APR 1 9 2000
A pr i l 1 2,-2 008
Page B2
(The Parttani* (0herruer
Have a happy
Easter
Metro/Sports
To the Victor Go the Seventh-Place
(and No Shaq) Spoils
Kenyans Win Boston Marathon
Assot m m P ress
Trying to lose weight? Forget about
the Scarsdale Diet or the ones pitched
by Nathan Pritikin, Oprah Winfrey
and Jenny Craig.
Kenya’s Elijah Lagat has results to
put those to shame. He lost 33 pounds
and then won the Boston Marathon,
just seven years after his doctor told
him to start exercising or maybe die.
“I was not an athlete. 1 was fat,” he
said Monday in a testimonial that
seem ed m ore appropriate for a
Richard Simmons video than a Boston
Marathon winner’s news conference.
“One time 1 got sick and 1 went to the
doctor. The doctor told me to do
some exercise tocut down my weight.”
It being Kenya, where road racing is
a national sport, Lagat began to run.
From a high o f 158 pounds at his
doctor’s appointment in late 1992,
w hen he w as having difficulty
breathing and an erratic pulse, he
dropped to 125 pounds.
“ I was not doing it to be an athlete. In
the process o f trying to compete just
for fiin, 1 found that I was doing wel 1,”
he said. “Before the end o f the year,
I found that I was doing well.
No one needed to tell Lagat what to
do on Monday.
Staying with the lead pack through a
race slowed by a 13 mph headwind,
Lagat came into the final stretch locked
in a dramatic duel with training partner
A ssociated P ress
Seattle and Sacramento will be playing
for the right to avoid a first-round
playoff matchup with the Los Angeles
Lakers when they meet at Arco Arena.
T he K ings p la y h o st to the
SuperSonics on T uesday (10:30p.m.
ET), with the winner clinching seventh
place in the Western Conference and
the loser getting stuck with a first-
round series against the Lakers, who
have the league’s best record and
have taken three o f the four meetings
with both teams.
The team that finishes seventh will
play Utah in the first round.
With a win Tuesday, Sacramento will
ow na3-l series edgeover Seattle and
clinch the tiebreaker ifthe teams finish
with the same record.
“If we beat the Sonics (Tuesday),
w e’re the seventh seed,” Kings coach
Rick Adelman said. “They have the
same schedule as we have, and it’s
going to be nice to go against them as
if it were a playoff game. ’ ’
The Sonics would gain the seventh
seed by winning Tuesday, since the
teams would split the season series
and Seattle owns the next tiebreaker
by virtue o f its better conference
winning percentage.
The Kings have struggled against
the Western Conference elite lately,
dropping five straight in matchups
with playoff-bound teams. A 102-95
loss at Portland on Sunday followed
a 121-114 loss to the Los Angeles
Lakers at their Staples Center on
Friday.
S acram en to has also fallen to
Minnesota, Phoenix and San Antonio
d u rin g
th a t
stre tc h .
A fte r
W ednesday’s game at Utah, the
Kings will have faced the other seven
playoff-bound teams from the West
during the final eight games o f the
season.
The Kings, who managed to slip in a
win against lowly Golden State, have
lost five o f their last six overall.
The Sonics won for just the second
time in their last six with a 121-112
victory over Houston on Sunday.
Gary Payton notched a career high
with 43 points and added 11 rebounds
and seven assists.
The Sonics have not lost the season
series since 1994-95 and hold a 103-59
edge against the Kings all-time,
including a 43-37 showing on the
road.
Winner’s circle closed to Duval, Els, Love
Kenya's Elijah Lagat winner o f the Boston Marathon
A ssociaietl E ress
and that was my mistake,” Tanui said.
“I felt strong at the end, but I was too
nervous.” In the closest finish in the
race’s 104-year history, Lagat and
Abera clocked the same time o f 2
hours, 9 minutes, 47 seconds, with
Tanui three seconds back.
M oses T an u i and E th io p ia ’s
Gezahenge Abera.
The lead went back and forth before
Tanui made his surge with 200 yards
to go. But Tanui, a two-time Boston
winner, tired as Lagat began his sprint.
“Everybody gets to make a mistake,
NBA Playoff Races Standings
EASTERN CONFERENCE
WESTERN CONFERENCE
W L Pet GB xz-Indiana 55 26 .679 - xz-Miami
51 29 .638 3 l/2x-N ew Y ork 49 31 .613 5 1/2 x-
Philadelphia48 33 .593 7 x-Charlotte 47 33 .588 7 1/2
x-Toronto 45 35 .563 9 l/2x-D etroit 41 39 .513 13
l/2x-M ilw aukee 41 4 0 .5 0 6 1 4
x-clinched playoff berth
W L Pet GB xz-L. A. Lakers 67 13 .838 - x-Portland
58 22 .725 9 xz-Utah
54 26 .675 13 x-Phoenix
52 28 .650 15 x-San Antonio 52 29 .642 15 1/2 x-
Minnesota 50 31 .617 17 1/2 x-Sacramento 44 36
.55023 x-Seattle 44 36 .5 5 0 2 3
z-clinched division
They are among the best players in
the w orld, considered the c h ie f
challengers to Tiger Woods. They
already have earned more than $1
million this year, and the season is
not even four months old.
Lately, however, David Duval, Davis
Love III and Ernie Els share one other
d istin c tio n th a t has becom e a
troubling trend.
They can’t seem to win.
All o f them have been there on the
back nine Sunday, either in the lead or
close enough that it seems like only
a matter o f time before they ’ re holding
an oversized check and hoisting a
trophy for the cameras.
The latest opportunity belonged to
Els, a two-time U.S. Open champion
whose credentials carried him only
so far in the MCI Classic.
With a birdie sandwiched between
two great bunker saves, he was at 14
underand three strokes clear, cruising
toward what looked 1 ike a sure victory.
Suddenly, shockingly, the Big Easy
became the Big Pushover.
“I don’t know what happened,” Els
said after playing the final 11 holes in
5 over to finish five strokes behind
Stewart Cink. “I just lost it. What can
you do?”
That’s a consolation speech Love
should know by heart. Love was only
three strokes behind Els to start the
final round and quickly bowed out,
just as he did in the Masters a week
early, just as he did in the Bay Hill
Invitational a month ago.
Duval w asn’t at Harbour Town. He
folded his tent a week earlier at
Augusta National, one stroke out of
the lead with seven holes to play
when he hit a bad shot at a bad time.
He wound up with a bogey on the par-
5 13th and finished fourstrokes behind
Vijay Singh.
Just more than a year ago, Duval was
No. 1 in the world, a winner in 11 ofhis
last 34 tournaments. He is O-for-23
since, dating to his victory in Atlanta
the week before last year’s Masters.
Els is 0-for-26 going back to his
victory a year ago in Los Angeles,
where he held off Woods, Duval and
Love down the stretch at Riviera.
“When you haven’t won like me, for
almost a year now on this tour, it feels
like you’ve got to work a little harder
to get back there,” Els said. “I ’ ve felt
like that for quite some time.”
St
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