Beijing Olympic Games

Leslie looking for gold in final Olympics

By Lisa Leslie, For The Associated Press

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP)—Welcome to the Olympic diary of Lisa Leslie. We just finished three days of training camp at Stanford. It’s been great training, very grueling getting ready to go to Beijing.

One of the things that is most exciting for me is that this will be my last Olympics as an athlete. It’s been a tremendous run for me, going from being one of the youngest players in 1996 to being one of the older—more seasoned players as I like to say.

I’ve worked hard after having Lauren and taking a season off from the WNBA. Motherhood has changed me, being a mom full time, a basketball player part time and now an Olympian once again. I feel like a great role model, to go out there and compete at the highest level but still be a mommy. Get the bottles and change the diaper. I always have my hands full, but I’m loving every minute of it.

The U.S. women’s team lost in the world championship so we kind of have that hanging over our head. We lost to China in a pre-tournament we played in April. So this is going to be a challenge for us, but we have won the Olympics the last three times.

I have three gold medals to prove it and we’re going for our fourth in a row. We might not be the favorites going in, but in the end, we’re going to be listening to our national anthem.

We’re on hiatus from the WNBA. We got Diana Taurasi, an awesome point guard who plays the 1 and the 2. We got Sue Bird, who will start at the one and who did a great job in Athens. Katie Smith, who is the co-captain along with myself. And Tina Thompson, who was also a 2004 gold medalist. That’s our starting lineup, then we have an array of great talent coming off the bench. You have DeLisha Milton, Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus, Cappie Pondexter and Kara Lawson oh my God, the roster is just amazing.

This will be the first time my husband, Michael, and my family will get to see me play in the Olympics. I have two stepdaughters, Gabriel and Mikaela, and everybody knows about baby Lauren who is 13 months.

But it will be an exciting time for the whole team, a lot of people are bringing family and friends. We will meet up with the men’s team in Shanghai before we play another little tournament before the Olympics. We’ll get a chance to hang out with the guys, friends, family one big happy family with one goal: win the gold medal.

Though practice was tough, overall we’ve had a really good time. We went to a luncheon honoring Robin Roberts, who received the 2008 Inspiring Women award. I was able to present her with it and all the players got autographs from her. I was psyched about that.

There was a lot of joking on the bus rides. And obviously everyone was talking about the little brawl we had with Detroit. We were talking about Candace being the baby, how she feels out of the crib and mom tried to help when the big bear knocked her down. Then Auntie “D” stepped in, trying to hit, though it didn’t quite work out that way, we all got fined, missed a game and it’s all behind us now.

The next time I will see you all will be in Beijing and until then I want you to practice two words, Ni hao (NEE-haOW), which is how you say hi; and fie Xie xie ni (Shay shay NEE), and that means thank you very much.

IOC strips gold from 2000 US relay team

By STEPHEN WILSON, AP Sports Writer

BEIJING (AP)—The International Olympic Committee stripped gold medals Saturday from the U.S. men’s 1,600-meter relay team that competed at the 2000 Olympics in the aftermath of Antonio Pettigrew’s admission that he was doping at the time.

The IOC executive board disqualified the entire team, the fourth gold and sixth overall medal stripped from that U.S. track contingent in the past eight months for doping.

Three gold and two bronze were previously removed after Marion Jones confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs.

Saturday’s decision was almost a formality after Pettigrew gave up his gold medal in June. During a trial involving former track coach Trevor Graham, he admitted in May that he used EPO and human growth hormone from 1997 to 2003.

Five of Pettigrew’s teammates also lose their medals: Michael Johnson and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison ran in the final; Jerome Young and Angelo Taylor ran in the preliminaries.

It was Johnson’s fifth gold medal of his stellar career. He has already said he was giving it back because he felt “cheated, betrayed and let down” by Pettigrew’s testimony. Johnson still holds world records in the 200 and 400 meters.

Three of the four runners from the relay final have been tainted by drugs.

Alvin Harrison accepted a four-year ban in 2004 after admitting he used performance-enhancers. Calvin Harrison tested positive for a banned stimulant in 2003 and was suspended for two years. Young was banned for life for doping violations.

“We support the action taken today by the IOC,” USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. “Athletes who make the unacceptable choice to cheat should recognize that there will be consequences. Those consequences can be severe including the loss of medals and results. We’re in full support of this action. In other matters like this in the past we’ve worked with the IOC to make certain medals will be returned, and we’ll do so again.”

The IOC also disqualified Pettigrew from his seventh-place finish in the individual 400 meters in Sydney. And the committee banned him from attending the upcoming Beijing Games “in any capacity,” including as a competitor, coach or technical official. Pettigrew has retired from competition, and the U.S. Olympic Committee said there were no plans for him to be in Beijing.

