International Capsules: Precocius Caldwell ahead of schedule for Team USA

As life-defining moments go, Ashley Caldwell’s was decidedly low-key.

The budding 16-year-old aerialist was playing basketball at the U.S. Winter Olympics training center in Lake Placid a couple weeks ago when coach Ryan Snow popped his head in the door.

"He came in and he goes ‘Hey Ashley, you’re on the Olympic team, good job Kiddo,"’ Caldwell said. "I was like, ‘Cool. Awesome. Yes."’

And then the youngest and most surprising member of the US Olympic Freestyle team went right back to shooting hoops.

No celebration. No shouting. No frantic texting. The former gymnast-turned-aerials prodigy didn’t even call her parents Mark and Leslie until a few hours later.

"It just really didn’t hit me," Caldwell said.

Maybe because Vancouver was never part of the plan. Not the original plan, anyway.

When Caldwell opted to ditch gymnastics for aerials — think of it as gymnastics on skis — a couple years ago, she was simply looking for a new challenge and possibly a sport with a few more opportunities at the elite level.

Her parents suggested attending freestyle skiing summer camp in New Hampshire back in 2007. She was immediately hooked.

Here was a sport that allowed her to continue flipping upside down — "it’s kind of my thing," she said — while doing it five stories in the air.

It’s exactly what the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association had in mind. Alarmed at how the American aerials team — which has just one silver medal since Eric Bergoust and Nikki Stone won gold in 1998 — was getting surpassed by Winter Olympic newcomers like China and Australia, the USSA responded by starting the Elite Air Program.

The goal is to cultivate potential jumpers by giving them the guidance, teaching and support difficult to find at the club level.

"We fast track these athletes forward so we can be more competitive," said USA Freestyle coach Jeff Wintersteen. "It’s not like China, who is waist deep in girls 10-years-old and incredibly acrobatic. We could see the writing on the wall and we had to adapt to it."

Caldwell’s talent was immediately evident, yet her work ethic — culled from thousands of hours in the gym as a kid —is what set her apart from the kids in the fledgling program.

Consider this: Caldwell did 15,000 layouts on the trampoline last summer, documenting each one. That number doesn’t include the more difficult back-full layouts and double-full layouts that became part of her routine as she progressed.

"It takes a special kid to be able to do that," Wintersteen said. "Ashley is a superior kid. She’s tailor made for what she’s doing right now."

Even if she didn’t quite know how quickly she was coming along. Caldwell was so focused on her long-term goal: making the Olympic team in time for the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, that she didn’t see Vancouver as a possibility.

It took a pep talk from coach Dmitriy Kavunov during a rough patch last summer to get her attention. Caldwell was struggling and the perfectionist in her was growing frustrated. Her body language — slumping — showed she was in the need of a slight attitude adjustment.

Kavunov told her to relax and enjoy herself, remember that she was only a teenager and try to have some fun. If she did that, Kavunov said, the Olympics would come.

"He was like, ‘I really need you to work hard because I want to take you to the Olympic Games,"’ Caldwell said.

She rolled her eyes and said "Yeah, yeah, Sochi, I know."

Uh, no.

"He said, ‘Actually, I mean Vancouver,"’ she said. "I guess I didn’t have a realistic view. I didn’t realize how I would stack up and do as well as I did."

Caldwell might not have been paying attention, but she was the only one. Vancouver popped into Wintersteen’s radar after Caldwell received two perfect scores in competition last February.

"We were pretty excited about her," he said. "But we were concerned because we’d seen the mistakes other nations have made in terms of moving athletes through. We didn’t want to move her too quickly."

Caldwell’s precociousness didn’t give them much choice. She finished second at the U.S. Olympic Trials in December, then put together a pair of top-12 performances in World Cup events last month.

When the U.S. Olympic Freestyle team opted not to send a female skicrosser to Vancouver, it created the chance to bring more than three skiers in other disciplines.

Suddenly, the Elite Air Program had its first Olympic graduate four years ahead of schedule.

Though her teammates tease her from time to time about her age, to be honest, she enjoys it. The oldest of four kids, she’s always played the role of big sister. It’s kind of fun being the new kid.

"It’s a nice older-sibling bond that I have with them, which is really nice," she said. "I get along better with these guys than I do anybody my own age."

It’s a maturity that was evident two summers ago to teammate Emily Cook. The longtime aerials veteran, now 30, shared a room with Caldwell for two months in the summer of 2008.

"She’s just an amazing girl," Cook said. "I’ve been around for quite a while, and to have someone with such a fresh take on the sport, it’s humbling."

