For The Record

Won
By Bernard Lagat, the 1,500 and the 5,000 meters at the U.S. track and field championships in Indianapolis (page 148), making him the first to sweep the events at the nationals. This was the first U.S. championships for Lagat, 31, a Kenyan who became a U.S. citizen in 2004. He won the 5,000 last Friday, and on Sunday he outsprinted Gabe Jennings on the final lap to take the 1,500 in 3:39.29. Now Lagat (above), who holds the U.S. record in the 1,500, will turn his attention to the '07 world championships, where he will compete as an American for the first time. "I got a really warm reception here," he said. "I feel like there's a connection with the people ... they're saying, 'You're a part of us.'"

Announced
By the Big Ten, plans for a 24-hour cable network. The Big Ten Channel is expected to launch in August 2007 and carry live events and highlight shows, including football and basketball games and 170 contests in lower-profile sports such as baseball, tennis and gymnastics. It will also reserve time for member schools to broadcast nonsports and academic programming. "Parents want to see their kids play," said Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez. "Now they'll be able to."

Sued
By a group of current and former NFL players, the league and the NFL Players Association, for endorsing an Atlanta-based investment firm run by an allegedly crooked money manager. Last month Kirk Wright, 35, was arrested in Miami and charged with mail fraud; he allegedly bilked clients, including former Broncos Steve Atwater, Ray Crockett and Terrell Davis, out of as much as $185 million (SI, April 3). Wright was registered as a financial adviser by the union and subjected to a background check by the league's security department. Said Atwater, whose group is seeking unspecified damages, "The NFL and the players association failed us."

Dropped
By Anaheim's NHL franchise, the word Mighty from its name. The former Mighty Ducks of Anaheim will now be known simply as the Anaheim Ducks. The team was named after the Disney film The Mighty Ducks, but with new owner Henry Samueli having taken over from Disney in June 2005, an image overhaul is under way. "It's time we separate ourselves from Disney," said G.M. Brian Burke. "Without them, there's no team here. But it's time."

Won
By University of Portland soccer star Christine Sinclair, the Honda-Broderick Cup as the NCAA's top female athlete. Sinclair (above) set a single-season NCAA record with 39 goals as a senior and led the Pilots to the national championship, and she finished her career as one of just six players in NCAA history to have 100 goals and 30 assists. The other finalists were LSU's Seimone Augustus, the basketball national player of the year; Texas pitcher Cat Osterman; Georgia swimmer Mary DeScenza; and Alabama gymnast Ashley Miles.

Denied
By Lance Armstrong, new allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs. Last Friday the French newspaper Le Monde reported that it had obtained sworn statements made to an arbitration panel by Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrong's former U.S. Postal Service teammate Frankie Andreu, which implicated Armstrong. Andreu reportedly said that on Oct. 28, 1996, three days after Armstrong underwent surgery to treat the testicular cancer that had spread to his brain, she heard Armstrong tell a doctor that he had used EPO, growth hormones and steroids. ( Andreu testified last January in the arbitration case over Armstrong's prize money for winning the 2004 Tour de France, which was withheld after doping allegations were made against the cyclist.) Armstrong released a two-page denial last Friday, calling the report "stale, unfounded and untrue."

Revealed
In a court filing by federal authorities investigating the leaks of secret testimony given by Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others in 2004, that BALCO founder Victor Conte told San Francisco Chronicle reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada in an e-mail of an admission by Giambi to the grand jury that he used steroids. Conte (above), who was provided the grand jury testimony so he could prepare a defense against steroid distribution charges--he pleaded guilty last year and served four months in jail--joked in another e-mail exchange that he should be placed on the newspaper's payroll in exchange for information about athletes' testimony. His lawyer, Mary McNamara, said last week that " Mr. Conte did not leak grand jury transcripts." Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the authors of the book Game of Shadows, are fighting subpoenas that would force them to testify in the government probe.

Reached
By the Indy Racing League and Champ Car World Series, a preliminary ownership sharing agreement that could lead to a merger of the rival racing circuits. In the 1980s and '90s open-wheel racing flourished under the management of Championship Auto Racing Teams, but in '96 Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George split from CART and founded the IRL. The ensuing feud between CART and the IRL coincided with a decline in the popularity of both circuits. (CART went bankrupt in 2004 and was replaced by the Champ series.) According to The Indianapolis Star, the first step toward a merger could be having drivers from both series compete at next year's Indianapolis 500, an IRL event. "We've agreed conceptually," George told the paper. "Now we have to agree on how we would go about resolving differences that might come up."