The Montreal Canadiens will roll out the red carpet to welcome goaltending great Patrick Roy back to the club.

The NHL team announced Thursday that it will retire Roy’s jersey No. 33 at a Bell Centre ceremony before a game against the Boston Bruins on Nov. 22.

BEIJING – Canada’s Michelle Stilwell captured her second Paralympic Games gold medal Thursday, but her first as a wheelchair racer.

Stilwell, from Nanoose Bay, B.C., a gold medallist in wheelchair basketball in 2000 in Sydney, raced to gold in the 200-metre T52 classification race in a Paralympic record time of 36.18 seconds.

MILAN, Italy – Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa resume their tight title chase at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, the last European race of the Formula One season.

Hamilton’s lead over Massa in the overall standings dwindled to two points after a time penalty cost the McLaren driver a dramatic victory at the Belgian GP last weekend.

SUANCES, Spain – Italian rider Paolo Bettini won the 12th stage of the Spanish Vuelta on Thursday while Egoi Martinez of Spain retained the overall lead.

Bettini, a Quick Step rider who also won the sixth stage, completed the 186 kilometre trek from Burgos to Suances with two major mountain climbs in four hours 42 minutes 44 seconds.

CONOVER, N.C. – Jay Haas has a chance to widen his lead over Bernhard Langer in the Charles Schwab Cup standings with a good finish in the Greater Hickory Classic.

The Champions Tour event begins Friday at Rock Barn Golf and Spa’s Robert Trent Jones course and features five of the top 10 players in the standings.

ROLLA, Mo. – Canadian Michael Barry pulled away from a group of four riders to win the fourth stage of the Tour of Missouri on Thursday while Christian Vande Velde maintained his overall lead.

Barry, riding for Team Columbia, emerged alone approaching the three 2.1-mile finishing circuits. The Toronto native completed the 152.95-kilometre race from Lebanon to Rolla with a 46-second margin in three hours, 16 minutes, three seconds.

The new leader of USA Track and Field analyzed the team’s underwhelming performance at the Beijing Olympics – including dropped batons and a record-low men’s gold medal count – and judged the federation’s overall performance to be “seriously deficient.” After watching both U.S. relay teams drop the baton in the 400-metre preliminaries and seeing the U.S. men win only four gold medals, CEO Doug Logan has decided to form a panel of former athletes and coaches to analyze USATF’s high performance programs. “This will probably be an uncomfortable exercise,” Logan wrote Tuesday in his blog on the USATF website. “But, this is not a ‘knee jerk’ reaction, or a ‘witch hunt,’ or an attempt to castigate anyone. Indeed, this panel may determine that the factors leading to less-than-optimal performance were beyond anyone’s control.”

The Americans took home 23 medals from Beijing – most of any country – but the results were still disappointing on many levels.

Everyone is chasing Usain Bolt.

The world’s fastest man is in high demand, the latest invitations coming from David Letterman and the Real Madrid soccer team.

STUTTGART, Germany – Asafa Powell will get another shot at regaining the world record in the 100 metres at the World Athletics Final this weekend.

After five races in eight days, however, Powell may not have enough left to challenge his Jamaican countryman Usain Bolt’s 9.69-second mark set at the Beijing Olympics.

BEIJING – For 14 years Steven Daniel viewed life through a soldier’s eyes.

The Sudbury, Ont., native sees things a lot differently since a parachuting accident left him in a wheelchair and rearranged his priorities.

BEIJING – Canadian swimmer Stephanie Dixon won her second medal at the Paralympic Games on Thursday, finishing runner-up to Natalie du Toit in the SM9 200 metres.

The Victoria resident finished more than nine seconds behind the South African swimming machine who picked up her third gold of the Paralympics after competing at the Olympic Games.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando Magic forward Pat Garrity is retiring from the NBA.

Garrity played 10 pro seasons – nine with the Magic – after spending his rookie year with the Phoenix Suns. He appeared in 513 games for Orlando, second most in franchise history.

LONDON – Manchester United is expected to unveil its new strike force of Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney this weekend, and it couldn’t come at a better time for the defending champions as they travel to fierce rival Liverpool.

Liverpool, which plays United on Saturday (7:45 a.m. ET), is level on points with early leader Chelsea, which is at Manchester City in another of the day’s eight matches.

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Stefan Schumacher of Germany has joined the Quick Step team of world champion Paolo Bettini and sprint ace Tom Boonen, the team said Thursday.

Schumacher finished third in last year’s world championship and won two stages in the Tour de France this year. He is an expert time-trial rider and has good climbing abilities that serve him well in the hilly, one-day classics.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – The Swedish wrestler stripped of his bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics for protesting during the medal ceremony filed an appeal Thursday with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Ara Abrahamian, who was disqualified from the games after the protest, asked the top court in international sports to downgrade his punishment to a warning. CAS said it would rule within four months.

CHICAGO – The Toronto Bue Jays’ 10-game winning streak came to an end Wednesday thanks to Chicago White Sox veterans Mark Buehrle and A.J. Pierzynski.

Buehrle outpitched Toronto’s Roy Halladay and Pierzynski had three RBIs against the Blue Jays ace as the White Sox won 6-5 to stay one game ahead of Minnesota in the AL Central. “I’ve never had a loss that wasn’t frustrating,” said Halladay, who’d won five in a row. He lasted six innings, giving up nine hits and five runs.

BEIJING – A pair of powerlifters caught using banned substances Thursday increased to four the number of athletes found guilty of doping violations at the Paralympic Games.

Fracourou Sissoko of Mali and Liudmyla Osmanova of Ukraine both failed drug tests, the International Paralympic Committee said in a release.

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from: ckwstv.com

Pontypridd swimming star David Roberts is celebrating a golden hat-trick. Triumphing in the 400m freestyle (S7) in a new world record, won his third gold medal at the Beijing Paralympic Games.

Roberts’s time of 4:52.35 broke the record held by New Zealander Dean Booth’s since 2000 by 1.40 seconds. Not that he was satisfied.

“I expected better from myself this evening. I was really nervous when I was coming out and that doesn’t normally happen to me.

“I wanted to perform better but this is amazing to have my tenth Paralympic gold medal.

“I don’t know why I was nervous. That will be something I will be discussing with my coach before Sunday.”

He has amassed his ten gold medals from Games in Sydney, Athens and Beijing. And his 2008 campaign is not over yet he returns to the starting blocks on Sunday for the 50m freestyle before he competes in the medley relay on Monday.

Philip Carling, Chair of the Sports Council for Wales, was quick said: “David is always striving to excel and to better his performances. Ten gold medals in a career is absolutely superb. His success is particularly impressive considering how the Paralympic movement has moved on since Athens. We have seen other countries catching up yet, David has still maintained dominance in his events.”

Roberts is coached at the Wales National Pool in Swansea which was built with more than 8m pounds of National Lottery funding by the Sports Council for Wales. He is coached by former miner Billy Pye:

“In Billy Pye, we have a world-class coach and he has cultivated the careers of many swimmers including David. We can be very proud of the fact that the pool in Swansea supports many of the Paralympic swimmers competing in Beijing.”

The Pye training stable also features gold medallists Eleanor Simmonds, Rob Welbourn and Graham Edmonds.

Newport’s Pippa Britton faced a difficult encounter in the archery when she came up against fellow Brit Mel Clarke in the quarter-final of the compound. She will return to action next week for the team competition.

On the track, Tracey Hinton of Cardiff and guide runner, Steffan Hughes, qualified for tomorrow’s 400m semi-final.

Wales’s London 2012 hopefuls also put in promising performances. Chepstow sprinter Jenny McLoughlin, who is just 16-years-old, finished seventh in the heats of the 100m.