Caldwell’s take includes a pretty ambitious goal: jumping as well as the men do. They way she sees it, there’s still plenty of room to grow in women’s aerials, and she doesn’t see it as a sport where all the big tricks — like teammate Jeret Peterson’s "Hurricane" — have to belong to the guys. She’d like to close the gap.

The journey begins in Vancouver. She’d like to make the finals, but doesn’t see herself on the medal stand. At least not this time.

Still, gold — be it in Sochi or beyond — remains the focus. She met Bergoust for the first time at an event in Utah recently. The quirky Bergoust actually had his Olympic gold medal in his pocket. He asked Caldwell if she wanted to hold it.

"I told him I was going to wait and get one of my own," she said with a laugh.

She was kidding. She took it in her hands to get the feel of it, then the legend and the new torchbearer spent 20 minutes talking shop.

It’s not the normal life of an American teenager. That’s just fine with Caldwell.

"Going to Prom, going to Homecoming, going out on dates, anybody can have those experiences," she said. "I’m traveling the world and meeting Olympians."

Including the one in the mirror.

Snowboarding’s visionary likes what he sees

ASPEN, Colo. — Lots of people like to say they were there at the beginning.

Jake Burton really was.

The man who had a feeling the snowboard could provide more than merely a way to pass time and save money on the back hills now sees his name on those boards at pretty much every ski resort in America.

He watches one of his proteges, Shaun White, making millions and dominating the pro scene. He hears the old debate — the discussion about whether snowboarding really belongs in the mainstream — being replaced by more relevant topics. All in all, he likes the landscape he sees, as snowboarding gets ready for its fourth Olympics — more than three decades after Burton made a business out of the so-called lifestyle sport.

"For a while there, snowboarding got a little bit too much of, sort of, ‘I’m better than you,’ and there was sort of a hierarchy," Burton said last weekend at the Winter X Games. "Now, I just think it’s much more pure. Everyone from the kids to the best riders in the world, they’re clearly having the time of their lives."

Having a good time: That was the backbone of snowboarding, from the time Sherman Poppen rigged together two skis and a rope to make what he called a Snurfer in 1965, to when Burton quit his job in Manhattan a dozen years later to advance the concept and bring the boards to the masses.

The ability for elite riders to "have fun" and keep things pure while they were competing for gold medals and fame has long been the central dilemma for a sport that waged both internal and external battles over its trajectory into the mainstream.

For decades, ski resorts rejected snowboarders as reckless, stoners and neer-do-wells. (And possibly, quite possibly, because they didn’t spend enough.)

"I remember going to the contests, them handing us a shovel and saying, ‘go ahead,’ and we’d start digging out the halfpipe," said Seth Wescott, the defending Olympic champion in snowboardcross.

Also for decades, snowboarders chafed at the thought of having outside forces, mainly from the buttoned-down skiing world, telling them how to run their competitions.

These days, many of the old debates are fading, in part because the biggest stars of the sport have largely embraced where the sport has gone.

"When I started, it was a small pack of people," said Shaun Palmer, one of the first to bring it to the masses in the 1990s. "You saw a snowboard on a car, you knew who it was. We weren’t allowed on a ski lift. It’s cool to see it like it is now."

The next big issue, it seems, will be how much is too much.

White, with his long, red hair and breezy, engaging personality, has raised the bar for snowboarding but also found himself alienated from some of his fellow competitors, who make only a fraction of his estimated $9 million a year. (A good portion of which comes from Burton’s company.)

"He’s so into it, though," Burton said. "You really get the feeling that if the whole thing went away and there wasn’t a penny in it, he’d be doing it. It’s the fact that he’s so easygoing and so clearly enjoying the whole process. That’s why he connects with people."

There is also a rapidly evolving danger component to the sport — both on the wipeout-filled snowboardcross courses and on the halfpipe, where White’s multi-flipping, multi-twisting Double McTwist 1260 is the trick that will win — or lose — the Olympic gold medal.

Burton is convinced all these issues will sort themselves out the way most have over the years: The riders will figure it out.

"If the sport got to the point where halfpipe riding became really dangerous, I think riders would do something about it," he said. "It wouldn’t be cool anymore. Then something would have to happen and something would have to be tweaked."

For Exhibit A, Burton brings up the example of early snowboardcross courses, which were built by amateurs using relatively unsophisticated equipment. They were much more dangerous than they are today. Riders called them the "ring of fire," and many walked away and moved toward the halfpipe.

This isn’t to say Burton believes lassiez faire is always the way to go.

He was in the middle of the angst back in 1998, when snowboarding was introduced to the Olympics against the wishes of many of the top riders.

