International Capsules: Armstrong climbs to 3rd overall in Luxembourg race

LUXEMBOURG, Luxembourg (AP) — Lance Armstrong was third overall after two days of the Tour of Luxembourg on Thursday, satisfied that he is riding stronger before the Tour de France.

Giovanni Visconti of Italy won the first stage, while Armstrong stayed up front in the main pack to finish 50th in the 111.8-mile ride from Luxembourg to Hesperange.

"I can’t lie, there were some guys sitting up on the final little climb there, (3 miles) from the finish and other guys riding off the front, attacking, and I made it across there relatively easily, which is a good sign," the 38-year-old Armstrong said. "It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to do that."

Armstrong’s RadioShack team worked hard to catch three breakaway riders 9.3 miles from the finish. After the first stage and Wednesday’s prologue, Armstrong trails race leader Cyril Lemoine of France by one second. Armstrong’s teammate Gregory Rast of Switzerland was second with the same time as Lemoine.

Armstrong, whose season has been hampered by illness and last month’s crash on the Tour of California, is using the Tour of Luxembourg as part of his preparations for the Tour de France. He will compete in the Tour of Switzerland to make up for the racing days he missed this year.

"The ambition is to be making progress, avoid problems, stay on the good way for the Tour," Armstrong said. "This race is awfully technical in terms of the amount of turns, hundreds of turns and climbs and wind. The wind is hard to predict. If you’re not from here, which of course we’re not, it’s sometimes confusing."

Armstrong crashed out of the Tour of California on May 20, hurting his elbow and getting cut under his left eye. He still has some lingering effects, but said he surprised himself with his strong performance in the short but demanding climbs on Thursday.

"(I) just (want to) finish every race and avoid the accidents that I’ve had over the last two years. Just day by day," Armstrong said.

Armstrong, who broke his collarbone last year in his first comeback season, was forced to withdraw from Milan-San Remo in March, citing gastroenteritis, and pulled out from the Circuit de la Sarthe with a stomach illness.

On Thursday, early breakaway riders Anthony Charteau, Johnny Hoogerland and Morten Knudsen built up a six-minute lead before RadioShack started the chase 31 miles from the finish.

Armstrong said his team worked hard because it was important to stay upfront and avoid a potential crash.

"I think we feel like we can win the race, we have a couple of guys who can win the overall," Armstrong said.

The Tour of Luxembourg is Armstrong’s first race since his former U.S. Postal teammate Floyd Landis admitted to doping throughout his career and alleged that Armstrong also was involved.

Armstrong was angered by a reporter asking him if had taken EPO during his career and if he tried to bribe an International Cycling Union official following an alleged positive test.

"How many times would I have to answer the same question?" Armstrong said. "The answer has not changed. Don’t ask me another stupid question like that."

The second stage Friday is a 126-mile hilly ride between Schifflange and Differdange.

Electric bikes? Call for checks at Tour de France

HESPERANGE, Luxembourg (AP) — French cycling team chief Alain Deloeil called for checks at the Tour de France to ensure that racers are not cheating by using motors hidden in their bike frames.

Recent speculation has focused on Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara, who denied this week he won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders this year with the help of an electric bike.

Deloeil, sports director of the Cofidis team, said Thursday that checks should be carried out on the Tour to prevent "mechanical doping."

But former top rider Johan Museeuw says the whole idea of racers using hidden motors was not plausible, even though the technology exists.

Speaking at the start of the Tour of Luxembourg’s first stage, Deloeil urged the International Cycling Union (UCI) to develop a technology to detect motors in frames.

"I hope they will make sure that no rider will use them on this year’s Tour de France," he said. "If it’s true, this is mechanical doping. Cycling is about men riding their bikes, with their physical strength. If you add a motor, we’ll soon be riding the 24 Hours of Le Mans Moto."

A video posted on different websites appears to show Cancellara pushing a button on the handlebars of his bike during both races. He rides for the Saxo Bank team.

Museeuw, a past winner of the Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders races, doubted that bike manufacturers would have developed such a device for racers, but said he could see why Cancellara’s behavior might have seemed suspicious.