Meanwhile, her training partner, Kate Arnold of Newport, who turned 20 last week, delivered a new personal best, finishing ninth in the 200m. Arnold, a former swimmer made the switch from pool to track relatively recently and was originally not expected to qualify for Beijing.

Brian Alldis, who is coached by Tanni Grey-Thompson, was unable to advance to the semi-final of the 800m. The Cardiff wheelchair racer finished seventh in his heat which was won by David Weir:

“I’m a bit disappointed. I couldn’t get on the back of the pack as they pulled away and I was about two seconds off my PB. It was good that Dave was in the heat but it probably made it harder for me.”

The shot putt saw two North Walians take season bests. Beverley Jones of Queensferry finished fifth while training partner Rebecca Chin, the youngest member of the Welsh contingent at 16-years-old, finished tenth. Chin will be using the experience from Beijing as she trains towards London 2012.

Rower James Roberts demonstrated his potential for London 2012. Together with Karen Cromie of Northern Ireland, the Prestatyn rower today finished in fifth place in the double sculls at Shun Yi, an event won by hosts, China.

Bridgend footballer Keryn Seal suffered a Spanish inquisition. Paralympic GB’s visually impaired five-a-side football team lost 3-1 to Spain in a dramatic game that saw Britain take an early lead before the European Champions dominated the second half.

Britain now lies fifth in the rankings after three matches with two to play. They take on Brazil on Saturday.

Fortune didn’t shine on the women’s wheelchair basketball team either. Losing 42-50 to Germany in the final group game, Clare Strange, from Newport, and Caroline Matthews of Cardiff will face Japan in tomorrow’s quarter-finals.

Racing has been delayed in Qingdao but sailor Steve Thomas and the Sonar crew lie seventh overall. Not yet halfway through the race schedule, there is still time for the Bridgend man to move into a medal spot.

ONES TO WATCH FRIDAY DAY 6

ATHLETICS Cardiff’s Tracey Hinton and guide runner Steffan Hughes of Aberaeron will be in the line-up for the 400m semi-final. Hinton won three medals at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000.

CYCLING After success on the track, hopes are now riding high for the ParalympicsGB road cyclists. Rachel Morris of Pembrokeshire is making her Paralympic debut in Beijing as she goes in the time trial. As a double world champion though, she will certainly not be fazed. Nor will Simon Richardson. He is also on time trial duty but confidence will be high after winning two gold medals in the Velodrome.

SWIMMING Gareth Duke produced an emotional performance four years ago in Athens but winning gold second time around will really be an achievement. Known as El Dulche to his team-mates, he was victorious over the 100m breaststroke in Athens and he is well remembered for his tearful medal presentation. Twelve months later, his went into the operating theatre to receive a new kidney donated by his father, Trevor. Newport’s Liz Johnson is also in the swim – she will be racing in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

SAILING Steve Thomas of Bridgend will be into races nine and ten in Qindao. They currently lie in seventh position overall.

WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL Clare Strange and Caroline Matthews are into the quarter finals and will face Japan.

WHEELCHAIR RUGBY The rugby tournament kicks off which will see Oswestry’s Jason Roberts and Abergavenny’s Josie Pearson. Pearson is the only female in the entire competition to be playing murderball, as it is fondly described by Paralympians.

from: newswales.co.uk

Swedish shooting great Jonas Jacobsson collected his 14th Paralympic gold medal Monday as host China climbed to the top spot in the gold medal standings.
Second-placed United States piled up eight gold medals, but has a total of 17 medals against 28 won by the Chinese. Britain was third on the ladder with seven gold.
China, which topped the medals table with 63 gold in Athens 2004, is widely expected to dominate the Games.
Jacobsson surpassed the eight-year-old world record by a huge margin in the morning in the men’s 10m air rifle standing position in his disability class, increasing his Paralympic medal tally to 14 gold, one silver and eight bronze medals.
He will compete in three other events – the men’s 50m free rifle 3×40 standing SH1, the mixed 10m air rifle prone SH1 and the mixed 50m free rifle prone SH1.
“Every competition is a new one. You have to focus,” he said.
South Africa’s Natalie du Toit was equally impressive.
The 24-year-old amputee grabbed her second gold of the Games, winning the women’s S9 100m freestyle final.
She had won the 100m butterfly in her category on Sunday in a world-record time of one min 6.74 sec.
Du Toit, who finished 16th among 25 competitors in 10km marathon swim at last month’s Olympics, and Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka are the only athletes in Beijing appearing in both the Olympics and Paralympics.
Also in the Water Cube, Wang Xiaofu, who led the Chinese Paralympic team into the Bird’s Nest stadium on Saturday, bounced back from a shock defeat in the men’s S8 100m butterfly to win the 100m freestyle.
Elsewhere, China’s Yao Juan was back on the top of podium, eight years after she won her first Paralympic gold medal in Sydney. The 24-year-old won the women’s F42-46 javelin with a world record throw of 40.51m.
“I have always wanted to win back the gold medal, and I never gave up,” said Yao, who finished a distant fifth in Athens four years ago.
Yao’s compatriot Guo Wei followed suit, taking the men’s F35-26 javelin crown.
Lin Haiyan, 45, captured the first shooting gold for China by taking the women’s SH1 10m air pistol, while visually impaired compatriot Wang Lijing prevailed in the women’s 57kg judo competition.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

Sport-by-sport guide

Archery
Archery has been a Paralympic sport since Rome 1960. At the Paralympic Games, archers shoot the Olympic round only (70 meters, qualification & finals): Men’s Individual Olympic Round; Men’s (Open) Team Olympic Round; Women’s Individual Olympic Round and Women’s (Open) Team Olympic Round. Archers compete both standing and in a wheelchair in women’s and men’s categories. The Paralympic program includes singles and team events, and the competition and scoring procedures are identical to those used in the Olympic Games. Team competition is an open competition for both men and women and includes three archers of any class (standing or sitting). Archery opened the first International Games for the Disabled at Stoke Mandeville in 1948. It reached a new pinnacle 44 years later when Paralympian Antonio Rebollo ignited both the Olympic and Paralympic flames in Barcelona with a fire arrow.

Athletics
Athletics became a Paralympic Games sport in Rome, 1960 and has more events and competitors than any other sport in the Paralympic Games. Track events include all Olympic distances (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 10000m, marathon, 4 x 100m relay and 4 x 400m relay). Field comprises, shot put, discus, javelin, club throwing (for severely disabled athletes), pentathlon, long, high and triple jump. Wheelchair racing, 60m sprint was included in the Paralympic Games for the first time in Tokyo, 1964. This continued to be the standard racing distance until Toronto, 1976, when 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m events were introduced.

(Wheelchair) Basketball
Wheelchair Basketball was developed by Sir Ludwig Guttmann at Stoke Mandeville Hospital following WWII as a form of rehabilitation for injured war veterans. Basketball became a Paralympic Games sport at the first Games in Rome in 1960. Wheelchair Basketball is open to male or female athletes and is played by two teams of five players each. Players are allocated points from 1 to 4.5 depending on their functional ability. Five players out of 12 from each team are on the court at any one time and throughout the game the total point value of each team on court must not exceed 14 points.

Boccia
Boccia is unique to the Paralympic Games and was refined from an ancient Greek ball tossing game by the Italians in the 16th century. Men and women compete together in team, pairs and individual events. It is a game of precision with leather balls thrown as close as possible to a white target ball (the jack) on a long, narrow field of play. Boccia became a Paralympic Games sport in Barcelona, 1992.

