San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SHIFFRIN FALLS SHORT OF SLALOM GOLD
Mikaela Shiffrin wanted to cap off the Alpine world championships in signature form, finishing the biggest skiing event outside of the Olympics with another gold medal at the end of nearly two weeks of drama.
But it was not to be, even though the event finished with slalom, her best discipline event. Shiffrin lost her lead at the top of the second run and had to settle for her second silver in these world championships and her third medal of the meet. She won the gold medal in giant slalom Thursday and last week won the silver in super-g. Only a slip in the final stretch of the slalom portion of the Alpine combined prevented her from winning a medal in every race she competed in, and she did so amid a very public breakup with her longtime coach in the middle of the event.
Laurence St-germain of Canada was 0.61 behind in third place after the first run but skied aggressively in her second time down the hill to put herself in position for her first world championship. Shiffrin then made too many mistakes at the top of her run and could not find enough speed at the bottom to make up for it, finishing .57 second behind, a massive turnaround.
It was Shiffrin’s 14th overall medal at the world championships.
Locally
The San Diego Legion defeated the Utah Warriors 33-17, opening their 2023 Major League Rugby season at their new home Snapdragon Stadium. The Legion led 20-5 at halftime and continued to dominate the second half for the win. The Legion received scoring trys from
Faka Pifileti (15th minute), Dan Pryor (21st), Nate Augspurger (32nd) and
Christian Poidevin (57th). The Legion set an MLR record with 11,423 tickets sold for the game. The previous record was 7,389 for the 2021 championship final.
• Rocco Grimaldi had a hat trick but it wasn’t enough as the San Diego Gulls lost 4-3 in overtime to the Ontario Reign at Pechanga Arena.
Local colleges
In baseball, SDSU scored three runs in the ninth inning but dropped its second straight to open the season with a 5-3 loss to Arizona State in Phoenix. Cal State San Marcos (6-4) picked up its second consecutive series win as it defeated Concordia University Irvine (5-6) by a score of 6-2 in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader before falling 3-0 in the series finale. Niko Diaz was 4-for-4 in the win. Sophomore Ryan Forcucci and junior Ryan Rissas held Michigan (1-2) to six hits, combining to strike out 13 batters in UCSD’S 11-2 win in the MLB Desert Invitational at Scottsdale, Ariz. The University of San Diego (2-0) scored twice in the eighth to score a 5-3 win over visiting Nebraska.
• In women’s basketball, San Diego State (21-8, 11-5) lost at Wyoming 70-58 to fall into a three-way tie for second place in the Mountain West. Izzy Forsyth scored 15 points to lead UC San Diego (12-13, 9-5 Big West) to a 57-46 win at CSUN (5-21, 412). The No. 14/RV Cal State San Marcos (20-4, 17-3 CCAA) secured a CCAA
Tournament bye to the semifinals with its 64-53 victory at Cal State East Bay (12-12, 9-11).
• In men’s basketball, in its final road game of the regular season, Cal State San Marcos (16-9, 15-5 CCAA) fell 75-70 to Cal State East Bay (11-15, 9-11). Greg Milton III scored 17 points.
• In softball, No. 13 Cal State San Marcos (7-2, 4-0 CCAA) opened conference play with a series sweep over Cal Poly Humboldt (210) after registering a pair of 6-0 and 3-2 wins at home. UC San Diego (5-3) defeated San Jose State (1-6) 5-4 on the road.
Football
Eric Bieniemy agreed to be the Washington Commanders’ offensive coordinator and assistant head coach.
• Notre Dame promoted tight ends coach Gerard Parker to offensive coordinator as head coach Marcus Freeman rebuilds his staff.
Soccer
In an English Premier League title race that keeps producing twists, the pendulum has swung back Arsenal’s way again after a frustrating day for Manchester City. Arsenal came from behind twice before scoring two goals in injury time to beat Aston Villa 4-2 in the early kickoff. City then conceded a secondhalf equalizer and was held at Nottingham Forest to a surprising 1-1 draw after missing chances to put the game away.
Tennis
Wheelchair star Esther Vergeer and quad division pioneer Rick Draney are the International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees for the Class of 2023. It is the first time two people were elected in the same year in the Wheelchair Tennis Category, which appears on the Hall ballot every four years.
• Second-seeded Cameron Norrie reached his second final of the year after beating Juan Pablo Varillas 7-6 (5), 6-4 in the Argentina Open semifinals in Buenos Airies.
• Top-ranked Iga Swiatek successfully defended her Qatar Open title after beating No. 4-ranked Jessica Pegula 6-3, 6-0 in the final in Doha. Swiatek broke Pegula for 2-0 and 4-2 but both times immediately lost her own serve. Pegula couldn’t hold again and Swiatek served out to love to take the first set. The second wasn’t competitive.
Dear Car Talk:
I have exhausted all avenues but still haven’t found the answer.
As an avid fan of motorsports, I find very baffling as to why, when a car is decelerating, there is usually the presence of flames coming out of the exhaust. To decelerate, one cuts off the gas to the engine, but every explanation I can find says the flames come from unburned fuel.
That seem to be counterintuitive to me. Since you are the encyclopedia of things mechanical, the ultimate guru of gas, I was hoping you could explain this mystery.
— Steve
I have no expertise in motorsports, Steve. The last thing I want to do after working on motors all day for a living is to come home and work on them for sport. But, it’s definitely unburned fuel being combusted in the exhaust system.
How does it get there? Well, race cars have different valve timing than your typical Honda Civic — on which you have to pay extra for the fire-breathing package. Because its sole purpose is to run at high speed and full power, the opening and closing of the valves on a race car engine is optimized for those conditions.
To provide that maximum performance at high rpm, they increase the overlap between the intake and exhaust valves. So, compared to your 2014 Hyundai Elantra, for instance, there’s more time when both sets of valves are open.
When the engine is running at 5,000 rpm, pretty much all the fuel that’s pouring into the cylinders gets combusted and used. But, when the car suddenly decelerates, some fuel continues to pour in but can’t be burned fast enough.
So, that excess fuel ends up being sucked out the exhaust valves and ends up in the exhaust system.
Those exhaust systems are generally straight pipes, with little to no baffling or curves to muffle sound like we see on passenger vehicles, so a flame that gets ignited by the spark as the fuel leaves the cylinder can easily come right out the back.
While that’s a terrible waste of fuel and a source of smog, it does have the benefit of looking very cool.