SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Darrell Hanegan of Montreal scored the biggest upset of World Games I Wednesday night when he defeated Park Chong Man of Korea for the heavyweight title in Taekwondo and Canada picked up three golds in trampoline for its finest single day showing ever in an international sports event.
The United States also won four golds when roller speed skater Tom Peterson of Tacoma, Wash., defeated Italian ace Guiseppe Cruciani for the 5,000 meter title and Americans added two more in artistic dancing and one in trampoline. That gave the United States 14 gold medals with four days remaining in the 11-day sports carnival featuring 16-non-Olympic sports.
Korea, favored to win at least seven of the 10 Taekwondo events, picked up two golds when Ki-mun Kwan beat Reinhard Langer of West Germany in the fin weight and Ki-mo Yang defeated Maelionico Domenico of Italy in the flyweight division. Dae Sung Lee of Honolulu finished second in the fin weight class to give the United States the silver.
Hanegan's victory in the heavyweight class was a real shocker, and he called it the biggest victory of his seven-year career.
Coming to the World Games, there had been four world championships held in the sport and Korea dominated every one of them. In fact, Canada had never entered a single athlete in an international meet prior to these Games.
Christine Tough and Brett Brown of Vancouver won golds in mini trampoline and the team of Norma asnd Barbara Lehto, also of Vancouver, took the women's synchronized final. Americans finished second in all three events.
Bill Richardson and Holly Valente of Boston won the skating artistic pairs compulsory dance and Mike Glatz of San Diego took the men's singles free dance. Rick Ellsworth of Flint, Mich took the silver and Michele Bisomi of Italy won the bronze.
Mark Howard and Cindy Smith of Richmond, Va., finished second in the pairs and the husband and wife team of Eamon and Kim Geoghan of London, England won the bronze.
Carl Heger of St. Louis and Steve Elliot of Lincoln, Neb., combined to give the U.S. victory in the men's synchronized trampoline.
In baseball, John Russell of Oklahoma drove in four runs with a homer and single to lead the United States to an 11-7 victory over and Korea rallied for two runs in ther ninth to beat Panama, 7-6. The U.S. plays Korea Thursday and the winner takes the gold medal.
Monica Lucchese of Italy avoided a four-person spill Thursday to win the women's 5,000-meter roller speed skating race in World Games I and unheralded Scott Constantine of Australia scored a stunning upset over Gueiseppe Cruciani of Italy and Tom Peterson of the United States to win the men's 20,000 meter race.
Speed skating opened a long program featuring nine sports as momentum picked up at the Games, which have proved a surprising success for the 58 countries taking part in 16 non-Olympic sports.
Gold medals were to be decided later in the day in trampoline, taekwondo, baseball and artistic roller skating. Korea met the U.S. in a night game to decide the baseball title. The U.S. leads in the medals race with 14 golds, 18 silvers and nine bronze.
In the women's 5,000 speed race, Italy's Luigia Foini tripped at the home stretch turn with four laps remaining. Her spill caused a chain reaction which saw three other skaters go down, including 17-time world champion Annie Lambrechts of Belgium, who won the gold medal in the 20,000 on Wednesday in a close finish with Italy's Paola Christofori and Lucchese.
Lucchese avoided the spill and went on to win the race in 10 minutes, 18.90 seconds with Paola Sometti, also of Italy, second in 10:19.01 and Lambrechts third in 10:19.53. Lambrechts lost about 30 yards when she fell but scrambled to her feet and put on a courageous finish to miss by only 63 one-hundreds of a second.
In the men's 20,000, Constantine opened up a full lap lead and held on to beat Cruciani and Peterson, who won the 5,000 on Wednesday. Cruciani and Peterson were the big favorites in the longer event but Constantine was more than a match for them.
While Peterson wound up third, he was disqualified for taking too wide a turn on the final lap and was dropped to fifth place. The bronze medal thus was awarded to Moreno Bagnoli of Italy.
Constantine's winning time was 40:03.43 while Cruciani was timed in 40:38.02 and Bagnoli in 40:38.06. It was another bitter defeat for Cruciani, the Italian ace who was frustrated by Peterson, of Tacoma, Wash., in the 5,000.
Lucchese's victory gave Italy five golds along with 11 silvers and 13 bronze. While Japan has won seven golds and France and Canada five each, Italy is second to the U.S. in total medals -- 41 to 29.