The IOC had previously tried to strip the relay team after it became known that Young tested positive before the Sydney Games. But a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport said the entire team should not be disqualified, and Pettigrew and the others were allowed to keep their medals.

Saturday’s move came four months after the IOC stripped the gold from the U.S. women’s 1,600-meter relay team and bronze from the women’s 400-meter relay squad because of doping by Jones. She admitted last year that she used drugs at the time and returned her five medals, including gold in the 100 meters and 200 meters and bronze in the long jump.

The IOC has put off any decision on reallocating the U.S. medals until later this year when it takes into account all the files from the BALCO investigation in the United States.

No time frame for a decision on medal redistribution has been set, although an eight-year statute of limitations expires on Oct. 1.

Nigeria finished second in the men’s 1,600-meter relay, with Jamaica third and the Bahamas fourth.

“That’s such a shame, especially for the ones who were clean, and it’s most important for the athletes who were second,” Sanya Richards, who won gold on the 1,600-meter women’s relay in 2004, said from training camp in Dalian. “You lose that opportunity to stand on top of the podium and feel the joy of winning the race. Those are the people who hurt the worst when there are cheaters ahead of them. Giving back the medals is just a technicality because you can’t repair the hurt feelings and the hard work that went into it.”

The IOC is reluctant to hand Jones’ 100 gold to silver medalist Katerina Thanou, a Greek sprinter at the center of a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games. She and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris missed drug tests on the eve of the opening ceremony and claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They were forced to pull out of the games and were later suspended for two years.

An IOC disciplinary panel will meet next Thursday to consider whether Thanou can run at the Beijing Games. The 33-year-old sprinter qualified for the Greek team in the 100, but the IOC is reviewing her eligibility.

Thanou’s lawyer has threatened legal action if she is barred from the games.

INTERVIEW-Olympics-Gymnastics-Comaneci was no victim

(updates with quotes, details)

By Simon Evans

MIAMI, Aug 2 (Reuters) - She was a gold medallist at just 14, producing the first perfect score in Olympics gymnastics but Nadia Comaneci says that the common view that she sacrificed her childhood for sporting success is not true.

During her peak, the New York Times described the Romanian as performing with “joyless expression” and like many athletes from the then communist Eastern Bloc she rarely let her emotions show.

In an interview with Reuters though Comaneci said that, despite starting her gymnastics career at 6 and winning gold eight years later in 1976 she does not feel like she missed out on an ordinary childhood or suffered misery for her medals.

“People have told me that (I looked sad) when I was I competing but I never complained,” she said.

“People assume a lot of things about gymnasts—that the girls work too hard, it’s way too much for them, they are too young to work so hard. I never personally complained, everybody else complained for me.

“In any case, it was not too hard—it was what it takes to be an Olympic champion. Also nobody says anything about boys at 12-13 years old working too hard. It’s only the girls—oh, poor girls. Why are we treated differently?”

Comaneci, who defected to the United States in 1989 just before the Romanian revolution overthrew dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, is now a 46-year-old mother married to former U.S. gold medal winning gymnast Bart Conner.

TOUGH TASKMASTER

With Conner she runs a gymnastics academy and an equipment company in Oklahoma.

“I basically have my life today as a result of what I did as a child. What did I miss out on? Yeah, I missed not hanging out at shopping malls, I guess, but that is not a big deal because you don’t get a medal for that,” she said.

“When I look back I am happy that my mum took me to the gymnastics club. I didn’t join gymnastics to become a famous athlete or celebrity, it just happened—I did more than I expected of course,” she said.

Comaneci, who won three golds in Montreal and then two more in Moscow four years later, had a tough taskmaster in coach Bela Karolyi.

Her childhood consisted of hour after hour of practice with little or no material reward and she feels today’s gymnasts have it less rough.

“What is different is that they can make a living from gymnastics and people stay longer in the sport. Also you don’t have to do four events, you can specialise in one, so that shortens their workout. We had to do compulsory as well don’t forget.

“But the hard work is the same. There is no magic pill, you have to work and train hard.

“People asked what was the secret of Romanian gymnastics — we just worked twice as hard as everyone else. Now everyone does it—which is why they are much better,” she says with a grin.

Comaneci says her homeland remains one of the few places in the world where gymnastics enjoys mass interest, despite the country’s results fading in recent years.

“It is still there—it is considered number two to soccer. With our results in the seventies and everything we did the people are still proud, Romania got recognised through gymnastics,” she said.

Comaneci, who returns home to Romania once a month to help with the setting up of a children’s clinic in her name, was talking to Reuters during a speaking tour to promote a campaign for Botox Cosmetic.

