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Olympics Notes

Courageous coach admits he was the whistleblower

Compiled by Adam Daff

Hours after U.S. sprinter Justin Gatlin stunned the world by winning Olympic gold in the 100 metres, his coach made a surprise admission, revealing he was the anonymous source that sparked a doping investigation that rocked the world of athletics over the past several months.

Trevor Graham, coach of the newly crowned Olympic 100-metre sprint champion, told Reuters on Monday that he was the man who sent a syringe of the designer drug tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, to the United States Anti-Doping Agency in June 2003.

"I did it. As a coach it seemed the right thing to do at the time and it still does," he said. "Would I do it again? Yes."

After receiving the drug, the USADA had it studied at UCLA laboratories, where it was determined to be a designer steroid modified to escape detection in testing. The USADA came up with a test for the new drug and began to re-test urine samples.

Graham, a then-anonymous track and field coach, fingered the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), a San Francisco-based nutritional supplements lab, and its founder Victor Conte, as the source of THG.

As a result, the BALCO labs were raided by agents from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force.

Track and field athletes charged with doping violations as a result of the BALCO investigation have included Tim Montgomery, Alvin Harrison, Kelli White, Michelle Collins, Chryste Gaines, Dwain Chambers and Kevin Toth.

The scandal reached the world of pro sports as well, with baseball's Barry Bonds and boxer Shane Mosley among those subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

Canadian Dick Pound, the outspoken head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, was pleased upon hearing the news of the positive test.

"That’s good," said Pound. "If we got another one (cheater), that's great. It shows that you can't go to Ancient Olympia and screw around and get away with it."

— CBC Sports Online

Tears of joy

After two failed attempts Morocco’s champion runner, Hicham el-Guerrouj, made Olympic history Tuesday.

Guerrouj, who has broken every record in his discipline and is one of the world’s greatest middle distance runners, outlasted Bernard Lagat of Kenya in the final thrilling 50 metres of the men’s 1,500m race and then edged him at the line by 12-hundredths of a second.

In 1996, in Atlanta, Guerrouj crashed into another runner and fell, finishing last. The king of Morocco called to console him.

In 2000, in Sydney, Noah Ngeny of Kenya outran him in the final 50 metres and Guerrouj said he had let down his country.

"Four years ago, I cried tears of sadness; today I cry tears of joy," said Guerrouj after Tuesday’s race.

Rower criticized

The Australian women’s eights crew has been engulfed by a controversy after one of their best rowers inexplicably stopped rowing before the finish line during the final last weekend.

Australian Olympic Committee team boss John Coates summoned the crew after several members breached team guidelines by publicly criticizing Sally Robbins.

Chairman of Rowing Australia, Pat McNamara, has slammed the frenzy surrounding the performance of Robbins, saying it reminded him of the treatment Lindy Chamberlain received more than two decades ago when "a dingo ate" her baby.

In a media conference, Robbins said she has broken down during a race before and blamed the problem on anxiety.

The Australians were not in medal contention but experts and fans alike have been split as to why 23-year-old Robbins couldn’t finish and what action, if any, should be taken.

The crew’s coach, Harald Jahrling, walked out of the team function on Sunday night and shortly afterwards left Greece.

Israeli strikes gold

Israeli windsurfer Gal Fridman made Olympic history on Wednesday by winning his country’s first Olympic gold medal.

Fridman, 28, captured the men’s Mistral title after finishing second in the final race. He logged 42 net points, the best overall score after the 11-race tournament.

Nikos Kaklamanakis of Greece, who lit the 2004 Olympic Torch at the Opening Ceremony, won silver.

Israel made its Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Its first medal was in judo, 40 years later in Barcelona.

Japan falls to Aussies

In a pitching duel that was described as a classic, Australia upset heavily favoured Japan 1-0 Tuesday to advance to the gold medal baseball game against Cuba.

First baseman Brendan Kingman’s RBI single in the top of the sixth inning was the only run the Australians needed as great pitching from the San Diego Padres’ 27-year-old prized prospect, Chris Oxspring, and stellar defence took care of the rest.

The Australians have 17 professional players and three retired major leaguers in their side.

10 weightlifters caught

Another weightlifter has failed a dope test at the Olympics, bringing the number of known cases to 10.

Seven athletes failed tests carried out by the IWF while three weightlifters were snared in the IOC’s testing. The most high-profile case involved local hero Leonidas Sampanis who was stripped of his bronze medal after he tested positive for high testosterone levels.

Doping scandals in recent years has dogged weightlifting; the Bulgarian team was stripped of three gold medals and tossed out of the 2000 Sydney Olympics after a series of positive drug tests.

Iraq stuns Olyroos

The success of Iraq’s soccer team is one of the stories of this Olympics but Australian coach Frank Farina was not happy last week when his side became one of the victims of their "fairytale" in a 1-0 loss.

The Australian coach has been battling to put soccer where it should be on the Australian sporting landscape for about 20 years and when the "Olyroos" were beaten he addressed the gesture by the Royal Australian Air Force who transported the Iraqi team to the Olympics.

"Put ’em on a slow boat, I reckon," Farina told The Australian newspaper.

