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Sports in brief

 
Published Feb. 7, 2016

ALPINE SKIING

vonn extends world cup lead with fifth downhill win

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany — Lindsey Vonn won a women's downhill on a demanding course by a big margin Saturday to extend her World Cup lead.

On a sunny day but with most of the Kandahar course in shade, Vonn made no obvious mistakes and finished 1.51 seconds ahead of Fabienne Suter of Switzerland. The American raised her World Cup record to 38 downhill wins, the most by a woman in a specific discipline.

With her 76th World Cup win, Vonn closed the gap on the all-time record of 86 victories for men and women, held by Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden. Vonn has won five of six downhill races this season and six of the past seven going back to last season.

"You can never be unsatisfied with a 11/2-second lead," Vonn said. "It was a great day, I am pretty psyched."

With her fifth downhill win, Vonn equaled her record from the 2011-12 season. She has nine wins overall.

More alpine skiing: American Steven Nyman couldn't have picked a better place to post his first podium result of the season: on the downhill course that will be used for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea. He finished third behind Kjetil Jansrud of Norway and Dominik Paris of Italy in the opening test event at Jeongseon.

SOCCER

Liverpool fans exit to protest new ticket price

Unthinkable five years ago was the prospect of protests by Liverpool fans against owner the Fenway Sports Group, which ended the despised reign of American duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.

But the jubilant scenes that greeted the October 2010 takeover seemed a distant memory as thousands of Liverpool fans walked out of the ground in the 77th minute of the English Premier League game against Sunderland to protest some ticket prices rising to 77 pounds, about $112.

In the 77th minute, Liverpool was leading 2-0 after goals from Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana, but Adam Johnson and Jermain Defoe scored for Sunderland in the final 10 minutes.

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp missed the game with appendicitis.

More EPL: With a 3-1 win at Manchester City, Leicester showed why it really could be lifting the trophy for the first time in May. From 5,000/1 outsiders for the title in August, Leicester became the 7/4 favorite with several British bookmakers after taking a five-point lead at the top of the standings. City's loss was compounded by Tottenham edging Watford 1-0 and replacing City in second place.

et cetera

Baseball: Pitcher Jesse Chavez defeated the Blue Jays in salary arbitration, improving players to 3-0 this year. Chavez was awarded a $4 million salary for this year. The Blue Jays argued the 32-year-old right-hander should be paid $3.6 million.

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Tennis: In Day 1 of opening-round Fed Cup play, Venus Williams beat Paula Kania 7-5, 6-2 and Sloane Stephens beat Magda Linette 6-2 6-4 to give the United States a 2-0 lead over Poland at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Four-time champion Russia was on the brink of a surprise first-round defeat to the Netherlands after going 2-0 down in Moscow. Maria Sharapova was scheduled to play only today's doubles. Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber defeated Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 6-3 to draw host Germany level with Switzerland 1-1. Monica Niculescu beat two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova 6-3, 6-4 to give host Romania a 1-1 tie with the Czech Republic. Caroline Garcia beat former French Open runnerup Sara Errani 6-3, 7-5 to move France level with Italy at 1.

Track and field: Drew Hunter broke Alan Webb's high school record in the indoor mile, running 3 minutes, 58.25 seconds at the Armory Track Invitational in New York. Hunter, a senior at Loudoun Valley High School in Virginia, competed in the men's mile won by 2012 NCAA champion Chris O'Hare (3:54.59). Webb became the first U.S. high school student to turn in a sub-4 minute mile indoors with 3:59.86 in 2001.

Times wires