BRIEFLY : WITTY NEARLY MEDALS IN WORLD CYCLING.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Chris Witty of West Allis, Wis., who won two medals in speed skating at the Winter Olympics, missed gaining a medal at the World Cycling Championships in Bordeaux, France by less than a tenth of a second.

Witty came in fourth in the women's 500-meter sprint Saturday, clocking in at 35.516 seconds.

Although Witty is the American champion in the 500, she has not concentrated on cycling competition much since 1993 when she was a top junior, devoting her time to speed skating.

Witty won a silver medal in the 1,000 meters speed skating and bronze in the 1,500 at Nagano, Japan in February. She holds the world record in the 1,000 and was the world sprint champion in 1996 based on results of four races over two days.

In the cycling 500, she went off second and her time of held up until the final riders raced. Felicity Barringer of France won.

``I thought top 10 for sure and top five if I'm lucky,'' Witty said. ``But I was surprised with what I did.''

NHL: Mario Lemieux might be willing to give up part of the $30 million the Pittsburgh Penguins owe him in return for a piece of the team if Los Angeles-based movie producer Howard Baldwin wins the battle of the co-owners, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

The franchise owes the retired star about $30 million on a players' contract he signed in 1992. He would be willing to give up part of that in exchange for a minority stake in the team.

Lemieux would not join any owners' group, however, if that group included co-owner Roger Marino. Baldwin and Marino have feuded for more than three months because each has indicated he would like to be the majority owner.

Marino paid $40 million last year to buy into the Penguins and reported losses of $37 million since then. He took charge of day-to-day operations in February.

Over the past few weeks, Baldwin has been gathering investors to start a new ownership group. His relationship with Lemieux has been cordial since Baldwin bought the team in 1991.

The Penguins have been sued by Lemieux; Spectacor Management Group, operators of the Civic Arena; and Fox Sports Pittsburgh for failure to make payments. Marino said the team can't survive under its contracts with those parties.

WRESTLING: American Matt Ghaffari and unbeaten Russian Alexander Karelin won their semifinal matches to set up a showdown for the 286-pound title at the Greco-Roman World Championships in Gavle, Sweden.

When Ghaffari and Karelin meet for the championship today, it will be a rematch of their gold medal bout at the 1996 Olympics, which was won by Karelin 1-0 in overtime.

Karelin has won three Olympic gold medals and seven World Championships over the past 10 years. Ghaffari is competing in his first international tournament since the Atlanta Games.