Wie takes walk on riled side after DQ SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Michelle Wie finished the third round of the State Farm Classic alone in second on Saturday -- then was disqualified for failing to immediately sign her scorecard a day earlier when she walked outside the roped-off area around the scorer's tent before being called back. But then it was too late.
Wie was playing her best golf of the year, finishing off a 5-under 67 to get to 17 under for the tournament, one stroke back of Yani Tseng.
Michelle Wie
That's when Wie was disqualified by LPGA officials, who said they'd learned during play Saturday from tournament volunteers about the 18-year-old's mistake.
"I don't know why or how it happened," said Wie, who had been crying moments earlier. She took no questions before leaving the clubhouse at Panther Creek Country Club.
"She was like a little kid after you tell them there's no Santa Claus," said Sue Witters, the LPGA's director of tournament competitions.
Olympic medallist Manley made of tough stuff
Elizabeth Manley (right) works with young skaters during a Skate Canada seminar Saturday morning at Dakota Community Centre.
By Allan Besson
A strong believer in the value of hard work, Elizabeth Manley used to pump iron with the Ottawa University football team.
"I was the only girl in the gym," said the 1988 Calgary Olympic figure skating silver medallist Saturday. "It was a dark, sweaty gym, but for me that was what training was all about. I might have weighed about 100 pounds, but I could leg press 400."
Manley was here to conduct the Skate Winnipeg GM Making Dreams Come True Super Seminar at Dakota Community Club. "You have to get hurt, in order to be tough," she told her students. "The only way you can become a great skater is to be able to put up with the bumps and bruises. It makes you a tougher person."
That, she agrees, is only the physical side. Experience has taught her, that there is also a dark side that skaters need to overcome. "I always worried about things I had no control over, and I put the weight of the world on my shoulders. I forgot about why I was skating, and ended up having a breakdown, depression, and losing my hair. Now I tell young skaters not to worry abut the media, or what the judges see them do in practice. Just take care of themselves, and don't worry abut what they can't control."
Brett Favre played it cool Saturday.
Manley said her demons also taught her to deal with her fears, and she eventually overcame them. "It made me step back and take a look at the whole picture, and determine what I was doing."
At the Calgary Olympics, the Canadian media, her coaches, family and friends all told her she had outshone Germany's Katarina Witt, who had won gold. Manley, however, refused to let second place bring her down. "I was happy with the silver, and the reason was because of all that I had gone through. Just having done the skate of my life, was such a huge reward to me.
"I am so honoured to have an Olympic medal, but there is so much more behind that medal for me, than most people might know."
Manley had one last piece of advice. "Have fun. You can't take it too serious. My whole life revolved about winning that medal. When you get to that point, you are not successful. You've taken the fun out of it."
-- Allan Besson
Favre keeps civil tongue at Lambeau Field
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Brett Favre stuck to the script, declining to address his public rift with the Green Bay Packers in an appearance at Lambeau Field on Saturday.
In town to present former teammate Frank Winters for induction into the Packers' Hall of Fame at a banquet Saturday night, Favre briefly spoke with reporters about his former centre's career before abruptly stepping off the stage and ducking out a side door.
But Favre did pause to praise the place where he used to play -- and now is trying to play his way out of.
"That's the thing about Green Bay," said Favre, who spoke for about three minutes. "It's a special place. There's a lot of tradition. You think of the Packers, you think of all these great names, and to be a part of that -- and I know Frank feels honoured -- is a special thing. I'm thankful that he asked me to be here."
With that, Favre introduced Winters and walked off the stage.
Favre also put the controversy aside when he received a team MVP award during Saturday's event, calling himself "an old, grey-haired quarterback showing I can still do it."
-- The Associated Press
Evans keeps lead as Tour hits mountain stages
DIGNES-LES-BAINS, France -- Tour
de France riders approached the Alps
focused more on racing and less on the
fallout of three scandals over drug use.
Three-time world champion Oscar
Freire of Spain closed in on the sprint
title by winning Saturday's 14th stage,
while Australia's Cadel Evans kept the
yellow jersey in the doping-battered
race for a fifth straight day.
Evans, who was runner-up last year,
knows his clutch on the race leader's
yellow jersey is about to be challenged
-- notably by Team CSC, which has
two strong climbers who are within 1
? minutes of him.
"Tomorrow the challenges to my
yellow jersey will begin," said Evans,
adding that his Silence Lotto team has
tried to save the energy of riders who
could escort him up the Alpine climbs.
"I have to play a smart race.
"We don't have the strongest team
for the mountains, we are well aware
of that -- and I'm sure my competitors
are as well," Evans said.
Freire, a three-time world champion,
won a mass sprint at the end of
the 194.6-kilometre trek from Nimes
to Digne-les-Bains and moved in on
clinching the green jersey given to the
Tour's best sprinter.
The 32-year-old Rabobank rider
collected his fourth Tour stage victory
and his first this year with a time of 4
hours, 13 minutes, 8 seconds. Freire's
hold on the green jersey had come
under pressure from Mark Cavendish,
who won the last two stages in sprints.
But the British rider fell behind in the
final climb up the low-grade L'Orme
pass, and he missed out on the final
dash.
Bjarne Riis, the CSC team manager,
said his team is going to "show some
fireworks" in the Alps. His contenders
include Frank Schleck of Luxembourg,
who trails Evans by one second, and
Spain's Carlos Sastre, who is 1:28 back.
"Obviously, the strategy is to try and
isolate Evans," said Riis, the 1996 Tour
winner who stayed home from the race
last year just weeks after his admission
that he had used EPO on way to
his victory. "If we want to win this
Tour de France we have to attack on
these three hard stages in the Alps."
-- The Associated Press
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