Some memories from Nagano included the misspelling of the actual word on the Olympic scoreboard: "Sno-boarding." And one day, race officials watered down the giant slalom course — something that may be acceptable for skiers, but not for snowboarders — then did nothing after it snowed on top of the surface and riders couldn’t see the glassy surface beneath.

Burton decided to get more involved at every level of the sport — publically and behind the scenes. Four years later, at the Salt Lake City Olympics, snowboarding had what is widely thought of as its greatest day — an American sweep on the halfpipe in front of about 30,000 fans, many of whom moved down the mountain to watch when Alpine events were canceled.

Since then, White has burgeoned into a star, snowboarding has become an accepted part of the mountain culture, and Burton’s company has prospered. The red, white and blue plaid uniforms the U.S. Olympic snowboard team wears in Vancouver — that’s a Burton design, as are the majority of the snowboards now seen at hundreds of resorts across America.

Burton is estimated to have between 40 and 70 percent of a market, depending on the sector, that’s valued at somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion each year, depending on whether you include apparel in the math. Just as significantly in an era of boom and bust, Burton’s company has never grown by more than 100 percent in a single year.

He likes that his company, and his sport, has been on a much more steady, consistent path than, say, the dot.com companies that sprouted up and were run by the younger generation — much the way snowboarding evolved — in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"I had a vision there was a sport there, that it was more than just a sledding thing, which is all it was then," Burton said. "I had no clue whatsoever that you’d be building parks and halfpipes and that kind of thing. I’m happy about that. I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Sure, I’ve gotten jaded in many ways, but it’s never felt out of my reach. We’re doing something that’s going to last here. It’s not like just hitting the lottery one day."

-- Eddie Pells

Vonn, Vancouver give Alpine chance to lift profile

Lindsey Vonn recalls being mobbed by fans when Alpine skiing’s World Cup made its debut stop at Bansko, Bulgaria, a year ago.

Even with her husband, her coach, two trainers and two bodyguards flanking her, Vonn felt trapped by the boisterous crowd while trying to exit the finish area.

"We just couldn’t escape," the two-time overall World Cup champion says, "and people were attacking me and trying to jump on me. It was definitely a surreal experience."

Vonn has grown accustomed to such scenes when she’s overseas, where ski racing is a major sport. As 2006 Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety explains: "In Europe, ski racing is definitely a lot crazier and a lot more popular."

In the United States? Not so much.

"I don’t think most people in Times Square would know what ski racing was, let alone know who I was," Vonn says with a sigh. "But that’s fine. It’s nice to be anonymous and go places without people knowing who you are, sometimes."

The 25-year-old Vonn, who lives and trains in Vail, Colo., sees the close-to-home Feb. 12-28 Vancouver Olympics as a real chance to boost Alpine skiing’s profile in the United States.

Others in the sport agree — and see the charismatic and talented American as someone who could help make that happen.

"Everybody knows the Olympics is a huge opportunity for us," U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association CEO Bill Marolt says. "It’s our chance to shine. It’s our chance to promote the organization — USSA, U.S. Ski Team, U.S. Snowboarding — but it’s also our opportunity to promote the sport. We can make some real progress with some success."

That points to Vonn, whom Marolt calls "the whole package."

"She understands her role. ... She understands that she’s got to be ready, and she’s got to perform. But then, after the athletic contest, and after she’s had success, she needs to make herself available — to fans, to kids, to media, to sponsors," Marolt says. "That’s critical for her and her future, and it’s critical for the industry, and what we’re trying to do as a sport."

Alpine skiing, of course, is hardly the only niche sport hoping to build some buzz at these Winter Games. Officials from such events as curling (think brooms) and biathlon (think skis and guns) know what’s at stake, too.

"It’s huge for us. We’re expecting or anticipating full-game coverage both of the morning and afternoon draws. ... We hope to parlay that into other coverage down the road," says Rick Patzke, USA Curling’s chief operating officer.

"This is our time to shine and then build off of that," Patzke adds.

Max Cobb, executive director of U.S. Biathlon, talks about all of the extra media coverage his sport will get this month as "really important to inspiring the next generation of Nordic athletes."

Here’s something the most optimistic officials might also be pondering: Perhaps fans’ attention will be spread around more than usual during these Olympics because there is no standout American female figure skater, no one expected to be as big a deal in her sport as Vonn could be in hers.

"If we can have a little success early, I think there’s a chance we can get a lot of focus," Marolt says.

Figure skating is the no-doubt-about-it No. 1 Winter Olympics event when it comes to U.S. TV ratings. But its prominence in the United States has declined over the last four years because there is no blockbuster American female star right now, the way Michelle Kwan was for a decade.

No American woman has earned a medal at the world championships since 2006, and neither Kimmie Meissner, who won gold that year, nor Sasha Cohen, who won bronze, is on the U.S. Olympic team this time around.

