Weekend Sports In Brief

By The Associated Press

Here's a look at weekend sports in brief around the world.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

UNDATED (AP) — It’s North Carolina or nothing for President Barack Obama.

The president went 1-for-4 on Final Four teams in his NCAA tournament bracket, hitting with the Tar Heels but losing with Louisville on Sunday.

The split left Obama in the bottom 47 percent of the 5-plus million fans who entered ESPN.com’s pool. After correctly choosing 14 teams to reach the round of 16, his bracket ranked in the top 40 percent.

Obama picked North Carolina to win the championship. The top-seeded Tar Heels reached the national semifinals by beating Oklahoma 72-60.

The president’s bracket also had Louisville, Pittsburgh and Memphis making the Final Four.

CYCLING

UNDATED (AP) — Lance Armstrong is back on the bike.

Three days after surgery to fix his broken right collarbone, +Armstrong+ posted a photo of himself training on his Twitter feed Saturday afternoon.

“Got on the spin bike for half an hour today,” the seven-time Tour de France champion wrote.

The 37-year-old American cyclist was expected to resume training almost immediately to meet his goal of racing in the Giro d’Italia, which begins May 9.

He also plans to ride in the Tour de France this July, his first since 2005.

Surgeon Doug Elenz inserted a stainless steel plate and 12 screws to stabilize the broken collarbone Wednesday, two days after Armstrong crashed in the first stage of the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon race in northern Spain.

SOCCER

WEMBLEY, England (AP) — David Beckham is all by himself when it comes to appearances by a nongoalkeeper on England’s national team. Now, he has just Peter Shilton to catch, and he could do it at next year’s World Cup.

Beckham entered his 109th international game at the start of the second half Saturday and set up a goal with a trademark cross in a 4-0 exhibition victory over Slovakia at Wembley Stadium.

Beckham, who made his international debut in 1996, surpassed the mark he shared with former captain Bobby Moore (1962-73). The next target is Shilton, who made 125 appearances in goal for England from 1970-90.

He has prolonged his international career by joining AC Milan in January on a loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy. The 33-year-old midfielder will return to Major League Soccer in July for the second half of the season and intends to rejoin Milan in January.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — A stampede at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in the Ivory Coast killed at least 19 people and wounded 132 Sunday, authorities said.

Fans at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny arena pushed against each other shortly before the game between Ivory Coast and Malawi, setting off a panic that led to the stampede, Interior Minister Desire Tagro said on state television.

An Associated Press photographer said people began shoving and pushing 40 minutes before the beginning of the game. Police fired tear gas into one section of the crowd.

Ollo Kambire, a reporter for “Super Sport,” a daily newspaper focusing on sports, said that a wall collapsed under the weight of the fans as they pushed toward the field.

Ivory Coast won the match 5-0.

There have been a number of stampedes at Africa’s crowded stadiums. Badly equipped security forces are far outnumbered and are often unable to control the voluminous crowds.

OLYMPICS

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expects another level of funding will be added to the revenue-sharing contract the IOC has with the U.S. Olympic Committee after 2020, a result of a deal reached late last week.

The agreement ends a four-year standoff between the two bodies over the amount paid to the USOC from the international body’s top sponsorship program and from its TV revenues.

Some international members had characterized the USOC’s revenue levels — it gets 20 percent of the IOC’s top sponsorship program and 12.75 percent of its TV revenue — as “unlimited greed.”

The USOC agreed to consider paying several million dollars in the short term in exchange for delaying the talks on reducing its take of sponsorship and TV revenues until 2013.

The USOC has long argued that American-based companies pay the majority of the money into the system — for instance, broadcaster NBC paid $894 million to televise the Beijing Olympics, more than double what the Europeans paid.

HORSE RACING

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Alysheba, winner of the 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness and 1988 Horse of the Year, has died. The champion stallion was 25.

Dubbed “America’s Horse” by racing fans, Alysheba was euthanized Friday night following a fall in his stall at the Kentucky Horse Park’s Hall of Champions, where he was buried Saturday.

The son of racing legend Alydar became a sensation for trainer Jack Van Berg and owners Dorothy and Pamela Scharbauer during a brilliant career that included a win in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Classic. He retired as horse racing’s all-time money winner with more than $6.6 million in earnings from 11 victories in 26 lifetime starts.

Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, who piloted Alysheba to victory in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, called him “the most talented horse I ever rode.”