International Capsules: Heat, tight turns a concern for open water races
SHANGHAI (AP) — Warm conditions will almost certainly be a factor for the open water swimming events at the world championships. A tight 90-degree turn 200 meters into each race could prove more challenging.
“When you have 56 people diving in off a dock straight into a turn, there’s going to be some contact. I’ve never seen that before,” said United States open water coach Jack Fabian, whose daughter Eva will be among the competitors in the women’s 10-kilometer race that opens the competition Tuesday.
“I don’t think it’s a great idea. There’s a chance for injury,” added Fabian, who was among several coaches who expressed concern during a pre-race meeting Monday.
However, swimming governing body FINA and local organizers said it wouldn’t be a problem.
“They’re pretty confident in the course design,” Fabian said. “But you’re really going to have to get into good position for that first turn. It’s going to be like a bunch of horses, and nobody wants to see one of their horses get hurt.”
Safety has become a major concern in open water swimming following the death of American Fran Crippen in the United Arab Emirates last year. Organizers here have also unveiled a high-tech sonar system to quickly locate any swimmer that drops below the surface.
Crippen, a six-time U.S. national champion, died in October near the end of a 10K World Cup event in warm temperatures. No one noticed him slip beneath the surface and his body was not found until two hours later.
FINA has arranged early morning start times for the races but the water temperature is still expected near the newly recommended limit of 88 degrees.
“It’s warm, but I think the athletes are prepared for that,” Fabian said. “It looks like the conditions will be within the guidelines.”
Racers will be monitored by 12 safety boats at Jinshan City Beach, which is located about an hour’s drive from Shanghai. It’s a 1-square mile, man-made embankment, with sea water pumped in through a floodgate. The sea water is supposed to turn clear after treatment.
Keri-Anne Payne of Britain won at the last full worlds in Rome two years ago, while Italians Martina Grimaldi and Giorgia Consiglio placed 1-2 at the open water worlds last year in Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec.
Angela Maurer of Germany and Poliana Okimoto of Brazil are also challengers, while the United States will be represented by Christine Jennings.
The top 10 finishers in the 10K events will qualify for next year’s London Olympics, where the only open water races will be the 10Ks.
“There’s probably about 16 people that could be in the top 10, if not more,” Fabian said.
The men’s 10-kilometer event is Wednesday, with 2009 winner Thomas Lurz of Germany and 2010 champion Valerio Cleri of Italy among the favorites.
Racing continues in Jinshan with a 5-kilometer team event Thursday, men’s and women’s 5K races Friday and the marathon 25-kilometer events Saturday.
Start times for the 25-kilometer races have been moved an hour earlier to 7 a.m. for men and 7:15 a.m. for women to avoid warmer conditions in the afternoon.
Many competitors will try to recover in time for some of the pool events next week, namely the 1,500-meter freestyle.
China coach plays down team’s chances at Shanghai
SHANGHAI (AP) — China head swimming coach Yao Zhengjie has downplayed his team’s chances of winning multiple golds for the home crowd at the world championships, saying his swimmers are concentrating on the 2012 London Olympic.
“Of course we’re improving, but we’re still quite far behind the U.S. and Australia,” Yao told The Associated Press on Monday. “We won just one gold at the 2008 Olympics, so we just want to work harder and get better.”
China has spent the past decade rebuilding its swimming program following a series of devastating doping scandals in the 1990s. The Chinese women’s team dominated the sport in the early part of the decade, winning 12 gold medals at the 1994 worlds, but dozens of swimmers subsequently tested positive for banned substances.
After the Chinese swimming association cracked down on cheating in the late 1990s, instituting a lifetime ban for swimmers and coaches who are caught taking performance-enhancing drugs, China’s performances in the pool trailed off dramatically.
Chinese swimmers didn’t win any golds at the 2005 or 2007 world championships, and just the one gold in their home pool at the 2008 Olympics when Liu Zige captured the women’s 200-meter butterfly.
However, at the 2009 worlds in Rome, the team started to show signs of a resurgence, winning 10 medals overall, including four golds.
“Of course, the more golds we win in Shanghai, the better,” Yao said. “But I know it will be difficult. The Americans, Australians and Europeans are really experienced and have a long history in these events.”
China’s top hope in Shanghai is the extremely popular 19-year-old Sun Yang, who shocked the world last year at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, where he nearly broke Australian Grant Hackett’s 10-year-old world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle.
Sun, under the tutelage of Hackett’s former coach, Dennis Cotterell, finished the Guangzhou race in 14 minutes, 35.43 seconds, just under a second off Hackett’s 14:34.56 from the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan in 2001.
Sun will be competing in the 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle events in Shanghai, but said this month that his most important race will be the 400 meters, where he’ll face South Korean rival Park Tae-hwan. Sun has set the fastest time in the world this year in the event at 3:41.48, just 0.05 faster than Park’s best.
“We want him to be more experienced through this competition and focus more on the Olympics next year,” Yao said. “We aren’t putting much pressure on him to break the world record (in the 1,500 meters).”