Cycling
Cycling competitions are relatively new for athletes with disabilities. In the early Eighties, the visually impaired were the first group of athletes to compete, and athletes with cerebral palsy and amputees began racing at the International Games for the Disabled in 1984. Up until the 1992 Paralympics, the competitons for each of these different groups were held separately. Then, at the Barcelona Games, spectators witnessed intense competitions in both track and road races between athletes in all three disability groups. The cycling events are divided into individual and team (a group of three cyclists from one nation) events. Athletes with cerebral palsy compete using standard racing bikes and, in some classes, tricycles. Athletes who are blind or visually impaired compete on tandem bicycles with a sighted team-mate, and they participate in the road race and the time trial events. Finally, amputees and cyclists with permanent locomotor deficiencies compete in individual road race events using cycles specifically constructed for their needs. Handcycling was included for the first time at the Athens Paralympic Games. Handcycling is for athletes who normally require a wheelchair for general mobility, or athletes not able to use a conventional bicycle or tricycle because of severe lower limb disability.

Equestrian
Riders compete only in individual and team dressage and develop creative ways to communicate with their horses if they are unable to give signals with their legs, such as utilising a dressage whip or other aids. In dressage competition, riders perform individually and they must ride a pattern which includes various changes in pace and direction. At the Paralympics, all riders are grouped according to their functional profiles and they are judged on their ability to control and maneuver the horses. Prior to Athens, athletes competed on borrowed horses. Own horses were used in Athens. Equestrian became a Paralympic Games sport in Atlanta 1996.

(Wheelchair) Fencing
Fencing became a Paralympic Games sport in Rome in 1960. There are team and individual events for men and women in foil and epee and for men only in sabre. Athletes are connected electronically to a scoring box that records hits on their opponent. In the initial rounds of the competition the first fencer to score five hits wins but in the latter stages it is the first to 15 hits.

Football
Seven-a-side football, for players with Cerebral Palsy, became a Paralympic Sport in New York in 1984 when the Games were split – for financial reasons -between Stoke Mandeville, England and New York. Five-a-side football for visually impaired athletes was introduced at the Summer Paralympic Games in Athens 2004. Goalkeepers can be visually impaired (B2/B3) or fully sighted in five-a-side football. GB has two sighted goalkeepers. The goalkeepers are not permitted to leave their area.

Goalball
Goalball was invented in Europe in 1946 and was used for sport and rehabilitation for the post WWII blind veterans. The game was introduced to the world in 1976 at the Paralympic Games in Toronto and the first world championships were held in Austria in 1978. Women first competed in goalball at the 1984 Paralympic Games in New York. All players wear masks and bells in the ball enable players to pick up its movement. Taped lines on the court enable players to ‘feel’ their way around the court. Audience/spectators are asked for silence while watching, as players listen to the bells. Goalball is a team sport for men and women. A team is comprised of six players with no more than three players per team on the court at any one time. The object is to roll the ball past the opposition defence and into the opponent’s goal. A bell inside the competition ball enables defending players to hear it and try to prevent its passage. Matches are played on a court 18m x 9m in two, seven-minute halves, with three players on each side. No GB team competing.

Judo
Originating in the late nineteenth century, judo developed from a diverse range of Japanese combative arts and was funded by Professor Jigoro Kano who studied the principles of the jujitsu schools of Japan’s Samurai warriors when developing the sport. Judo’s inherent qualities of touch, balance and sensitivity complement the highly developed skills of visually impaired athletes. Visually-impaired judo became a Paralympic sport at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul. Women competed for the first time at the Athens Paralympic Games in 2004. Unlike sighted judo, visually-impaired judo fighters begin bouts holding each other’s judogis (suits).

Powerlifting
The benchpress competition widely known as “weightlifting ” was among one of the original Paralympic sports dating back to its inclusion in the second Paralympic Games in 1964 and was offered exclusively to Spinal Cord Injured lifters. The sport undertook a major transition with the incorporation of identical rules as those of the able-bodied “powerlifting” competitions and with the inclusion of other disability groups. At the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona, 25 countries participated in the Powerlifting competitions. That number more than doubled in 1996 at the Atlanta Paralympic Games with 58 countries in participation. Since 1996 that number has risen to a total worldwide membership of 109 countries on five continents. Women competed for the first time at the Sydney Games in 2000.

(Wheelchair) Rugby
Wheelchair rugby, formally known as ‘murderball’, is unique to the Paralympic Games. It was invented in the 1970′s in Winnipeg by persons who had become quadriplegics as a result of spinal cord injuries to the neck. The purpose of the game is for players to score goals by touching or crossing the opponent’s goal-line while maintaining possession of the ball. Using a volleyball, players carry, dribble or pass the ball while moving toward the opponent’s goal area. The player in possession of the ball must dribble or pass at least once every ten seconds. A goal is scored when a player in control of the ball touches the goal-line with two wheels. It is believed to be the fastest growing wheelchair sport in the world. After being a demonstration event at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, wheelchair rugby became a full medal sport at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. Full contact sport. The athletes’ village has a welding workshop for repair to chairs after collisions.

(Adaptive) Rowing
Rowing was introduced to the Paralympic Programme in 2005 and will make it’s debut to the Games in Beijing in 2008. Rowers compete in four Paralympic boat classes – men’s arms only single scull (AM1x), women’s arms only single scull (AW1x), trunk and arms mixed double (TA2x) and legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four (LTA4+) and each class race over a distance of 1000m. Rowing is open to athletes with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, lower-limb amputations and visual impairments.

Sailing
Sailing was introduced as a demonstration sport at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games and became a full-medal sport at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. Crews of three athletes compete aboard the 23-foot keelboats in the Sonar event. The 2.4mR is a single-handed keelboat. Both events are open to male and female competitors. There are slight modifications in equipment and a scoring system assigns points based on a level of disability, which allows athletes from different disability groups to compete together. Sailing is open to amputee, cerebral palsy, visually impaired, wheelchair and les autres athletes

Shooting
Shooting became a Paralympic Games sport in 1980 during the sixth Paralympic Games in Arnhem. The shooting competition is divided into rifle and pistol events, air and .22 calibre. Athletes shoot from three positions: standing or sitting, kneeling and prone. The programme includes men’s, women’s, mixed and team events, although team events are not held at the Paralympic Games.

Swimming
Swimming has been a Paralympic Games event since the first games were held in Rome in 1960. It is one of the largest and most popular competitive events in the Paralympic Games. Athletes compete in freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, individual medley and relay ranging from 50m to 400m. Swimming is open to all disability groups, including swimmers with spinal cord injuries, swimmers with cerebral palsy, swimmers with amputations and others swimmers including those with progressive diseases such a muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis, dwarfs, swimmers with joint disabilities including stiffness, spina bifida, swimmers with a combinations of different disabilities, etc; blind and partially-sighted swimmers.

Table Tennis
Table tennis has been a Paralympic sport since the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960. Table tennis is played in over 50 countries and in terms of the number of participating athletes is the fourth largest Paralympic Games sport behind athletics, swimming and powerlifting. Table tennis competitions take two forms at the Paralympic Games: standing and wheelchair events (sitting). Individual and team, men’s and women’s events are included in the program.

Wheelchair Tennis
Wheelchair tennis was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Paralympic Games and became a full-medal sport at the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona, with men’s and women’s singles and doubles events being a part of every Paralympic Tennis event since then. The Quad division (for players affected in three or more limbs) made its Paralympic Games debut in Athens in 2004, where Peter Norfolk MBE became Great Britain’s first-ever Paralympic Games gold medallist in tennis, winning the quad singles title before partnering Mark Eccleston to silver in the quad doubles.