Still, counting on a long-standing general appeal, NBC will air every figure skating event live and in prime time in the Eastern and Central time zones. There also will be a "Vancouver Figure Skating Hour" each afternoon on Universal Sports.

Alpine skiing gets no such treatment. NBC will show the races on tape in the evening, which should add to the exposure, even if results will be known.

Current and former ski racers figure that anyone who does tune in can’t help but get hooked.

"There are certain sports you don’t need to know anything about — car racing, sprinting, bull fighting. Ski racing is like that," says Billy Kidd, who won a silver medal for the United States in the slalom at the 1964 Olympics. "When you go from the top of the mountain down to the valley floors as fast as you can, and you average 65 mph — the speed limit on the interstate — and all you have for protection is long underwear and a thin layer of Lycra, that’s a pretty interesting sport. People are still interested in watching it on their televisions."

NBC has made Vonn one of the focal points of its advertising in the lead-up to the Olympics.

Other racers recognize that if she fares well, their sport will, too.

"Lindsey’s success has been great for us as a team, in general," U.S. downhiller Andrew Weibrecht says. "As a country, we don’t get a whole lot of exposure as ski racers, unless somebody’s right at the top, kind of dominating the sport."

Vonn’s been doing that the past few years on the World Cup circuit.

Now she’ll take to a bigger stage, aiming to win medals — and win some new fans for her sport.

"I’ve been pushing skiing for the last few years, with the media and everything, and trying to get people excited about it," Vonn says. "But the Olympics is really the time when America pays attention."

-- Howard Fendrich

Kalla wins cross country skiing World Cup event

CANMORE, Alberta — Charlotte Kalla of Sweden edged overall leader Justyna Kowalczyk to win a cross country World Cup race Friday, while Giorgio DiCenta held off fellow Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer in the men’s race.

The World Cup meet over the 1988 Olympic trails in the mountains west of Calgary is serving as a final tuneup for the Vancouver Olympics, where cross country skiing begins Feb. 15.

Kalla made two trips around the 5-kilometer course in 25 minutes, beating Kowalczyk by 10 seconds. Irina Khazova of Russia finished third.

Caitlin Compton was the top American finisher in 14th, with teammates Morgan Arritola in 23rd and Holly Brooks in 24th. Those three will join world championship silver medalist Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen on the U.S. team headed to Vancouver.

DiCenta won the 15-kilometer men’s World Cup race Friday in 34:08.0, holding off his teammate down the stretch. Dario Cologna outdistanced fellow Swiss skier Toni Livers for third.

Kris Freeman led the U.S. contingent in 20th place, followed by Matthew Edward Liebsch in 29th and Garrott Kuzzy in 33rd. Freeman and Kuzzy will be joined by James Southam, Torin Koos, Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton at the Olympics.

The U.S. cross country team is expected to arrive in Vancouver on Tuesday.

British skiing goes bankrupt, will still compete

LONDON — The British ski and snowboard federation has gone bankrupt, but the national Olympic committee says athletes will still compete in Vancouver.

The British Olympic Association said Friday that it will put in place a contingency plan to make sure the 14 skiers and snowboarders on the country’s Olympic team can participate in the Vancouver Games, which start Feb. 12. The association said the International Ski Federation has approved a plan to let a subsidiary company act as national body for the sports.

Snowsport GB needed to secure $326,000 in funding by the end of January to stave off bankruptcy.

The British team includes Alpine skier Chemmy Alcott and snowboarder Zoe Gillings.

Olympic hockey

NHL’s biggest Olympic fear: A star gets hurt

PITTSBURGH — There’s a loose puck in the corner during an extremely physical grudge match Olympic game between Canada and Russia, and $170 million worth of NHL talent is chasing it.

Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin arrive at the same instant, ice shavings flying in their paths. A violent collision occurs, a star goes down. An entire league holds its collective breath in fear.

It’s hockey ultimate nightmare: The Olympics, played before a vast worldwide audience that the NHL can’t begin to command during its season, are the end of a megastar’s career rather than the culmination of a lifelong quest for a gold medal.

Some players stubbornly refuse to weigh the potentially greater risk of injury in such a high-tempo tournament, others say they cannot play a sport so fast and fierce with any such worry in the back of their minds.

Still, every player heading to Vancouver in a week’s time likely is going there with two goals, not just one: Win a gold medal, and not get hurt.

"You’re not out there thinking, ‘I’m hitting this guy but not hitting that guy,’" said Russia defenseman Sergei Gonchar of the Pittsburgh Penguins. "You’re going out there to win these games. You do everything possible to win these games."

