoenix area is going to suffer a huge collective letdown after Super Bowl week, think again. The locals get a few days to rest before another big weekend around here. The 18th annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest kicks off Saturday with hoop dancers from the United States and Canada competing for the world championship. I can't stick around, but if I could, I'd be partial to the Scottsdale Fine Art and Chocolate Festival, for obvious reasons that don't involve an appreciation of fine art.

I have a little bit of a daredevil in me," said Chris Eatough of Ellicott City. "I like to go fast - very fast." But it takes more than speed to be a six-time winner of the World Solo 24 Hours of Adrenalin championship mountain bike races, held once a year at grueling courses in the United States and Canada. "Most of the race, to be honest - you're fighting the instinct to want to stop, to quit," said Eatough. "You're in some pain - it's not an easy thing. The good moments are few and far between.

"I have a little bit of a daredevil in me," said Chris Eatough of Ellicott City. "I like to go fast - very fast." But it takes more than speed to be a six-time winner of the World Solo 24 Hours of Adrenalin championship mountain bike races, held once a year at grueling courses in the United States and Canada. "Most of the race, to be honest - you're fighting the instinct to want to stop, to quit," Eatough said. "You're in some pain - it's not an easy thing. The good moments are few and far between.

There isn't a more inspiring sight in sports than supreme potential being fully realized, as opposed to being wasted. Tiger Woods certainly isn't wasting his otherworldly gifts; his runaway victory in the PGA Championship last weekend left him just six major titles shy of Jack Nicklaus' all-time record. It isn't a question of whether he will catch Jack -- just when. World Championship Preliminary round, U.S. vs. Italy, today, 6:30 a.m., ESPN2, replay at 10 p.m.

Earning a few bucks between semesters is what a lot of college kids hope to do during the summer. And Jeff Madsen, a senior at Cal State-Santa Barbara, is no different. Except in Madsen's case, the haul this summer has been a little more than $1.4 million - and counting. The 21-year-old film student not only became the youngest person ever to win a World Series of Poker championship, but he has done it twice. About a week ago, he set the age record when he took down a no-limit hold 'em $2,000 buy-in tournament at the Rio All-Suites Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Mention of the World Series once exclusively evoked runs, hits and errors. But that's the old World Series. The new World Series, at least new in the consciousness of millions of Americans, has a far different lexicon: flop, turn and river. Also, all-in, on tilt and bad beat. The 36th World Series of Poker, the marquee event of the card craze that has saturated TV and even elbowed its way onto sports pages, begins its championship finale Thursday at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas with an expected record-shattering field of 6,600 competitors.

If there is such a thing as nautical gridlock, Annapolis may provide Exhibit A this weekend. The National Offshore One Design regatta, three days of racing that begins today, has so far attracted a field of 283 boats, just two short of the record for an event of this type. Organizers say the combination of a highly competitive field that includes a number of world-class sailors, the prediction of consistent winds and the possibility of 50,000 spectators overhead Sunday during the Bay Bridge Walk, will likely push Annapolis past Chicago, which set the record three years ago. The deadline for registering was last night.

He remains a curio item in some sporting corners, hence his No. 63 designation in ESPN's top 100 moments and personalities of the year, 16 notches behind an X Games angle and one in front of a political protest by a Division III women's basketball player. An Olympic year arrives in less than 48 hours, however, and by next August, Michael Phelps' profile could be, well, to borrow one of his stock phrases, "huge." As he prepares for 2004, Phelps can look back on a year that has him poised to provide not just the biggest story among more than 10,000 athletes in Athens, Greece, next summer, but also one of the most compelling in the history of the modern Olympics.