BRIEFLY : MILBURN'S DEATH RULED ACCIDENT.

The death of Rodney Milburn, a U.S. gold medal winner in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1972 Olympics, was ruled an accident Thursday.

Milburn, 47, was found dead Tuesday in a rail car full of a hot chemical solution at the paper plant where he worked. It happened at the Georgia Pacific plant near Baton Rouge, La.

Preliminary autopsy results showed that Milburn had severe burns over his entire body, and that will likely be listed as the cause of death, said Chuck Smith of the parish coroner's office.

The autopsy showed no signs that Milburn had a heart attack or a stroke, which might have caused him to fall into the rail car, Smith said.

Milburn had been assigned to unload a rail car containing liquid sodium chlorate, a chemical used in the bleaching process of paper making. He was found at the bottom of the rail car by a supervisor who went looking for him when he failed to answer a page.

Georgia Pacific authorities said they are trying to figure out how Milburn ended up in the rail car.

TENNIS: Michael Chang was whipped by Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-3, 6-0 in the ATP World Championship at Hanover, Germany, but because of the round-robin format, the world's No. 2 player will get another chance at survival.

He must beat Jonas Bjorkman to qualify for the semifinals.

Kafelnikov, also helped by Bjorkman's 6-3, 6-1 win over an ailing Sergi Bruguera, became the first to advance to the semifinals.

Andre Agassi moved into the quarterfinals of the Luxor Las Vegas-USTA Men's Challenger tournament, beating Roberto Jabali of Brazil 6-4, 6-1.

BASKETBALL: Former U.S. Olympian Cindy Brown will join the Women's National Basketball Association for the 1998 season.

The 6-foot-2 forward is playing in a professional league in France for US Valenciennes Orchies. She's also played professionally in Italy, Japan and Israel.

Brown graduated from Long Beach State in 1987 after leading the team to four consecutive NCAA Tournament berths and a trip to the Final Four.

She was a member of the 1988 gold medal-winning U.S. team in Seoul, South Korea.

Washington Wizards center Gheorghe Muresan will be out at least six more weeks after his injured right ankle was placed in an immobile cast.

The 7-foot-7, 303-pounder strained a tendon in his right ankle during the summer and hasn't played this season.

BOXING: Evander Holyfield backed away a bit from his plan to retire after a heavyweight title unification fight with Lennox Lewis, and left open the possibility of a third fight with Mike Tyson.

ETC: Toronto Argonauts quarterback Doug Flutie won his sixth Canadian Football League Most Outstanding Player award. . . . Ron Perry, who has been the athletic director at Holy Cross since 1972, will retire at the end of the school year and work as an assistant to the president. . . . The NHL's Nashville expansion team, due to debut in October, has chosen ``Predators'' as its nickname. . . . A hip injury will keep Jaromir Jagr out of the Pittsburgh Penguins' road games today at the New York Rangers and Saturday at Toronto.