The risk of injury in Vancouver potentially is greater because games will be played on a regulation NHL-sized rink (200 feet by 85 feet) in the Canucks’ home arena rather than the wider international rink (200 feet by 98 feet), where less contact occurs.

"This Olympics will be an even harder tempo and it’s going to be more physical because we’re going to be playing on a smaller ice surface," Gonchar said. "But if you go on the ice and worry about that stuff, you won’t be at your best. And, obviously, playing at the Olympic games, you want to be at your best."

Being at one’s best in the Olympics potentially means finding a teammate in harm’s way.

If the anticipated Russia-Canada game takes place, Crosby and Penguins teammate Evgeni Malkin, last season’s scoring champion and Stanley Cup playoffs MVP, would be on opposing sides for the first time as NHL players.

Malkin already has displayed the edge that players take with them to an Olympics; he was suspended one game in 2006 for kicking Canada’s Vincent Lecavalier.

"It’s different, but it’s also going to be great," Malkin said of opposing Crosby in a high-stakes game. "We’ll see who wins. I want to win, he wants to win."

Players’ careers will be judged forever in their homelands by how they perform in these games, and there can be no letting up. This isn’t the Pro Bowl, where the physicality doesn’t approach the level of an NFL exhibition game.

As the salaries of stars increase, league owners are becoming reluctant to free up top talent for high-tempo games that feature Stanley Cup finals-like intensity and physicality. Ovechkin has a $124 million contract with the Washington Capitals, yet as many as six of the biggest and most stressful games he plays this year might not be in their uniform.

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, understandably concerned, discussed the threat of injury with his captain. Ovechkin’s response? He could get hurt riding an exercise bike or during practice.

"You can’t expect anyone to let up or change their point of view because you play with them. I expect Gonch (Gonchar) to hit me just as he would hit anyone else on Team Canada and I would expect him to respect the same thing with me, too," Crosby said. "I don’t think he’s going into the corner thinking I’m going to let up on him and that’s the game we play. That’s the common understanding that we have, there’s nothing that you can really do to change that, that’s just the way it is."

In Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Olympics, there is a similar thought as the Vancouver games approach: Please don’t let anyone get hurt, because a major injury might end any chance of the NHL sending its players to a fourth consecutive winter games.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said injury concerns will be a major consideration as the league weighs whether to shut down again for two weeks in late February, a prime time in the schedule when the NFL season is over and the NBA is only other major American sports league playing games.

Consider this: Wouldn’t the Indianapolis Colts be reluctant to allow Peyton Manning and Dwight Freeney to play if football had a World Cup-type competition? The Chicago Blackhawks, enjoying their best season in years, are sending a half-dozen players to Vancouver, and any injury could be disruptive.

In 2006, the Ottawa Senators won the Eastern Conference regular-season title but were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs after goalie Dominik Hasek’s injury in Turin ended his season.

"A team that sends eight or nine players might come back a little more tired or banged-up than an NHL team that sends none or one or two," commissioner Gary Bettman said.

-- Alan Robinson

Anti-Doping

UK Anti-Doping to issue biological passports

LONDON — British anti-doping authorities will provide the country’s athletes with biological passports in an effort to deter the use of banned substances ahead of the London 2012 Olympics.

UK Anti-Doping announced the effort Friday in collaboration with the WADA-accredited laboratory at King’s College London. It’s similar to the program used by the International Cycling Union to monitor professional riders.

The King’s College London Drug Control Center is the only lab in Britain accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Traditional anti-doping tests compare the level of substances in samples to the average in the general population. The new system of blood tests allows scientists to measure results against the athletes’ individual norms to spot unusual readings.

"This new program will compare the athlete with himself or herself rather than against the population at large," Drug Control Center director Professor David Cowan said. "The effect of this will make it far easier to catch the doped athlete.

"We believe that this will act as a powerful deterrent for the good of all healthy athletes and maintain the integrity of sport."

The passport program began last month with a group of athletes. They will be tested periodically so their regular levels of substances such as testosterone can be recorded and used as a baseline against which future tests can be measured.

"The blood-profiling program is a major step forward in the fight against doping in sport and provides us with another tool to support clean athletes," UK Anti-Doping chief executive Andy Parkinson said. "As doping and dopers become more sophisticated, we need to continue to improve and evolve our methods of detection to keep up."

The lab is mostly used to dealing with urine samples and can detect any of the 60 or so substances on WADA’s banned list. Its efficiency and reliability is checked by the world body through the occasional submission of test samples without the knowledge of lab workers.

All samples are sent by courier to the lab in tamperproof glass jars. Any attempt to open the jars without the lab’s dedicated clamp-like, hand-wound device shatters them.