Volleyball
Volleyball was introduced to the Paralympic Games in Arnhem in 1980. Originally both standing and sitting competitions were included in the Games, however, standing volleyball was removed from the programme following the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. In sitting volleyball the court is smaller than standard (6x10m) and has a lower net, so the game is a considerable faster than the standing equivalent. The game lasts up to five sets and the winning team is the first to win three sets. The team winning the set is the one to reach 25 points with at least a two-point lead.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Taiwan‘s Paralympics javelin gold medalist Chiang Chih-chung has been barred from defending his title at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing this month, it was reported Wednesday.

The visually-impaired Chiang, a two-time Paralympics javelin gold medalist and world record holder, will not be attending the games that will be held between September 6 to 17 and attended by some 4,000 disabled athletes, the Taipei Times reported.

Chiang, 28, won gold at the Sydney and Athens Paralympics, setting a world record in Athens with a throw of 57.28 metres. He also won the gold medal at the 2007 International Sports World Games in Brazil.

In February, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) informed the Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) that although Chiang met the minimum conditions for participation, he had not been accredited for the Games, the paper said. No reason was given.

Apart from Chiang, 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships javelin gold medal winner Chen Ming-tsai has also been excluded.

“We objected to the IPC and the Beijing Olympic Committee through various channels, but received no clear reply,” CTPC president Linda Chen was quoted as saying.

“For the IPC to make such a decision, China must be interfering behind the scenes,” said Lai Fu-huan of CTPC’s standing committee.

Chiang said he was disappointed at not being able to represent Taiwan at the Games. “I don’t understand why the rules of the game have been changed. Taiwan has been in a weak position and has been pushed around by China all along,” he said.

Taiwan’s Sports Minister Tai Shia-ling did not accuse China of political interference, but said there should be a standard procedure to decide the participation of athletes in sports events.

“If China has blocked Chiang from the games for no reason, then it might have political implications, but the matter needs to be probed,” the Taipei Times quoted her as saying.

Taiwan has sent 17 athletes to the Paralympics Games in Beijing to compete in six sports.

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from: bangkokpost.com

Inspired by the golden exploits of their Olympic compatriots, Great Britain’s Paralympians are in bullish mood at their holding camps in Macau and Hong Kong ahead of the thirteenth Paralympic Games in Beijing, that opens on Saturday.
“The Olympics were an inspiration to us,” Phil Lane, the chief executive and chef de mission of the Britain Paralympic team, said. “We come just after so that is always likely, but this one has been so fantastic for us that it would be difficult not to be inspired. Everyone is so confident here.”
But rather than fighting to move up the medals table, Britain’s challenge is to repeat the success of finishing in second place in Sydney in 2000 and Athens four years later. For Lane, who has been a reassuringly strong leader since taking over in 2001, it has been about managing expectation. For much of this year UK Sport and the British Paralympic Association (BPA) have been in disagreement about what the medal target should be for Beijing.
UK Sport, after the increase in lottery funding for the BPA, said that it was 40 golds and 110 medals and finishing second in the table, while the BPA said that it was 35 golds, 95 medals and the top five. Part of the BPA’s caution is based on the result that one key injury, for example to David Roberts, the swimmer, could take away 10 per cent of their golds. UK Sport’s is partly because the team of 206 athletes contesting eighteen of the 20 sports are the best-prepared and best-funded to leave Britain.
“The difference between Athens and now is that, given the increase in lottery funding that the athletes have enjoyed over the last four years, they are preparing in an increasingly professional way and training alongside the Olympians in the same training environment,” Lane said.
The rise in Paralympic funding has not been as dramatic as the increase from £70 million to £235.1 million for the Olympic team, but it has more than doubled from £14.8million for the four-year cycles up to Athens to £29.5 million for Beijing.
Lane plays peacemaker and spread-better. “We are hoping for between 35 and 40 gold medals based on performances in the last 12 months,” he said. “You would hope that would get us in the top five, but we’re not going to be No1.
“I’ll have a wager that you will be able to come back whistling the Chinese national anthem.” The host nation are expected to be even more dominant in the Paralympics than they were in the Olympics.
The Paralympics have again expanded from 3,806 athletes from 136 countries at Athens in 2004 to 4,099 athletes from 145 nations in Beijing. China will be represented by 332 athletes. The hosts have the numbers and have prepared and targeted events backed by enormous funding. While many countries struggle to build Olympic high-performance centres, China constructed a £55 million National Paralympic centre in the Shunyi district of Beijing. Teams who have visited have been staggered by its size.
At Athens in 2004, China leapt ahead and were more dominant than any country in the modern era of the Paralympics since 1988. China won 63 golds and 141 medals. Britain were second with 35 and 94 respectively. In Beijing, China are expected to win between 70 and 75 golds.
“We all need targets, but I think everyone recognises what is feasible and they know it is no longer a case of just two or three countries dominating the medal table,” Lane said.
Lane is right that Paralympic Games are increasingly competitive as more nations take them more seriously and the United States Paralympic team are talking tough again after slipping down the table in Sydney and Athens. In Seoul in 1988, 49 countries won medals. In Athens in 2004, that increased to 75 countries, although 600 more medals were awarded that year.
“The number of medals being won, notwithstanding the Chinese, is gradually starting to even out,” Lane said. “We’re expecting big challenges from people from countries like the Ukraine, who I spoke to this week. They’ve been encamped in China for a month at one of their specialist high-performance Paralympic centres. We would hope to win more medals than them, but the issue is that they may well challenge in areas where traditionally we’ve been strong.
“Brazil were garnering medals at World Championships at a rate of knots. The Americans are very confident that they have put Athens behind them and are back where they should be.
“I think there is going to be a bigger spread of medals than ever before.”

from: timesonline.co.uk

Australia’s Paralympic team is aiming to take its all-time medal tally over 1000 at the Beijing Games starting on Saturday.
The team of 170 athletes – 96 men and 74 women – which flew out from Sydney today is the largest team Australia has sent overseas for a Paralympic Games.
And the Australian Paralympic Committee is confident it can collect the 92 medals it needs to take Australia’s tally to 1000 over the past 48 years.
“Its a hard task, but we’re in the running for that and we could win the 1000th medal in these Games,” committee CEO Darren Peters said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
No more specific medal projections would be made so as not to place extra pressure on athletes already feeling the weight of expectation, he said.
The athletes will have a few days to acclimatise to conditions in Beijing before the 13th Paralympic Games, which run from September 6 to 17.
At the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, Australia won 100 medals and came fifth overall with 26 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze.
China topped the medal tally with 63 gold and 141 medals overall and is expected to considerably exceed their 2004 tally at their home Paralympics.
The team’s best-known athlete Kurt Fearnley, who won gold in the wheelchair marathon in Athens, was impatient to get started.
“It’s been four years in waiting,” Fearnley told AAP.
“I’m putting myself in for individual medals and hopefully I’m on the higher end of the medals.”
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s wife Therese Rein, an honorary member of the Paralympic team, was at the airport to wish them luck.
“The team is brilliant and the atmosphere and support between athletes is amazing,” she said.
“They’ve all trained really hard and I’m sure they’re going to do brilliantly.”
Ms Rein’s father was an Australian Paralympic athlete in the 1950s.
“He was an archer, he played wheelchair basketball, he played tennis and he swam,” said Ms Rein.
“Sports was really meaningful for him and helped him to be the best he could be.”
Australian Paralympic Committee chairman Greg Hartung said the team was the best away team Australia had ever assembled.
“They are big on talent and big on toughness and we will expect our athletes to perform at peak value for Australia,” he said.

source: smh.com.au

The Paralympic Games are known as a joyful Games, a friendly Games, as an event far more laid back than their more famous cousin, the Olympics.