Yao said China is expecting to win a gold in the women’s 200-meter butterfly, which features both Liu and 2008 Olympic silver medalist Jiao Liuyang.
China should contend for gold in the women’s relays, having captured two titles in world-record times in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay and the 4x100-meter medley in Rome.
Wu Peng has also been swimming well in the men’s 200-meter butterfly, beating American Michael Phelps twice at meets in the United States this year.
The biggest question for the Chinese team is how Zhang Lin, the 2009 gold medalist in the men’s 800-meter freestyle, will perform. Chinese swimming officials said this month that Zhang wouldn’t defend his title because of lack of conditioning, but they would allow him to compete in the 200-meter freestyle and 4x100-meter freestyle relay.
Zhang, who also won a silver at the Beijing Olympics in the 400-meter freestyle, has struggled in recent months, failing to win an individual gold at the Asian Games in November.
Yao said he isn’t worried about the possibility of his swimmers eating meat contaminated with clenbuterol, which has prompted Shanghai officials to provide teams with a list of 15 restaurants where the meat is guaranteed not to be tainted.
Chemical additives have been linked to cattle and pig raising in China. One such additive, clenbuterol, is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances.
“We are just allowed to eat in these 15 restaurants,” Yao said. “No athletes are allowed to eat outside.”
-- JUSTIN BERGMAN
Russia wins synchronized duet final at worlds
SHANGHAI (AP) — Natalia Ischenko of Russia won her second gold medal in synchronized swimming at the world championships, teaming with Svetlana Romashina to win the duet technical final Monday a night after taking the solo gold.
Ischenko and Romashina finished with 98.200 points.
China’s Huang Xuechen and Liu Ou won the silver in 96.500 and Spain’s Ona Carbonell and Andrea Fuentes placed third with a score of 95.400.
Olympics
Minister: Resignations won’t affect Olympic plans
LONDON (AP) — Security preparations for the 2012 Olympics will not be harmed by the resignations of London’s top two police officers a year before the games, the British government said Monday.
Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates, Britain’s top anti-terrorist officer, have resigned amid an intensifying scandal involving phone hacking and alleged police bribery.
Both indicated that they quit to ensure the police force had stable leadership and no distractions in the run-up to the first Olympics in London since 1948, which have a 757 million-pound ($1.2 billion) security budget.
And Olympics minister Hugh Robertson insisted that much of the security framework was already in place before counterterrorism minister Pauline Neville-Jones left her job in May .
“I am not concerned about the resignations in relation to Olympics security,” Robertson said Monday in statement to The Associated Press. “Pauline Neville-Jones made a massive contribution to get this in a good place. The appointment of Chris Allison, as the Met assistant commissioner in charge of all of this, has also really driven it forward. He is the point man on Olympic security and I am 100 percent confident that we are where we ought to be.”
Sebastian Coe, the organizing committee chairman for the London Games, also said he wasn’t concerned about the resignations.
“The security plans for London are robust,” Coe told the AP in an interview. “The Met Police are across this in a very detailed way.”
Coe said organizers are also working with the Home Office and 19 other agencies on security, adding that he held meetings on the issue earlier Monday.
“There is continuity with the Met Police,” he said.
Jonathan Evans, the director of domestic spy agency MI5, has said that the Olympics “represent a significant target for terrorist groups.”
London was hit by terrorists the day after London was awarded the Olympics in July 2005, with homegrown suicide bombers attacking the transit network, killing 52 commuters.
Britain is planning for the terror threat to be “severe” during the Olympics, meaning an attack is highly likely, despite the national level being downgraded by the government last week.
“Our enemies have clearly said the Olympics will be attacked in the same way that they said that Heathrow (Airport) and the tube (underground) would be attacked,” Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer, a former head of the British Parliament’s counterterrorism subcommittee, told the AP. “The reason we haven’t had any serious terrorist activity since 2005 is because of the efficiencies of our security forces generally — much of which is to do with the police.”
Mercer said Stephenson and Yates will be “extremely difficult to replace, if not impossible.”
“It’s not long to the Olympics,” Mercer said. “A decision (on Stephenson’s successor) needs to be taken efficiently, quickly and absolutely dispassionately.”
Security has always been a critical concern for the Olympics since the killing of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Games.
About 12,000 police officers will be on duty each day of the July 27-Aug. 12 games.
The centerpiece complex is the 1-square-mile Olympic Park in the Stratford area, where venues include the 80,000-seat main stadium. Up to 250,000 spectators a day are expected to flood into the park during the games.
“It’s not ideal that you’ve had your senior officers resigning a year before the Olympics,” said Tobias Feakin, the Royal United Services Institute’s director for national security and resilience. “There’s no doubting it’s a knock, but there’s a huge amount of planning already in place.”
-- ROB HARRIS
Track & Field
Paralympic thrower tests positive for pot
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Paralympic track and field athlete Matthew Brown has been suspended after testing positive for marijuana.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned Brown for three months starting July 12 but reduced the sanction to time served after he completed a USADA program. The agency says in cases involving marijuana there could be a “credible nondoping explanation.”