"The system is available," Museeuw said. "I saw it at a bicycle showroom at Las Vegas last year.

"I don’t know if Cancellara used it, but when you see the video on the Internet, you can see that Cancellara makes a strange move twice. He also changed his bike twice. So even if I don’t believe he cheated, it can be suspicious."

Museeuw also believes such a system would soon become common knowledge if it was being used by professional riders.

"It would be impossible to keep the secret," Museeuw said. "And I also think that it would be too risky for the bike manufacturers. It would be too dangerous for a brand like Specialized (Cancellara’s Saxo Team supplier) and for a rider like Cancellara."

Cancellara has dismissed the rumors about him as nonsense.

"It’s so crazy that I haven’t anything to say," he told Swiss media this week. "I don’t feel like spending much time on such a stupid story."

The Saxo Bank team stood by its rider and said in a statement "there was not and never has been a motor in any Team Saxo Bank rider’s bike."

"We are confident that the majority of those people who have come across this video see it for exactly what it is, a creative, amateur artist’s attempt to express a purely hypothetical idea that has no basis of fact or truth. It is a work of fiction, disguised as documentary."

Asked about the matter, seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong said he was "sick of answering" the question, while his team sports director Johan Bruyneel told reporters the story was "typical from our sport."

"I don’t give any credibility to this thing," Bruyneel said. "Cancellara has been targeted, but I don’t think it’s possible."

Given the speculation, the UCI has said it will examine the issue at a meeting next week with bike manufacturers.

Motors that can be attached to a bicycle have been commercially available for several years, but existing models require a battery carried visibly in a saddle bag.

The UCI said it had been in contact with former racer Davide Cassani, who claims to have tested a motorized bike that could help a rider cheat. The 49-year-old Cassani said he would be able to finish a classic or a Giro stage with this machine.

--Samuel Petrequin

Olympics

Did 2004 Olympics spark Greek financial crisis?

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — When it comes to overspending, Greece gets the gold medal.

Governments in the Greek capital of Athens haven’t balanced a budget in nearly 40 years, and the country narrowly averted bankruptcy in May before panicky European partners grudgingly put up massive rescue loans.

While many factors are behind the crippling debt crisis, the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens has drawn particular attention.

If not the sole reason for this nation’s financial mess, some point to the games as at least an illustration of what’s gone wrong in Greece.

Their argument starts with more than a dozen Olympic venues — now vacant, fenced off and patrolled by private security guards. Stella Alfieri, an outspoken anti-Games campaigner, says they marked the start of Greece’s irresponsible spending binge.

"I feel vindicated, but it’s tragic for the country ... They exploited feelings of pride in the Greek people, and people profited from that," said Alfieri, a former member of parliament from a small left-wing party. "Money was totally squandered in a thoughtless way."

The 2004 Athens Olympics cost nearly $11 billion by current exchange rates, double the initial budget. And that figure that does not include major infrastructure projects rushed to completion at inflated costs. In the months before the games, construction crews worked around the clock, using floodlights to keep the work going at night.

In addition, the tab for security alone was more than $1.2 billion.

Six years later, more than half of Athens’ Olympic sites are barely used or empty. The long list of mothballed facilities includes a baseball diamond, a massive man-made canoe and kayak course, and arenas built for unglamorous sports such as table tennis, field hockey and judo.

Don Porter, president of the International Softball Federation, said his organization made an offer several years ago to maintain the Olympic softball venue and use it to host events but never received a reply.

"The softball venue is still standing, except it is overgrown with weeds, unmaintained and unused," Porter said in an e-mail. "Of course it is not only the Olympics that caused Greece’s current problems but it probably added to it."

Deals to convert several venues into recreation sites — such as turning the canoe-kayak venue into a water park — have been stalled by legal challenges from residents’ groups and Byzantine planning regulations.

Criticism of the Olympic spending has sharpened in recent weeks, after parliament launched an investigation into allegations that German industrial giant Siemens AG paid bribes to secure contracts before the 2004 Games.

A former Greek transport minister has been charged with money laundering after he told the inquiry that he had received more than $123,000 from Siemens in 1998 as a campaign donation.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said linking the debt crisis to the games is "unfair." He argues that Athens is still reaping the benefits from its pre-games overhaul of the city’s transport systems and infrastructure.