But if you think this means that every competitor at the Paralympics wears a halo, you’d be wrong.
In a perverse way, the fact that some people are willing to cheat to earn a medal at the Games can be seen as a sign of quite how seriously the competition is taken.
So how do people try and break the rules at the Paralympics, and how do their methods differ from their able-bodied counterparts?
Performance-enhancing drugs are also a problem in Paralympic sport.
The main offenders are competitors in powerlifting, just as weighlifters at the Olympics often seem to get into trouble.
In Sydney 2000, there were a total of 14 athletes who returned positive drug tests. The majority of these (10 out of 14) were powerlifting, with athletes mainly using drugs to increase power and strength.
In this regard the cheaters are little different to athletes like Ben Johnson in Olympic sprinting, or cyclist Floyd Landis in the Tour de France, who use steroids or EPO to increase muscle strength, speed, power and endurance.
There is another category of Paralympic cheats, however, whose illegal behaviour would make most people turn pale.
They are the “boosters”, mainly athletes who have spinal cord injuries such as paraplegia.
To gain an unfair advantage in their chosen sports, they try to raise their blood pressure, to trigger the kind of fight or flight response that normally happens when someone is in danger.
To do this they don’t take drugs – instead, they injure themselves to trick their bodies into boosting performance.
Some of the ways that Paralympic athletes “boost” include sitting on pins, thumb tacks or ball bearings, turning off their catheters – allowing fluid to build up inside the body – while some male athletes who go so far as to tie wire around their genital area.
Such extraordinary and totally illegal manoeuvres cause no pain to the athletes – who have no feeling in those parts of the body – but they can lead to a boost to athletic performance of up to 15 per cent.
Paralympic athletes are tested to ensure that their level of disability – or put another way, their range of movement – tallies with their registration. This is designed to stop people faking or overstating their disability to gain an advantage.
The biggest scandal in Paralympics history, however, relates to the faking of a mental rather than physical disability. In the Sydney Games of 2000, the Spanish team won the basketball event for intellectually disabled competitors.
It was only afterwards, when 10 out of the 12-member squad were found not to have any intellectual disabilities that the team was disqualified, causing a furore in Paralympic sport.
A Spanish journalist, who went undercover and became part of the Spanish squad, broke the story, claiming that officials had intentionally sought out people who were not intellectually disabled to boost the team’s chances of winning.
The International Paralympic Committee reacted to the scandal by taking all intellectual disability events off the program for Athens in 2004.
There was more disappointment in store for genuinely intellectually disabled athletes, when the IPC left their events out of the Beijing Games as well.
There is some hope for the future, however, as the IPC will revisit its decision after Beijing, so there could be some intellectual disability events on the program for London in four years time.

source: abc.net.au

With a few honourable exceptions Irish sport has punched well below its weight in Beijing and the root causes of our perennial shortcomings run deep

LAST NIGHT David Beckham put an end to the anguish of those behind the Find Little David Now campaign. The world’s most important person came out for the quiet seclusion he craves and sang to the world. In painstakingly acquired Mandarin David warbled a few words about togetherness and harmony. “Easy for you to say, Goldenballs”, we muttered.

The last day of any Olympic celebration always manages to feel the same as its predecessors. The hosts are tired and teary with pride and sentiment. Lots of athletes and no few journalists of the fan-with-a-laptop persuasion are gambolling about the place filled with beer and that sappy sort of up-with-people feeling they will feel embarrassed about by Tuesday.

And we blotchy Paddys are always tired and slightly disgruntled. We are looking back over the whole two weeks of Olympic disappointment with regret and sorrow and, in the media rooms, hoping the traditional Balkan feuding between the OCI and Government agencies won’t break out until we are fast asleep on a long-haul flight home because basically we don’t care.

People asked a lot these last few days what we thought about Usain Bolt. Doper or clean? And the answer was always the same: don’t care anymore. We cared deeply 20 years ago when we sat up all night to watch the Johnson-Lewis showdown, which had the global importance of a heavyweight title fight from the 1950s. Now we believe in nobody from that race and pretty much nobody who sprinted quickly ever since. And if Usain Bolt is clean and was easily beating a field full of dopers well then he is one big, showboating genetic freak and good luck to him. But sprinting ran out of reasons for us to care about it a long time ago.

So it is in the eternal feud over who is to blame for our repeated Olympic failures. We don’t care anymore. We don’t have any hope that anybody will do anything about it. We’ll just mind our own business and get ourselves a bit of peace and quiet thanks, lads.

We are sitting here in the press room looking forlornly at the medals table. Three medals for an Irish Olympic squad and none of them tarnished or taken back yet! Should we be celebrating? Perhaps there will be a medal minted for Alistair Cragg in the best-shooting-off-of-mouth-by-a-blow-in category. But look at the sort of countries who are close to us in population.

New Zealand, who, it is widely known, have passion for nothing but rugby and sheep, have three times as many medals. They have nine: three golds, a silver and heap of bronze ones. They have won these things in sports as varied as sailing, track cycling and triathlon.

And Norway. As narrow in their range of stereotypical pursuits as the Kiwis, the Norwegians have time only for skiing and herrings but they managed 10 medals: golds in athletics, handball and rowing, a silver in taekwando and another in shooting.

And ourselves? Depending on the boxing lads to pull something out for us with their bravery and their blood, sweat and tears and the determination of a few people like Billy Walsh and Gary Keegan to match anybody in the world. What told most about what made the boxers stand out from the general run of Irish Olympic mediocrity was the sight of Billy Walsh these last couple of days torn between tears and anger at his three medallists not getting gold.

There was none of the “just glad to be here” stuff from the boxers. There was no sending an elderly pug along because he’d been a decent skin and deserved the Olympic jolly at the end of his days. They came to Beijing to win golds and if we celebrate anything about Billy Walsh and Kenny Egan and co today it is that they have a sense of their own potential and their own input that leaves them disappointed they didn’t make the top of the podium

Billy Walsh made a good point to me during the week. He was talking about boxing but he might as well have been talking about the broad mass of Irish sport. Billy said Irish boxing has its high-performance programme and nothing else.

The best of what is underneath till the age of 14 are out there in a system which has no form or shape to it. The high-performance programme gets its hands on the best 50 or so boxers in the country but by then their habits of balance, movement, stance and the rest have been formed.

Sometimes they have been lucky; they have had good, conscientious coaches. Sometimes they have been unlucky; they have had bad technique ingrained.

It’s not the coaches’ fault, says Billy. They are all out there begging to be educated. Coaches want to be coached in the art of coaching. They want the tips, the insider stuff, the knowledge that will make them better coaches. But there is no system for them and because they feel isolated and left out, there is a suspicion about the resources the high-performance programme gets and a slight resentment.

And Billy is right. Irish sport is all fur coat and no knickers. All talk about institutes and councils and elite programmes and not enough going in at the invisible end – finding kids when they are six, seven and eight, exposing them to the habits and values of a sporting life, providing them with the best techniques and training available at their age levels and then letting a genuine sporting culture develop.

We think cheering for the Dubs or Munster is a sporting culture. In the debate about sport we are all creationists rather than evolutionists. Here the Artists Formerly Known as BLÉ should take a bow. Apart from Paul Hession these were the Olympics that showed that for all the bellyaching and bitching they did, Irish athletics did nothing to prepare for the world post-Sonia.

For good or bad in Barcelona, in Atlanta, in Sydney and in Athens, Sonia was the Irish story of the second week of the Games. Subtract her from those Olympiads and look back at the Irish performances in track and field and measure their value against the amount of whingeing, infighting and argufying athletics has done in that time. Why did we waste our time?