(Editing by Jon Bramley; For more stories visit our multimedia website “Road to Beijing” at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)

Basketball-The importance of Yao

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Yao Ming is highly unlikely to walk away from the Beijing Olympics with a medal and his importance to the host nation is more totemic, proof that Chinese athletes can make it big in major professional sports.

While its soccer results have been disappointing of late, China has grown increasingly in love with basketball and as a conduit of that passion the Houston Rockets center has become the country’s best paid and most popular celebrity.

Yao’s face features on thousands of billboards and in countless television adverts—touting everything from Coca Cola to Visa to China Life insurance. He earned $56.6 million last year, according to Forbes.

The 27-year-old is popular with the government and if gambling were not illegal in the People’s Republic, he would be heavily backed to light the Olympic cauldron on Aug. 8.

“He’s not only good on the basketball court but also off it. He’s a good person, not just a good player,” said Xu Jicheng, a top Chinese basketball commentator and friend of Yao.

As an athlete, Yao’s most obvious quality is his height, a freakish 7ft 6in (2.286 metres).

It was no guarantee of success in the NBA, however. But although his first four selections as an All-Star were put down in part to the sheer volume of the Chinese fan vote, his inclusion in the last couple of years has been uncontroversial.

“In the last two years he’s started to look like a great player. He is the first of the really big guys who could really play,” Alan Paul, China bureau chief for the U.S. basketball magazine Slam, told Reuters.

“The others couldn’t really move. Certainly his height is pretty incredible but he is very skilful so I don’t think it is his height alone. If Yao was a little shorter, I think he would still be a great player.”

Yao’s height, and perhaps his basketball skills, came from his parents. His father Yao Zhiyuan is 2.08 metres tall and a former center for Shanghai while Yao’s mother Fang Fengdi is 1.88 metres and captained China’s women’s team.

By the age of nine, Yao was 30 centimetres taller than his class mates and had already been drafted into China’s sports system at a school in his native Shanghai. Five years later he was a professional nicknamed “Little Giant”.

At 18, he represented China for the first time at senior level and in 1999 he helped his country to become Asian champions. NBA scouts started to take notice.

In 2000, he joined China’s first two NBA players, Wang Zhizhi and Menk Bateer, to form the “Great Wall” as China finished 10th at the Sydney Olympics.

After his club Shanghai Sharks finally won the Chinese Basketball Association title in 2002, Yao decided to enter the NBA draft and became the first international player to be number one pick when the Rockets selected him.

Yao started impressively enough and when he scored 20 points against the L.A. Lakers in November 2002, retired basketball great Charles Barkley lost a bet that the big man would never make those stats and kissed a donkey’s backside on live TV.

The most commonly heard refrain from the many sports leagues and officials trying to “break into” the Chinese market is that they are looking for a Yao to spearhead their efforts.

“Yao is just tremendous. I think every sports league in the world would dream of having him,” said Paul.

Xu said: “I think it’s a win-win situation. The NBA has Yao Ming there and that draws more attention from China.

“And Yao Ming playing at the highest level can help raise the standard of Chinese basketball and maybe make a breakthrough in Olympic results.”

Yao does not always follow the party line. He has been outspoken on matters such as the consumption of shark’s fin in his native country and has campaigned for his fellow Chinese basketball players to be allowed to move to Europe.

Part of Yao’s popularity at home is that he has continued to play for China despite his success in the United States and that he carried the red flag at the opening ceremony of the Athens Games in 2004.

But the stress on his body from playing so much basketball has taken its toll and he has experienced a rash of serious injuries have blighted his career.

“There’s a history of really big guys getting injured,” said Paul. “I think being as big as he is pretty clearly does put unusual stress on his feet.”

In February this year, a stress fracture was detected in his left foot and since then he has been involved in a race to get fit to play his part in the Beijing Games.

He returned to court in mid-July but even with him and New Jersey Net Yi Jianlian in the team, Paul rates China’s chances of winning a medal in Beijing as “virtually none”.

(For more stories visit our multimedia website “Road to Beijing” at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)

Mark Spitz makes splash about Beijing invite

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mark Spitz has rounded on Olympics chiefs for failing to invite him to Beijing for swimmer Michael Phelps’ quest to break his record gold medal haul in the pool.

The American expects his 36-year-old record of seven gold medals from a single Olympics will be broken by compatriot Phelps, and would like to witness the historic moment.

But Spitz is not holding his breath for an invitation from Olympics organizers.

“Unless I get that invite, I’ll be watching on TV,” Spitz, 58, said in a recent interview with Reuters. “I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’d be nice if it did. It would seem like the right thing to do.”