Every stage of the sample’s journey from athlete to the end of the testing process is documented.

Working against a back drop of the low hum of machinery, the scientists note each time a sample is removed from the refrigerator to protect its integrity and help protect against the oft-employed defense by athletes that positive samples have been incorrectly stored or handled.

The King’s College lab usually deals with about 8,000 samples per year, but expects to handle between 5,000 and 6,000 during the two weeks of the London Olympics.

The time between arrival of the sample and publication of the result will be reduced from about 10 days to 24 hours for the duration of the games. The college will borrow staff from the 35 WADA-accredited laboratories worldwide to keep up with the workload.

The lab will be open around the clock, with extra equipment loaned by manufacturers.

"I use the Olympic motto," Cowan said. "Faster, higher, stronger: we want faster analysis to deal with an Olympic Games, higher sensitivity and a stronger group."

Cowan is heading to Vancouver to serve on the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission task force, overseeing the anti-doping operation at the Winter Olympics.

Cowan said the roles could be reversed in two years time, with Cristiane Ayotte of the Montreal anti-doping lab likely to oversee the local lab at London 2012.

"I am sure it will work perfectly, but this gives the added protection," Cowan said. "It makes us 200 percent sure that when the lab puts out a result, everything has been checked out and it’s all OK before the IOC takes action against a competitor."

-- Stuart Condie

Olympic hurdler Ross suspended 2 years for PED use

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Olympic hurdler Duane Ross has received a two-year suspension from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for using performance enhancing drugs.

The USADA announced the ban Friday, along with the disqualification of all Ross’ results in competition since Nov. 2, 2001.

Ross, a North Carolina native, was the runner-up in 110 meter hurdles at the 2004 Olympic Trials. He competed at the Athens Games.

Ross was one of several athletes to testify in federal court in 2008 against track coach Trevor Graham, who was convicted of lying to investigators in the BALCO steroid case.

USADA says the sanctions against Ross resulted from recently received information from the BALCO.

Olympics

Aussies under pressure to remove kangaroo flag

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Australian Olympic officials say they will take down a giant "boxing kangaroo" flag from the Vancouver athletes’ village if they receive an official request from the IOC.

The green and gold flag, which depicts a red-gloved cartoon kangaroo, has been hanging from a balcony from the Australian team’s living area in the village since Sunday.

The Australian Olympic Committee said an IOC official asked that the flag be removed because it is too commercial and a registered trademark.

AOC spokesman Mike Tancred said Friday the Australians have refused to take it down, but will oblige if they get a written request from the International Olympic Committee.

"If they want us to take it down, we’ll take it down," he told The Associated Press.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the committee is looking into the issue and hopes to have a decision "within the next few days."

Tancred said the flag has been displayed at all recent Olympics as a mascot for the Australian team and had not been a problem until now. He said the flag has been hugely popular with athletes of all nationalities in the Vancouver village.

Although the flag is a registered trademark, Tancred said it is not being used for commercial purposes in Canada.

"There must be a misunderstanding," he said. "We have no intention or capability of selling anything. We would never go to an Olympic Games and ambush somebody else’s sponsors."

The boxing kangaroo flag was originally flown from the Australian yacht which won the America’s Cup in 1983. It is now a registered trademark and used by the AOC to promote sport and fair play in schools in Australia.

Commercial imagery is not allowed at Olympic venues. National flags are usually the only banners permitted and are commonly displayed in the athletes’ villages.

Australia is also awaiting a ruling on it appeal to allow its 2-women bobsled team to compete at the Vancouver Games.

The AOC is seeking to gain a berth for Astrid Loch-Wilkinson and Cecilia McIntosh after the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (FIBT) decided not to award a place to any team from the Oceania region.

The Court of Arbitration, which has set up a special panel in Vancouver to hear any games-related disputes, agreed to hear the case. A hearing, originally scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed until Monday, Tancred said.

The women’s bobsled events start Feb. 23.

Australia was the top-ranked nation in Oceania, and the AOC said the pair met the minimum qualification standards imposed by the FIBT.

-- Stephen Wilson

Sailing

America’s Cup finally turns from court to sailing

VALENCIA, Spain — They’re finally going to sail the America’s Cup.

A dispute between two of the world’s richest men that kept sailing’s marquee regatta locked up in court has been resolved to the point that two-time defending champion Alinghi and American challenger BMW Oracle Racing will begin their best-of-three showdown Monday, weather-permitting.

It could be quite a show off the coast of Valencia.

BMW Oracle Racing, owned by software tycoon Larry Ellison, will sail the trimaran USA. The Swiss, headed by biotech mogul Ernesto Bertarelli, will counter with Alinghi 5, a catamaran. Both are 90 feet long and capable of sailing at three times the speed of the wind.