Sonia was a freak of nature who just happened to be born here. The Artists Formerly Known as BLÉ could claim about as much credit for having developed her as they could for having influenced the weather.

And apart from Sonia, for all the huffing and puffing, strutting and posing athletics has done for the past five Olympiads, how much bang for our buck have we got? Should we care?

This week we’ll give out the gold medal for pouting. It has to be somebody’s fault so we will have a good row finding out whose fault it is and then we will start planning for 2012. Not how we will do better there but how we can make a few quid out of the Games being nearby. Gotta be some greasy-till action, hasn’t there?

This war-weary column has one suggestion. Forget about 2012. Don’t worry too much about 2016 either. Send small teams to each and let’s look at 2020 as a possibility for the six-, seven- and eight-year-olds who are scoffing Big Macs at the moment.

Let’s have no more of the fur-coat-and-no-knickers approach. Let’s get kids, every kid, playing. Let’s give little tax breaks to people who get out and coach kids, kick-start that vanishing spirit of volunteerism.

The true worth of a nation’s sporting culture isn’t really measurable in medals and cups. It’s in what lies beneath. Sporting campuses without a sporting culture are nothing but a vanity.

source: irishtimes.com

JAPAN stunned the United States 3-1 tonight to claim Olympic softball gold, denying America a fourth straight title.

Softnall is due to be dropped from the Games after Beijing.

It was the first time the US failed to win the gold since softball was introduced in 1996, and their first defeat in 22 Olympic matches – a stretch dating back to Sydney 2000.
Instead they settled for silver, with Australia taking bronze.

Japan, semi-final losers to the United States, had reached the gold medal game with a dramatic, second-chance 4-3 12-inning victory over Australia in a final-round play-off game.

In two games Thursday, Japanese pitcher Yukiko Ueno threw a total of 21 innings, but she showed no ill effects as she played seven innings and got the win for Japan.

“My strong belief to win,” was what carried her through the fatigue, Ueno said.

Eri Yamada homered in the fourth inning, giving Japan a 2-0 lead before a brief rain delay halted play.

Ayumi Karino’s base hit in the third had scored Masumi Mishina to put Japan ahead, and Japan added another run in the top of the seventh.

Crystl Bustos’s homer in the bottom of the fourth was the lone US run.

US dominance of the sport has been fingered as one reason softball has been dropped for London 2012, but backers of the game are still hoping it will be reinstated eventually.

Japanese coach Haruka Saito said the upset could add impetus to the “Back Softball” campaign to bring it back.

“It is a big encouragement and motivation for us to get softball back into the Olympic Games,” she said.

“We will promote it all over the world, every corner of the world.”

Yamada said the win, which came after an extra-innings loss to the United States in the semis and the win over Australia, showed softball was a worthy Olympic sport.

“The world needs to know softball is a really good game,” she said.

“Our winning is the first step to help Back Softball. We are very glad we made it.”

from: foxsports.com.au

Defending champions Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego were knocked out of the Olympic beach volleyball on Wednesday, leaving fellow Brazilians Marcio Araujo and Fabio Luiz Magalhaes to play the U.S. favorites for gold.

Marcio and Fabio Luiz, the 2005 world champions, have been in sporadic form in Beijing but pulled it all together in the semi, winning 22-20 21-18. They will play reigning world champions Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser in the final.

“We had to give 100 percent, no, 120 percent, to get past them,” said Marcio, who fell on top of Fabio Luiz and rolled around on the sand when they won.

“We couldn’t allow ourselves to think it was Ricardo and Emanuel on the other side of the net — that would be too emotional. We just had to play a really excellent match.”

Ricardo and Emanuel, role models for many Brazilian players, fought back from big deficits in both sets but it was not enough.

The last point was particularly painful as a cross-court spike by Ricardo was called out. The Sydney silver medalist challenged it all the way back to the bench but was good-natured after the match.

While speaking to reporters, Ricardo threw his towel at Fabio, grinned cheekily and asked “Come on, was it in or out?”. Fabio shook his finger, finished his interview and leapt in to a bear hug with Ricardo, each slapping the other’s back.

Marcio and Fabio Luiz have won five of seven matches against Rogers and Dalhausser but have barely played since the U.S. team hit their winning stride last year.

The U.S. duo were in great form in their semi against Georgia — two Brazilians who took dual citizenship to make the Olympics.

“It hasn’t hit me yet that I’m going to be playing in a gold medal match,” said Dalhausser, who once resisted taking up volleyball because he thought it was for girls.

“Give me a few hours and it’ll smack me in the face.”

from: reuters.com

Germany’s Jan Frodeno, who took up triathlon because a girl he fancied did it, won the Olympic gold medal on Tuesday in a dramatic sprint over the last few meters.

Close behind him, Sydney gold medalist Simon Whitfield of Canada won the silver in the baking hot Beijing swim-bike-run event, and New Zealand’s Bevan Docherty the bronze.

Frodeno, a former swimmer and surf-lifeguard who took up triathlon eight years ago while living in South Africa, battled

with Docherty and 2008 world champion Javier Gomez of Spain, both heavily tipped for gold, for front position in the last two laps.

But the lanky German, whose nickname is “Frodo”, strode ahead at the final bend, overtaking all of them and leaving a crushed-looking Gomez in fourth place, a full 20 seconds behind his finish time of one hour, 48 minutes and 53 seconds.

“It was a moment I had dreamed of so many times in my head. During the race I told myself: ‘Boy, be greedy — it’s champagne or fizzy water’,” an overwhelmed Frodeno said afterwards.

“I tried not to think that the others behind me were the fastest guys and the most famous triathletes,” he said, adding he had learned his lesson from losing a lot of sprints this year.

“I knew I had to be hard and bite and fight,” he said.

The all-round fitness event came down to a running race, as the best sprinters held back and then surged past the winners of the swim and bike sections in the four-lap final section.

Frodeno, whose gold medal surprise came a day after his 27th birthday, punched the air triumphantly after breaking through the ribbon at the Ming Tombs reservoir course north of Beijing.

He told reporters he lay awake tossing and turning on Monday night plotting how to beat Gomez, an 11-times world cup winner.

EXASPERATED RIVALS

Gomez has dominated his sport this year despite an abnormal heart valve that kept him out of competitions for several years.

The Spaniard, who prefers racing in cooler weather, said he tired himself out when he bolted ahead and ran the first two laps in a spectacular 14 mins 10 secs to make up for lagging badly coming out of the bike transition.

“I just had a not very good day on the run,” said Gomez, who is dating a German triathlete in Monday’s women’s race.

He said it had been hard to run fast in the 31 degree Celsius (88 degree Fahrenheit) heat and 84 percent humidity.

“I got tired. I did train well but today there were three athletes better than me,” he told Reuters.

Whitfield said Gomez’s exasperated rivals decided ahead of the Games that the way to beat him was to join forces and all run against him. “We all raced today watching him. Everywhere he went in the pack, we all knew where he was and paid attention.”

For Docherty, beating Gomez was not quite enough, however.

The mop-haired New Zealander has gained a tiresome reputation for always coming second or third.