"These are things that really leave a very good legacy for the city ... There have been expenses, of course. You don’t build an airport for free," Rogge told The Associated Press in Lausanne, Switzerland. "Had Athens still been outmoded, the economy would have been much worse probably than it is today."

Greek Olympic officials insist the scale of the country’s dire financial problems — and its staggering national debt of $382 billion — are is simply too big to be blamed on the 2004 Games budget.

Some financial experts agree.

"Put in proper perspective, it is hard to argue that the Olympic Games were an important factor behind the Greek financial crisis. It is, however, likely that they contributed modestly to the problem," Andrew Zimbalist, a U.S. economist who studies the financial impact of major sporting events, said in an email.

"The empty or underused facilities are a problem and the maintenance and operating costs continue to impose a burden. That said, Athens also benefited from infrastructure development and the Greek public debt is $400 billion."

Before the games, Greece’s densely populated capital got a new metro system, a new airport, and a tram and light railway network, along with a bypass highway, while ancient sites in Athens’ city center were linked up with a cobblestone walkway.

It’s those advantages that organizers of the 2012 London Games are quick to point out, as Britain now also faces high public debt levels.

"I think the underlying issues in the Greek economy were far greater than a snapshot of the Olympic Games," Sebastian Coe, chairman of London’s organizing committee, told the AP.

London’s main Olympic budget now stands at $13.3 billion. Last week, Britain’s new coalition government announced $38 million in Olympic budget cuts as part of efforts to slash the nation’s budget deficit.

Over the last decade, Greece’s budget deficit remained well above the limit set by the European Union of 3 percent of gross domestic product, but rose abruptly last year to reach an estimated 13.6 percent — the highest level since Greece was previously in recession in 1993.

Greece will get up to about $135 billion in bailout loans through 2012 from the International Monetary Fund and European governments worried the Greek crisis could damage the euro.

Prime Minister George Papandreou blames the debt crisis on decades of poor management, putting off unpopular reforms, and vast clientele networks set up by political parties, promising government jobs, social security perks and loss-making regional projects to win votes.

Nassos Alevras, the lead government official for Olympic projects, insists that, overall, the games carried a net gain including a tourism boost.

"The issue of venue use is a sad story ... Plans for post-Olympic use were later ignored," Alevras told the AP.

But he added: "The money spent on the Olympics is equivalent to one quarter of last year’s budget deficit. So how can the amount spent over seven years of preparation for the Olympic Games end up being considered responsible for the crisis? That’s irrational."

--Derek Gatopoulos

Russian security chief warns of Sochi threat

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s security chief warned Thursday that terrorists intend to disrupt preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service, said the games face the same kinds of threats that led to the cancellation of the 2008 Paris-Dakar motor rally.

"We can clearly hear the intentions of various gang leaders to stage a similar scenario in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in 2014," Bortnikov was quoted as saying by the state news agency Itar-Tass.

The Black Sea resort of Sochi is relatively close to Russia’s restive North Caucasus region, from where officials say the country’s chief terrorist threat emanates.

Russia has endured a spate of terrorist strikes this year, including the double suicide bombing of the Moscow subway system in March that killed 40 and injured 120. Officials said the attacks were staged by Islamist militants based in the North Caucaus.

Despite the attacks, government officials have given firm security guarantees to the International Olympic Committee.

"We continue to have full confidence in the Russian authorities and their ability to handle the security situation in Sochi," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The 2008 Paris-Dakar rally was canceled for the first time in its 30-year history because of a threat of a terrorist attack. Eight of the 15 stages were to have been in Mauritania, where al-Qaida-linked militants had recently killed a family of French tourists.

The race was moved to South America in 2009.

Paraguay Olympic head escapes armed attack

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — The president of the Paraguay Olympic Committee says he has survived an armed attack in which an unknown gunman fired six shots at him from close range.

Ramon Zubizarreta said the attack took place Thursday when he was parking his vehicle outside his office in Asuncion.