Phelps is in the hunt for eight gold medals in Beijing— adding to the six he won at the Athens Games in 2004.

Spitz, who will be in Hong Kong on business when the Olympics start on August 8, said he had no “hard feelings” about not being invited to Beijing.

“But I think that passing the baton … would have been a phenomenal idea,” he said.

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne said Spitz had not been formally invited, but “I suspect he will be there as he usually is.”

Spitz said Olympics organizers had little sense of history, unlike say Major League Baseball in the United States. He recalled that when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ 37-year-old record for home runs in a single season in 1998, officials ensured members of Maris’ family were part of the festivities.

STOCKS, POLITICS

Sitting by the poolside at a Los Angeles hotel near his home, he had views on many issues—including men’s college sports programs, how short-selling of stocks is the key to financial success and how as a registered Republican he is leaning toward Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Spitz still swims. He trains before dawn about three times a week, knocking off about 3,500 meters per session.

He has pursued various entrepreneurial projects with former NBA player Rick Barry. The married father-of-two also travels the world delivering about 25 lectures a year, and has just written a memoir, “The Extraordinary Life of An Olympic Champion.”

But wherever he goes, people just want to talk about Phelps, which is fine with him.

“It seems like I’m attached to him at the hip. So every move that he makes, left or right, (people) come and ask me, ‘Is he doing the right thing?’

“It’s not that easy for Phelps to do what he needs to do, but he has the capacity to do it because you just look at the track record. If you want to handicap the possibilities, I wouldn’t bet against this guy.”

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Swimming-Spitz makes splash about Beijing invite

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Mark Spitz has rounded on Olympics chiefs for failing to invite him to Beijing for swimmer Michael Phelps’ quest to break his record gold medal haul in the pool.

The American expects his 36-year-old record of seven gold medals from a single Olympics will be broken by compatriot Phelps, and would like to witness the historic moment.

But Spitz is not holding his breath for an invitation from Olympics organisers.

“Unless I get that invite, I’ll be watching on TV,” Spitz, 58, said in a recent interview with Reuters. “I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’d be nice if it did. It would seem like the right thing to do.”

Phelps is in the hunt for eight gold medals in Beijing — adding to the six he won at the Athens Games in 2004.

Spitz, who will be in Hong Kong on business when the Olympics start on Aug. 8, said he had no “hard feelings” about not being invited to Beijing.

“But I think that passing the baton … would have been a phenomenal idea,” he said.

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne said Spitz had not been formally invited, but “I suspect he will be there as he usually is”.

Spitz said Olympics organisers had little sense of history, unlike say Major League Baseball in the United States. He recalled that when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ 37-year-old record for home runs in a single season in 1998, officials ensured members of Maris’ family were part of the festivities.

STOCKS, POLITICS

Sitting by the poolside at a Los Angeles hotel near his home, he had views on many issues—including men’s college sports programmes, how short-selling of stocks is the key to financial success and how as a registered Republican he is leaning toward Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Spitz still swims. He trains before dawn about three times a week, knocking off about 3,500 metres per session.

He has pursued various entrepreneurial projects with former NBA player Rick Barry. The married father-of-two also travels the world delivering about 25 lectures a year, and has just written a memoir, “The Extraordinary Life of An Olympic Champion”.

But wherever he goes, people just want to talk about Phelps, which is fine with him.

“It seems like I’m attached to him at the hip. So every move that he makes, left or right, (people) come and ask me, ‘Is he doing the right thing?’

“It’s not that easy for Phelps to do what he needs to do, but he has the capacity to do it because you just look at the track record. If you want to handicap the possibilities, I wouldn’t bet against this guy.” (Editing by Jeremy Laurence) (For more stories visit our multimedia website “Road to Beijing” at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)

Bolt to chase sprint double - coach

(Adds byline, details)

By Gene Cherry

BEIJING, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Jamaican 100 metres world record holder Usain Bolt will run both the 100 and 200 metres at the Beijing Olympics, his coach said on Saturday.

Neither the coach, Glen Mills, or Bolt had previously confirmed the Jamaican would run both events.

“He will run both,” Mills said in an e-mail to Reuters.

Bolt had always said he wanted to run both sprint races at the Games but the coach had been hesitant to allow the 21-year-old world 200 metres silver medallist to add the 100 to his Olympic hopes.

The decision sets up the biggest race of the Olympics with Bolt facing compatriot and former world record holder Asafa Powell and American world champion Tyson Gay.

Bolt took the 100 metres record from Powell when he ran a stunning 9.72 seconds at New York on May 31.

Powell returned from injury to defeat Bolt last month in Stockholm in their last meeting before the Games.

(Writing by Gene Cherry; editing by Miles Evans)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website “Road to Beijing” at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)