“I’m super happy to get another medal. I’m slowly building up a collection. Unfortunately I’ll have to go to London to get the gold,” he said, dolefully.

from: reuters.com

Olympic pursuit king Bradley Wiggins seems more than ready for the challenge of equaling a 100-year-old British record when he aims for a third gold medal in Tuesday’s Madison here at the velodrome.
But the 27-year-old Londoner hasn’t even thought about the fact that in doing so, he will become the most decorated Olympic cyclist ever.
Wiggins’ bid for a third gold in Beijing could be the hardest he faces during a campaign that has seen him take his gold tally to three for a total of six since his Olympic debut in Sydney.
If Wiggins and Madison partner Mark Cavendish win the Madison, Wiggins will become the first British athlete to win three gold medals at a single Games since swimmer Henry Cotton took triple gold at London Games in 1908.
Minutes later, Wiggins’ feat could be quickly emulated by Scotland’s Chris Hoy, if he makes it through the final and triumphs.
But if Wiggins wins just a medal, it will be his seventh – and allow him to surpass American Burton Downing’s all-time Olympic track cycling medal haul of six, all won at the St. Louis Games in 1904.
Already happy to help Britain smash their own world record on their way to Britain’s first team pursuit gold in 100 years on Monday, Wiggins will now brush down his Madison bike in a bid for a third.
“At this stage, it’s got to be gold,” said Wiggins, whose stamina and endurance have been pushed hard in recent days, and will be pushed to another level in the chaotic 50km Madison.
“But we’ll see, the Madison is the hardest of the lot. You can have a crash early, anything can happen.
“We’ll be strong, we’re world champions. We just have to play it right and make sure we don’t lose a lap early on like we did at the world championships.”
It was at the world championships in Manchester that Wiggins last used a Madison bike, as opposed to the speed machines he uses for the pursuit events.
Cavendish arrived a few days ago for his only race at the Olympics. After after a stunning Tour de France campaign, where he made some history by winning four stages, the Manxman is apparently itching to go.
“I haven’t even touched my Madison bike since the worlds, so I better get that out of the bag,” added Wiggins, who admitted he had less sleep on Sunday night than he would have liked.
“Cav woke me up this morning just messing around the apartment and making noise. He’s running around like a school kid! But he’s up for it.
“We’ll have a game plan going into it, but we’ll be ready firing for gold.”
Britain’s gold medal haul stood at five from seven events and nine from a total of 21 at the close of play on Monday.
And Wiggins believes Cavendish’s sprint legs and his pursuiting will combine to add more.
“We’re doing 70km/h there (in the team pursuit), there’s not many people who are going to go faster than that in the Madison,” he added.
“The training we do for that is all sprint-intensive. It worked at the worlds, and we’ve never had a problem in the past in Madison.”

from: afp.google.com

Yelena Isinbayeva made sure the Olympic athletics program ended a lot better than it started Monday at the Bird’s Nest.
The Russian pole vaulter broke her own world record in winning a second consecutive Olympic gold medal. Already assured of victory over rival Jenn Stuczynski of the United States, Isinbayeva set a mark of 5.05 metres on her third and final attempt at that height.
After eclipsing her old world record by one centimetre, Isinbayeva did a somersault on the mat before jogging around the stadium with a Russian flag as the crowd wildly applauded.
It was anything but a celebration about 10 hours earlier when defending 110-metre hurdles champion Liu Xiang, one of the most recognizable faces in China and even more popular than basketball player Yao Ming, walked away from the blocks after pulling up during a false start in qualifying, his Olympics over.
“We worked hard every day, but the result was as you see and it’s really hard to take,” said Liu’s coach, Sun Haiping.
While Liu clutched his right leg in pain, an elderly woman in the stands wiped tears from her eyes, providing the most poignant example of what the 25-year-old hurdler, who had been affected by the injury for several months, means to many in his home country as it hosts the games for the first time.
Usain Bolt, the 100-metre gold winner and world record-holder, easily qualified for the 200 semifinals. Bolt never pushed himself to win his quarter-final heat ahead of Olympic gold medallist Shawn Crawford, with the Jamaican mock-wiping sweat off his brow after the race.
The semifinals are set for Tuesday, with Crawford among the few believed to have a chance at stopping Bolt’s quest for a 100-200 double, a feat last achieved by Carl Lewis at the 1988 Seoul Games.
The United States leads all countries through Monday with 72 medals, with China second at 67 and Russia thrid at 36. China has the most gold medals with 39, followed by the U.S. at 22 and Great Britain at 12.
Canada has nine medals, including two gold.
Angelo Taylor won the men’s 400 hurdles, finishing in 47.25 seconds to lead a U.S. sweep in the event. Kerron Clement finished second and Bershawn Jackson finished third, the first sweep since the United States did it in 1960.
Taylor, the 2000 Olympic champion, won his second gold by running a personal-best time of 47.25 seconds. He won the U.S. team’s second gold medal of the meet, joining Stephanie Brown Trafton, who won the discus throw in an upset earlier Monday.
Pamela Jelimo led world champion Janeth Jepkosgei in a Kenyan 1-2 finish in the women’s 800 metres.
The 18-year-old Jelimo, a heavy favourite despite only switching to the 800 in April, won in 1:54.87.
Three-time world champion and Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medallist Maria Mutola finished fifth in 1:57.68 in her fourth and last Olympics.
Irving Saladino won the men’s long jump, giving Panama its first Olympic gold medal. The 2007 world champion won with a best jump of 8.34 metres. Brimin Kipruto of Kenya won the gold medal in the men’s 3,000-metre steeplechase.
Emma Snowsill, a three-time world champion from Australia, took the triathlon gold in the 1.5-kilometre swim, 40-kilometre bicycle ride and 10-kilometre run in 1:58:27. Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal was second, a minute behind, and another Australian, Emma Moffatt, took the bronze.
“Coming down on the last lap I had to throw whatever I had left,” Snowsill said. “There’s nothing like running scared.”
Chen Yibing extended China’s unbeaten run of gold – five in five events – in men’s gymnastics by winning the rings. The two-time world champion was perfectly still on nearly every move in registering 16.600 points that blew away the field of eight.
He Kexin of China won a tiebreaker over all-around champion Nastia Liukin of the United States for the uneven bars gold medal.
Britain won the men’s team pursuit at the Laoshan velodrome, knocking nearly two seconds off the world record it set a day earlier. The team of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Geraint Thomas and individual pursuit gold medallist Bradley Wiggins finished the 4,000 metres in 3:53.314, almost overtaking the silver medal-winning Denmark in the final.
World champion Marianne Vos of the Netherlands won the women’s points race.
Andrei Aramnau of Belarus broke three heavyweight world records to win his country’s first Olympic gold in weightlifting. Aramnau lifted a total of 436 kilograms in the 105-kg category and also set world marks in the snatch and clean and jerk.
“I came here to win and break records,” Aramnau said. “It’s not just empty talk. I did it.”
He Wenna of China won gold in women’s trampolining, over Canada’s Karen Cockburn, China took the men’s team title in table tennis and the United States won the team show jumping event in equestrian in a jumpoff over Canada.
The United States beat Germany 106-57 in men’s basketball, advancing to the medal round against Australia. Dwight Howard scored 22 points and LeBron James had 18, 16 in the first half, as the United States completed an undefeated 5-0 march through pool play.

The organizers of the Beijing Olympics have said that test samples from athletes competing at the Games will be kept for eight years for possible doping retests, national media reported on Monday.

Chen Zhiyu, head of the Beijing anti-doping division, said the samples could be reexamined as more advanced testing techniques are developed, the China Daily said.

Previously, samples that tested positive were stored for 90 days and those that tested negative for 30 days, according to the anti-doping rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The 29th Olympic Games in Beijing are due to see a record 4,500 doping tests, some 25 % more than at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and 50% more than in Sydney in 2000.

China opened the world’s biggest and most advanced anti-doping laboratory specifically for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Chinese authorities spent $10 million on the new laboratory, including $2.7 million on state-of-the-art testing equipment. The lab employs 100 experts from 10 countries.

