Hassan finishes 4th in world 10,000 meters; Gidey gets gold
EUGENE, ORE. >> Endurance icon Sifan Hassan wasn't going for three medals this time. Now, she won't even get two.
The Dutch distance workhorse got outraced to the line in a fight-to-the-finish 10,000 meters Saturday at world championships. She finished fourth, behind Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia, Hellen Obiri of Kenya and Obiri's late-charging teammate, Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi.
Gidey won in 30 minutes, 9.94 seconds. Only 0.62 seconds separated the top four runners.
It means Hassan's only chance for a medal will come next week in the 5,000 meters, a race in which she is the reigning Olympic champion.
The 29-year-old also won the 10,000 and took bronze in the 1,500 last summer in Tokyo, finishing a threemedals-in-three-races combo that had never been done before.
She scaled back this year, not wanting to race nearly 25,000 meters over six races — prelims and finals included — in the span of a week. The 10,000, a distance at which she won the world championship in 2019, seemed to be setting up perfectly for her as the runners reached the backstretch with about 200 meters to go.
Cycling
MATTHEWS WINS TOUR STAGE >> Michael Matthews of Australia posted a solo win on the 14th stage of the Tour de France after a long breakaway and a tremendous effort in the last climb.
It was Matthews' fourth stage win at cycling's biggest race.
The Australian was part of a group of 23 riders who broke from the pack after a frenetic start to the stage punctuated by a flurry of attacks on hilly ground from Saint-Etienne to Mende.
Matthews, from the BikeExchange-Jayco team, launched a solo effort about 50 kilometers from the finish and reduced the leading group to just four men.
Motor sports
TRUEX WINS CUP POLE >> Martin Truex Jr. won a pole for the first time in his three-plus seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing and will lead a Toyota-heavy top five to green at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Truex turned a lap of 127.113 mph and won his 20th career pole — the previous 19 were won with other teams, including a career-best five with defunct Furniture Row Racing in 2016. He has 12 wins with JGR since 2019.
Truex, the 2017 Cup champion, will take any boost he can as he races Sunday for his first win of the season. Truex has 31 career Cup victories and won four times last season and was runner-up in the standings to champion Kyle Larson. But he's scuffled this season in NASCAR's new Next Gen stock car over the first 19 starts and posted only two top-five finishes. He hasn't finished better than 11th in any of his last four races.
ALLGAIER WINS XFINITY RACE >> Justin Allgaier
outran 2011 Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for his third Xfinity Series victory of the season.
Allgaier won all three checkered flags over his last eight races, a hot streak that started in May at Darlington Raceway and he added his second win last month at Nashville Superspeedway.
The 36-year-old Allgaier controlled a wreck-filled race late in his No. 7 Chevrolet and is again in the hunt to win his coveted
first Xfinity championship. Allgaier took the lead with 48 laps left and grabbed the checkered flag for Chevrolet and JR Motorsports. DRIVER KILLED IN STABBING >> NASCAR driver Bobby East died at age 37 earlier this week after he was stabbed by a man at a Southern California gas station.
Police responded to a stabbing at a 76 gas station in Westminster, located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Wednesday just before 6 p.m., according to the Westminster Police Department.
“The victim was found on the ground suffering from a serious stab wound to the chest area,” authorities said in a statement.
Police attempted life-saving measures before he was transported to a trauma center, where he later died.
On Saturday, several media outlets identified the victim as East, a three-time champion on the U.S. Auto Club circuit.
Golf
KUPCHO, SALAS WIN LPGA TEAM EVENT >> Jennifer Kupcho and Lizette Salas won the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, closing with a 9-under 61 in best-ball play for a five-stroke victory in the LPGA Tour's lone team event.
The U.S. Solheim Cup partners finished at 26-under 254 at Midland Country Club. They opened Wednesday with a 68 in alternate shot, shot a best-ball 61 on Thursday and took a fourstroke lead Friday with an alternate-shot 64.
Kupcho won for the third time this year and in her career, while Salas won her second tour title. Kupcho won the major Chevron Championship in early April in the California desert and the Meijer LPGA Classic last month in Belmont, Michigan. Salas also won the 2014 Kingsmill Championship.