They’ll compete for the oldest trophy in international sports in the 33rd running of the event, which began in 1851. The silver trophy will either remain at the Societe Nautique de Geneve on the shores of Lake Geneva or be spirited back to America after a 15-year absence.

"If we win the America’s Cup, I think it absolutely is worth it," Ellison said in an interview Friday at his team’s base. "It’s the oldest trophy in sports. It hasn’t been in the United States for a very, very long time, and we’d love to return the America’s Cup to America."

While the court fight may have strengthened the perception that the America’s Cup is a haven for egos run amok, it also led to the development of two of the fastest, most powerful sailboats ever built. USA will use a radical wing sail that towers 223 feet off the deck and has flaps like an airplane wing.

While the boats are mind-boggling, no one really knows what to expect.

"This will be quite possibly the most spectacular America’s Cup ever, in some ways," said Paul Cayard, an American veteran of the America’s Cup, Olympics and round-the-world races who will broadcast the races for Eurosport.

"The boats are technologically the most advanced sailboats ever built," Cayard said. "The wing, for example, on BMW Oracle, is an incredible piece of technology, something that I’m sure Boeing and Aerospatiale engineers would marvel at themselves."

Money has been no object for either team in this nautical grudge match. Rough estimates are that each side has spent $200 million on their campaigns, including on designers, engineers, boatbuilders, the sailors, and, of course, the high-priced lawyers and public relations people.

The nasty spat between Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp., and Bertarelli started over the interpretation of the Deed of Gift, the 1887 document that governs the America’s Cup.

Because Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing couldn’t agree to rules for a conventional regatta involving several challengers sailing for the right to meet the defender, it defaulted to a rare head-to-head showdown, or Deed of Gift Match.

"It shouldn’t be this hard to get a fair set of racing rules," Ellison said. "I regret we were forced into taking any court action at all. But we really were forced into it."

Ellison said no one but Alinghi could win the America’s Cup with the original set of rules proposed by Bertarelli’s syndicate.

"Whoever heard of a sport where the umpire works for one the competitors? What he asked for was unprecedented, unsporting, and excuse me, but crazy," Ellison said. "And the court agreed with us."

There’s also the Russell Coutts factor.

Coutts won the America’s Cup twice with his native New Zealand and then with Alinghi in 2003, helping the Swiss become the first European team to win sailing’s biggest prize.

Coutts had a falling out with Bertarelli, was fired in 2004 and forced to sit out the 2007 America’s Cup. Ellison hired Coutts as soon as possible, as skipper and CEO.

"He thought with a fair set of rules he couldn’t come up with a team that could beat Russell Coutts," Ellison said. "If you want to win the America’s Cup, I suggest you hire Russell Coutts. His record’s not too bad. He’s been in three of them, and won them all."

After the teams expended all that time, money and effort on the court fight, the actual racing will be limited to a best-of-three series, which is called for in the Deed of Gift.

The first race will be 20 miles into the wind and 20 miles back to the starting line. The second race will be a triangle with 13-mile legs, the first into the wind and the last two legs across the wind, which can be a bit tricky for multihulls.

Bertarelli has said he’ll likely steer Alinghi 5. Ellison will sit out Race 1 due to weight constraints but plans to be aboard for Race 2, as navigator. If a third race is needed, it will be the same course as the first race.

There had been talk of a best-of-seven series, but as usual, the sides couldn’t agree.

If Alinghi wins, the teams are likely to return to court because the Americans contend that the Swiss sails are American-made, violating the Deed of Gift’s provision that the yachts be constructed in the country the teams represent.

For the time being, though, a New York judge told the bickering billionaires to go sail.

-- Bernie Wilson

America’s Cup Fact Box

VALENCIA, Spain — A look at defending champion Alinghi and challenger BMW Oracle ahead of Monday’s best-of-three America’s Cup series:

Defender

Alinghi

Country: Switzerland

Yacht club: Societe Nautique de Geneve

Established: 2000

Sail numbers: SUI

Estimated budget: $200 million

Head of syndicate: Ernesto Bertarelli

Skipper: Brad Butterworth

Helmsman: Ernesto Bertarelli

Designers: Rolf Vrolijk, Dirk Kramers and the Alinghi design team

Challenger

BMW Oracle Racing

Country: United States

Yacht Club: Golden Gate Yacht Club

Established: 2000

Sail numbers: USA 17

Estimated Budget: $200 million

Head of syndicate: Larry Ellison

Skipper: Russell Coutts

Helmsmen: James Spithill

Designers: Mike Drummond and BMW Oracle Racing Design Team

Brief Timeline

1851 — Schooner America beats out a fleet of British yachts to win the first edition, which was sailed around the Isle of Wight.