Iraq lost 3-1 to Paraguay in the semi-finals and will play Italy for the bronze medal. Paraguay plays Argentina in the final.

The only other medal Iraq has won was a weightlifting bronze at the 1960 Rome Games. Paraguay has never won an Olympic medal.

Best ever

The Australian men’s cycling (4km) pursuit team has been hailed as the greatest ever by an unusual source, the British.

Great Britain’s pursuit team had to settle for silver Tuesday after the Australian team of four riders almost bettered the world record of 3 minutes 56.610 seconds they had set two days earlier.

British rider Bradley Wiggins said, "the Australian team are the best team there has ever been."

U.S. Women untouchable

Another team that can lay claim to being the "best ever" is the U.S. softball team.

The American women almost won the women’s softball tournament without having a run scored against them.

The Americans (9-0) had outscored the opposition 51-0 during the tournament until the sixth inning in the final when Australian hitter Stacey Porter brought home Sandra Allen with a single to left field.

Their gold-medal victory was the U.S. women’s 79th consecutive victory in international play since last July.

Heat takes toll

Greece’s harsh summer weather claimed a high profile athlete last week in the women’s marathon when British world record holder Paula Radcliffe failed to complete the distance.

Radcliffe, who had won three of her previous marathons, sat on the curb and cried three miles from the finish in Athens last Monday with her medal hopes in tatters.

Radcliffe is a bigger runner and obviously struggled in the heat that British athletic officials said reached 49 degrees on the tarmac.

Fast recovery

Jana Pittman, Australia’s world champion in the 400 metre hurdles, has been making headlines in the athletics week because she qualified for the final just 17 days after having arthroscopic knee surgery. Greece’s Fani Halkia stole all the glory in the final when she powered past Pittman down the straight and won gold. Pittman finished fifth.

Judges suspended

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) have suspended three judges that cost the South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-young the men’s individual all-around gold.

The gold was awarded to U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm but a judging error gave Yang the wrong start value (9.9 instead of a 10.0) on the parallel bars.

The start value reflects the degree of difficulty of a routine. Had he been scored using the correct start value, Yang would have wound up with 57.874 points and defeated Hamm by .05.

Russian tests positive

Russian shot putter Irina Korzhanenko was officially stripped of her gold medal by the IOC on Monday.

Korzhanenko, who tested positive for the steroid stanozolol earlier in the week, was the first champion of the Athens Games to be stripped of an Olympic gold.

Stanozolol is the same steroid Canadian 100-metre sprinter Ben Johnson used. He was stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Games.

Seven medals consolation

U.S. swimming sensation Michael Phelps finished this Olympics with five gold medals (four individual), one silver and one bronze.

Phelps had hoped to surpass American swimmer Mark Spitz’s gold medal haul of seven at the 1972 Munich Games. As consolation, he will get his name in the record books next to Spitz and fellow American Matt Biondi for winning seven swimming medals in a single Olympics.

Class of her own

Chinese weightlifter Liu Chunhong’s only competition in Athens was herself.

The 19 year old broke three of her own world records en route to winning gold in the women’s under-69 kilogram weight class.

Liu set new world, junior and Olympic records for the snatch (122.5 kg), clean-and-jerk (153 kg) and total weight (275 kg).

Liu’s performance was so overwhelming that each of her lifts would have set records in the 69 to 75 kg weight class.

Tugboat provides wings

U.S. time-trial cyclist Tyler Hamilton, who was the man many people thought might beat Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France this year, dedicated his gold medal time-trial ride to his dog, Tugboat.

Tugboat died of cancer during the Tour de France, not long before Hamilton was involved in a shocking crash that forced him out of the Tour and left him with two hematomas on his back.

"My dog, Tugboat, he gave me wings today," Hamilton said after he won the gold medal.

One of the greatest

Dutch rider Leontien Zijlaard van-Moorsel has cemented her place as one of the greatest cyclists of all time after winning a fourth Olympic crown in the women’s time trial.

Moorsel won the time trial despite falling in the road race and being left with a severely bruised shoulder and hip.

She also took the bronze medal in the 3000 metre individual pursuit in the velodrome last week.

New heights

Yelena Isinbayeva has broken the women’s vaulting world record and helped stamp Russia’s dominance on the event.

Isinbayeva eclipsed her own world record with a mark of 4.91 metres for the gold medal Tuesday while her Russian teammate, Svetlana Feofanova, won the silver medal.

Isinbayeva’s feat was .01 metres more than her old mark set earlier this year and it surpassed American Stacy Dragila’s Olympic record of 4.60 m set in 2000 at Sydney.

Ethiopian recogized

The Greeks sent one of the greatest distance runners of all time out on a high last Saturday when they rose to their feet and applauded Haile Gebrselassie as he finished the 10,000-metre race.

The ovation wasn’t for Gebrselassie’s performance; he finished fifth while his protégé, Kenenisa Bekele, won the race. The Greeks cheered more for the Ethiopian because during his career he has won 17 world records and four world championships.

Gebreselassie will be mentioned in the same breath as all-time track greats such as Paavo Nurmi and Lassie Viren.