Seven Russian female athletes, including five selected for the Beijing Olympics, were recently suspended for providing false urine samples and “tampering” with doping control procedures.

source: rian.ru

Italy suffered a stunning 3-2 quarter-final defeat against 10-man Belgium in the Olympic soccer on Saturday while Brazil and titleholders Argentina both won in extra-time to set up a semi-final meeting.
Lionel Messi set up one goal and scored the other in Argentina’s 2-1 win over the Netherlands and Brazil beat Cameroon 2-0 to avenge their traumatic quarter-final defeat against the Africans in Sydney eight years ago.
Belgium, who will face Nigeria in the semi-finals, found themselves trailing 1-0 and down to 10 men after 18 minutes when Thomas Vermaelen was sent off for dragging down Giuseppe Rossi, who scored from the spot.
Moussa Dembele equalized with a 24th minute header which was deemed to have crossed the line despite Luca Cigarina’s block and Kevin Miralles fired Belgian ahead in first half injury-time.
Rossi equalized with another penalty in the 74th minute before Dembele struck the winner in the 80th minute as Italy uncharacteristically lost their defensive cool.
“Everybody is very important in my team but you need players who can make the difference and today Moussa Dembele made the difference,” Belgium coach Jean Francois De Sart said.
Argentina went ahead with Messi’s second goal of the Games but Otman Bakkal equalized before halftime.
Messi set up the winner in the first half of extra-time when he sliced open the Dutch defense and found Angel Di Maria, who side-footed home to make up for his double penalty-miss against Serbia.

NO FUN
Brazil and Cameroon produced one of the tournament’s low points as they shared 12 yellow cards and 56 fouls in a cynical game which also saw Cameroon’s Albert Baning dismissed in the 52nd minute for a second bookable offence.
Rafael Sobis and Marcelo scored in a four-minute spell in extra-time to keep Brazil — jeered by the crowd — on course for a first Olympic gold.
“It’s not even fun to talk about the referees any more,” said Brazil coach Dunga. “When you have players of this level and officials who make the sort of decisions we saw today … that says it all.”
The match was watched by FIFA president Sepp Blatter who spoke too soon when he praised the controversial tournament, which is restricted to under-23 teams with three over-age players allowed per side.
“The standard of football at the Olympics has never been higher,” he told reporters before kick off.
Nigeria, publicly criticized by coach Samson Siasia for ball-hogging in their last match, beat Ivory Coast 2-0.
In a match played to the backing of the off-key trumpets of the Nigerian supporters’ club, Peter Odemwingie swept home Victor Obinna’s pass in the 44th minute and Obinna converted an 82nd minute penalty.

from: reuters.com

Chris Hoy of Britain took his second cycling gold medal of the Beijing Olympics in the keirin Saturday, while his compatriot Bradley Wiggins got his first. Both are hoping the eventual tally will be three apiece.
Earlier, Joan Llaneras of Spain took gold for a second time in the men’s points race.
Two-time
keirin world champion Hoy dashed away from the field in the final of the keirin, a sprint race paced by a motorized bike, and none of his rivals could get near him.
Hoy’s compatriot Ross Edgar had a harder struggle, but he managed to slip across the line for the silver medal, just ahead of Kiyofumi Nagai of Japan.
The keirin is an eight-lap race, where riders spend 5 1/2 laps jockeying for position behind a pacesetting motorcycle that accelerates steadily before leaving the competitors alone on the track for the final 625 meters.
Hoy was part of the British team that won the team sprint on Saturday. He will be going for his third gold in the individual sprint on Tuesday.
The event in which Hoy won gold in Athens, the 1-kilometer time-trial, has been dropped to make way for the BMX competition.
It was a bad night for the Dutch sprinters. Theo Bos was brought down in the second round by Polish rider Kamil Kuczynski, who crashed in front of him, and he did not take part in the restarted race. His compatriot, world championship silver medalist Teun Mulder, also went out. He won the first-round repechage but was disqualified for riding outside the racing area.
In the 4,000 meters individual pursuit, Wiggins finished almost three seconds ahead of Hayden Roulston of New Zealand, completing the race in a time of 4 minutes, 16.977 seconds. Steven Burke of Britain _ selected to race only days ago _ took the bronze.
Wiggins, 28, is hoping to improve on the gold, silver and bronze he took on the track in Athens. The British are seeking eight of the 10 track golds, and they are on target so far.
If Wiggins wins three medals at these games, he will become the track cyclist with the most medals in Olympic history, breaking a record that has stood for 104 years.
Wiggins broke the Olympic record in qualifying Friday _ the record he himself set when he took gold in Athens.
Llaneras, the champion eight years ago in Sydney and silver medalist four years ago, scored 60 points in the race, coming in ahead of Roger Kluge of Germany and World Cup champion Chris Newton of Britain.
In the points race, racers ride 160 laps of the track, taking part in sprints every 10th lap for points. Most important, however, is the bonus of 20 points they get for lapping the field.
Llaneras, Kluge and Newton were the only three riders to lap the field twice.

Speaking shortly after his victory, Llaneras said he was thinking of his former madison partner, Isaac Galvez, who died after crashing during a race in Belgium in 2006.
«I remember all the people who support me. At this very moment, I remember Isaac,» Llaneras said.
Saturday also saw the first round of the women’s individual pursuit, and again it was a British rout.
World champion Rebecca Romero will face her compatriot Wendy Houvenaghel in the gold medal race on Sunday afternoon, while Alison Shanks of New Zealand will face Lesya Kalitovska of Ukraine for the bronze medal.
Shanks put out two-time world champion Sarah Hammer of the United States and Romero beat Athens silver medalist Katie Mactier of Australia.
Romero is competing in her first Olympic cycling event but already has a medal _ she was part of the British team that took silver in the quadruple sculls in rowing, four years ago in Athens.
Houvenaghel, a 33-year-old dental surgeon, began cycling only six years ago. She took gold with Romero in the women’s team pursuit at the world championships in March.

source: pr-inside.com

Roger Federer’s bid for his first Olympic singles medal has ended with a loss to American James Blake. With the sort of lackluster performance that was once unthinkable for Federer, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals on Thursday night. Meanwhile, Serena and Venus Williams both lost as well.

The Federer upset was a stunner in that Blake had won only a single set in their previous eight matches. But the top-seeded Federer is battling a yearlong slump that has left him stalled at 12 major titles, two shy of Pete Sampras’ record.

Federer’s latest defeat means no rematch in Sunday’s final against Nadal, who won in epic fashion when they met for the Wimbledon title.

Serena Williams lost her quarterfinal match at the Olympics to Elena Dementieva of Russia.

Dementieva, who won a Silver in Sydney in 2000, beat Williams 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in their singles match Thursday night.

Williams now pins her medal hopes on doubles. She was to play a second-round doubles match later with sister Venus. They won gold in doubles in Sydney.

The fourth-seeded Serena tried to rally from a 5-0 deficit in the final set against the No. 5-seeded Dementieva.

Williams overcame two match points during an 18-point game to hold for 5-3. But Dementieva held at love in the next game, sealing the victory when Williams pushed a volley wide.

Venus Williams was another upset victim in Olympic tennis, losing to Li Na of China in the quarterfinals.

Williams, who won gold medals in singles and doubles at the 2000 Games, was beaten 7-5, 7-5. She followed to the sideline her sister Serena and top-seeded Roger Federer, who both lost earlier Thursday.

A wayward forehand plagued Williams, and she sent one long to lose serve and fall behind 6-5 in the second set. The reigning Wimbledon champion had three more forehand errors in the final game, and when Li hit a service winner on match point, the crowd responded with the biggest roar of the tournament.

Williams remained in the doubles competition and was to play with her sister in the quarterfinals later Thursday.

from: ap.google.com