Brown lost his results from the 2011 U.S. Paralympic Track & Field Championships last month.
The 35-year-old Brown is from Idalou, Texas. He throws the discus and shot put, and was on the U.S. team at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.
Kenteris, Thanou appeal trial opens in Athens
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A Greek court has formally opened the appeal trial of sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, convicted of faking a motorcycle crash after missing a doping test on the eve of the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The two were found guilty of perjury in May over the scandal — a major embarrassment to the host nation — and given suspended 31-month jail sentences that they immediately appealed.
Neither athlete was present in the Athens appeals court Monday, and the case was adjourned for Thursday because of the court’s workload.
The May court decision also sentenced the athletes’ coach, Christos Tzekos, to 33 months in jail. Seven state hospital doctors who treated the runners and two people who said they witnessed the alleged crash were given sentences of between six and 15 months. All the sentences were suspended.
Diving
China wins 4th diving gold at worlds
SHANGHAI (AP) — If China is feeling any pressure to maintain its superpower status in diving, it sure isn’t showing in the world championships.
The host country won its fourth gold medal and fifth overall in the outdoor pool Monday, thrilling fans who cheered and chanted “China!” each time their divers appeared on the boards.
Wang Hao and Chen Ruolin led all every round in easily winning the women’s 10-meter synchro after Li Shixin won the men’s 1-meter springboard and teammate He Min took the silver.
Wang and Chen totaled 362.58 points.
It was Chen’s third consecutive world title in synchro platform, including 2009 in Rome when she also teamed with Wang. China has won six straight world titles in the event.
Since Chinese diving superstar Guo Jingjing retired in January, Chen has been considered her successor.
“I don’t want to think too much about it,” she said. “My performance will be affected. Although the 10-meter platform individual gold is also important, it is not my goal. My goal is the London Games.”
Australia’s Alexandra Croak and Melissa Wu earned the silver at 325.92 — their country’s fourth runner-up finish in the event.
“It definitely built the confidence that we got a medal,” said Wu, who finished second in 2007. “The competition is intense. It’s hard sometimes when you have to rely on someone else to do as well as you.”
Christin Steuer and Nora Subschinski claimed Germany’s second bronze of the day with 316.29.
“Our opponents are all on a high level, especially the German and Australia duo,” said Chen, who has been on China’s national team since 2003. “It’s very important to be in control and perform our best.”
Wang and Chen received one perfect 10 for synchronization on their second dive. After ending the five-dive final with a backward 2½ somersault with 1½ twists that barely created a splash, the women climbed out of the pool and hugged.
The Germans received the only other 10 of the competition for their first dive.
Americans Anna James and Mary Beth Dunnichay were 11th among 12 teams. Dunnichay won the silver two years ago in Rome with another partner.
In the men’s 1-meter, Li lead all the way on a sweltering day at the Oriental Sports Center’s pool.
“You don’t know how exited I am now,” he said through a translator.
Li’s teammate, He Min, claimed the silver after rallying on his last dive to overtake Pavlo Rozenberg. The German, who had held second, settled for bronze.
Li totaled 463.90 points in the six-dive final of the non-Olympic event. He had 444.00 and Rozenberg 436.50.
Li walked up to the pool deck camera, smiled broadly and saluted as the partisan fans in the stands cheered loudly.
“It’s said that the 1-meter springboard will be canceled as a world championships event, so it means that the gold medal is more precious,” said Li, competing in his first world meet at 23.
Li had problems with his third dive, receiving scores ranging from 6.0 to 7.0, but it didn’t cost him in the standings.
His teammate dropped from fourth to seventh after badly missing his second dive when his legs hit the water upon entry. But He rebounded on his next dive to move into third, where he stayed until the last round.
He’s last dive was much more difficult than Rozenberg’s, which helped him move up to claim silver even though the German’s highest mark on his dive was a 9.0 while He’s highest was 8.5.
“I am making the first appearance in the world championships, so I was a little nervous at the beginning,” He said. “But I gradually relaxed. It’s a precious experience for me.”
American Chris Colwill was fourth — 9.35 points out of a medal — in the highest finish yet for the U.S.
Colwill broke his left hand in January and was out for four months after having surgery that required two screws and four bands of wires to be inserted.
“I didn’t dive to the best of my abilities, but coming back from a hand injury and being able to do this, I’m pretty happy about it,” he said. “I know I can get top-two in this event. I was really right there, I just had to polish up a few things.”
His teammate, Aaron Fleshner, botched his fourth and last dives to fall to ninth after being third early on in his debut at worlds.
“I’m not satisfied,” he said. “I was a little nervous.”
Daniel Islas of Mexico drew gasps from the crowd when his right foot struck the board on his last dive. He created a huge splash while landing on his back. He received a no-dive and finished 11th among 12. Islas later came out and practiced with his partner for Tuesday’s 3-meter synchro prelims.
“I was just a little too close to the board. I don’t know whether I will try the same dive next time,” he said. “I’m in a little bit of pain, but I’m OK.”
-- BETH HARRIS
