<table> </table> <strong><span class="subhead">Powell captures Italy 100 meters</span></strong></p><p><strong>Asafa Powell </strong>of Jamaica continues to go places fast.</p><p>He won the 100 meters Sunday at the Rieti (Italy) Grand Prix in 9.82 seconds.</p><p>Powell, who set a then-world record of 9.74 on the same track a year ago, clocked 9.77 in his semifinal heat, but that was still well off the world record of 9.69 set by fellow Jamaican <strong>Usain Bolt </strong>at the Beijing Olympics last month.</p><p>In the 1,500, world champion <strong>Bernard Lagat </strong>of the United States, who failed to win a medal in Beijing, won the gold in 3:32.75.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">South African swimmer gets gold</span></strong></p><p><strong>Natalie Du Toit </strong>of South Africa won the 100-meter butterfly gold medal at the Beijing Paralympics on Sunday, less than three weeks after her open-water Olympic swim in which she finished 16th in a race beset by problems.</p><p>Du Toit, who won five golds and a silver in the Athens Paralympics, finished in 1 minute, 6.74 seconds &#8212; a world record for her disability class.</p><p>A swimmer with Olympic promise, Du Toit lost her left leg above the knee in a 2001 motorcycle crash. She qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the 10-kilometer swim, a race in which her cap came off as she brushed the buoy on the first turn. Du Toit struggled the rest of the way with hair in her eyes, stopping at times to fix the cap.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Silver Stars subdue Sun</span></strong></p><p><strong>Becky Hammon </strong>scored 24 points, and the San Antonio Silver Stars pulled into a first-place tie with Seattle in the Western Conference with an 85-73 win over the Connecticut Sun in a WNBA game at Uncasville, Conn.</p><p>&#8226;<strong>Janel McCarville </strong>scored 16 points, and <strong>Essence Carson </strong>had 10 in leading the New York Liberty to a 69-61 win over the visiting Chicago Sky.</p><p>&#8226;<strong>Nicole Powell </strong>had 22 points, helping the Sacramento Monarchs further boost their playoff chances with a 78-71 victory over visiting Minnesota, eliminating the Lynx from postseason contention.</p><p>&#8226;<strong>Diana Taurasi </strong>scored 33 points, her ninth 30-plus performance of the season, and led the Phoenix Mercury past the Houston Comets 99-74 at Phoenix.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Ex-middleweight champ dies</span></strong></p><p>Boxing Hall of Famer <strong>Joey Giardello</strong>, a former middleweight champion who sued filmmakers over a depiction of a title bout against <strong>Rubin &#8220;Hurricane&#8221; Carter</strong>, has died at age 78.</p><p>Giardello died Thursday at a nursing home in Cherry Hill, N.J. He had been suffering from congestive heart failure and diabetes.</p><p>It was the depiction of his 1964 bout with Carter in the movie &#8220;The Hurricane,&#8221; which suggested that Giardello had won a unanimous decision unfairly, that sparked a federal defamation lawsuit from Giardello, who settled for undisclosed terms with Universal Pictures.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Quick hits</span></strong></p><p>&#8226;American cyclist <strong>Levi Leipheimer </strong>took the overall lead of the Spanish Vuelta after an eighth-stage win by <strong>David Moncoutie </strong>of France at Salardu, Spain.</p><p>&#8226;Olympic beach volleyball gold medalists <strong>Misty May-Treanor </strong>and <strong>Kerri Walsh </strong>lost for the second time since the Beijing Games and missed their first AVP Crocs Tour final since April 2007.