1983 — The United States’ dominance of the Cup holds out for 132 years before Australia II rallies from 3-1 down to beat Liberty 4-3 and secure the Auld Mug.

1987 — Dennis Connor’s Stars & Stripes beats Kookaburra III in Fremantle, Australia, 4-0 to return the Cup to U.S. soil.

1988 — Merchant banker Michael Fay finds Deed of Gift loophole to directly challenge Stars and Stripes, resulting in the only best-of-three series prior to 2010. Connor’s catamaran easily beats Fay’s monohull 2-0.

1995 — New Zealand’s Black Magic beats Young America 5-0 to give a Kiwi team its first title in San Diego. No American team has won since.

2003 — Alinghi becomes the first European team and first debut syndicate to win, sweeping Team New Zealand 5-0 in Auckland.

2007 — Alinghi retains trophy with a come-from-behind victory over Team New Zealand, winning a dramatic seventh race by one second to clinch the series 5-2.

BMW Oracle head eyes America’s Cup rule change

VALENCIA, Spain — The president of BMW Oracle intends to change the rules that govern the America’s Cup should the American challenger beat Alinghi in their best-of-three series.

Larry Ellison tells The Associated Press he would change the Deed of Gift so an "international governing body" would be able to set and monitor the competition. The winner has been doing that since the first race in 1851.

Ellison says Friday it is "absurd" that the umpires, the jury and the race officer are not independent.

The two syndicates have been arguing in court over the rules and regulations to this series since the Swiss team won the last one in July 2007.

Racing begins Monday.

Track & Field

Pierce, Lagat headline Boston indoors

BOSTON — Anna Pierce was already an Olympic finalist in the steeplechase and the American indoor champion at 1,500 meters when she tried the 800 for the first time.

Evidently, she’d been missing out all these years.

Pierce was undefeated at that distance last season and ranked No. 2 in the world with a best time of 1 minute, 58.80 seconds. Those performances have made her one of the headliners for the Boston Reebok Indoor Games on Saturday.

"I love the 800," said Pierce, who plans to run the 1,000 in Boston but the 800 at the World Indoor Championships in March. "I’m made for the 800 and 1,500 more than the steeplechase. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to do the steeplechase or even the 5,000 meters in the future."

Pierce pulled out of last week’s Millrose Games with an illness, but said Friday she’ll be ready to go at the Reggie Lewis Center on the campus of Roxbury Community College.

She’s certainly not the only star who has shown up to run.

Tirunesh Dibaba, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist at 5,000 and 10,000, will try to break her own record of 14:11.15 in the 5,000 over a track that has produced several records.

"The crowd is unbelievable," said Dibaba, who expects a large contingent of Ethiopians living in the Boston area to cheer her Saturday. "I hope we have that atmosphere."

American distance star Bernard Lagat — a two-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champion — will be coming off his record-setting eighth victory in the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games. Lagat is planning to skip the 1,500 for the 5,000.

Lagat said he’s been careful not to neglect his speed work while training for the longer distance, and he expects to have the same devastating kick he had at Madison Square Garden.

"I think I can have the same finishing kick at 5,000 meters, depending on how the race is run, if we have a smooth pace," Lagat said.

Traditionally one of the marquee events, the men’s 1,500 is hardly bereft of talent.

New Zealand’s Nick Willis, the reigning Olympic silver medalist, returns to competition after a long layoff due to hip surgery. Willis was second in Beijing but was elevated to second after Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain was caught doping and lost an appeal.

Willis won in Boston last winter before being injured, but said he’s been careful about his training in New Zealand so that he’ll be healthy for his return.

"I’m raring to go. I’m excited," he said Friday. "I wish the race was today."

BYU’s Edwards sets meet record in 1,000 meters

NEW YORK — Sarah Edwards set a meet record in the 1,000 meters, finishing in 2 minutes, 48.50 seconds at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational on Friday night.

The Brigham Young sophomore bested the record of 2:51.73 set by Villanova’s Theresa Rush in 2007.

Bo Waggoner of Duke won in the 5,000 meters with a time of 14:16.38, and Duke took the men’s distance medley relay in 9:45.30.

Neely Spence, the daughter of 1992 Olympic marathoner Steve Spence, took the 5,000 for Shippensburg in 16:13.01.

In the day’s closest race, Villanova’s team of Nicole Schappert, Kristen Mahon, Ariann Neutts and Sheila Reid won the women’s distance medley relay in 11:02.83, two hundredths of a second ahead of Tennessee.