He said an armed man jumped off a motorcycle and fired six shots at him from close range. Zubizarreta was not struck.

Zubizarreta said in an interview that he did not know the reason for the attack and said he had no known enemies.

Such attacks have become more frequent in recent years in the South American country where kidnapping and extortion are often the motives.

London scraps plans for Olympic Park wind turbine

LONDON (AP) — London 2012 organizers have scrapped plans to build a wind turbine on the Olympic Park site.

The turbine had been intended to help deliver 20 percent of the park’s energy needs after the games, starting in 2014.

The Olympic Delivery Authority, which is in charge of building the venues and infrastructure for the games, said Thursday the plan is "no longer feasible."

The proposed turbine supplier pulled out of the project and there was little commercial interest elsewhere.

The ODA says "work is now under way to identify alternative options."

Track & Field

Powell headlines Diamond League meet in Oslo

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell headlines the field at the Bislett Games when the Diamond League series comes to Europe for the first time Friday.

Powell set the year’s fastest 100-meter time of 9.83 seconds in Ostrava, Czech Republic, last week.

"I’m very confident because I didn’t expect to start out the season so well," Powell said at the meet’s annual strawberry party at Oslo’s city hall. "I know I’m capable of running very fast tomorrow — we’ll just have to see how fast."

Powell will not be facing Tyson Gay or world-record holder Usain Bolt, who is injured, but said that he was looking forward to coming up against his rivals again soon.

"It’s pretty exciting because whenever us three guys go on the track together, it’s something to remember," Powell said. "I’m not scared of anybody with how I’m running this year."

The trio have yet to face off in the Diamond League’s inaugural 14-meet season, which has so far gone to Doha, Qatar, and Shanghai.

Despite the high-profile absentees in Oslo, there will be a host of elite athletes hoping to set the 70th world record at the stadium dubbed "the world record track."

American Carmelita Jeter, the second-fastest woman ever in the 100, will try to continue her sprint dominance over a longer distance when she races in the 200.

The long-standing rivalry between Americans Bershawn Jackson and Kerron Clement continues in the men’s 400 hurdles. Olympic bronze medallist Jackson got the better of Clement in the first meet in Doha by only 0.16 seconds.

Another highlight includes the battle between two young stars of the 800, with Kenya’s David Rudisha facing Abubaker Kaki from Sudan for the first time this year. Rudisha set the year’s fastest time over the distance in Doha while Kaki stormed to the world junior record at the Bislett Games two years ago.

Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen represents the host nation’s best chance of a victory when he competes in the javelin.

"My expectations are high," said the world and Olympic champion. "On Friday I really want to get a personal best and I think I’m capable of it."

The Diamond League is the successor to the Golden League. There is a total of $6.3 million in prize money across 32 track and field disciplines. The top performers in each event at the end of the season will get $40,000 as well as a diamond trophy valued at $10,000.

--Keith Moore

Iowa State runner Lisa Koll wins Honda Award

NEW YORK (AP) — Iowa State senior runner Lisa Koll has won the Honda Sports Award for track and field.

The Honda Awards are given each year to female athletes in 12 NCAA sports.

Koll is a nine-time All-American. She also holds the college record and the sixth-fastest time by an American woman in the 10,000 meters.

She is eligible to be nominated as one of three finalists for Collegiate Female Athlete of the Year.

After redshirting the cross country season because of an injury, Koll says she was honored to receive the award out of such a talented pool of runners.

The awards began in 1976 as part of the Collegiate Women Sports Awards program.

--Zina Kumok

Skiing

Vail-Beaver Creek to host 2015 Alpine worlds

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — Lindsey Vonn’s home mountains in Colorado will host the Alpine skiing world championships in 2015.

The International Ski Federation picked the Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts Thursday ahead of rival bids from Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and St. Moritz, Switzerland.

"I’m so excited!!!!" Vonn wrote on Twitter minutes after the result was announced. "Congrats to everyone in Vail and for all of your hard work!"

The decision sends the biennial event back to North America after seven straight championships in Europe.

Olympic downhill champion Vonn was a 14-year-old course volunteer when Vail-Beaver Creek last staged the worlds in 1999. Vail also hosted the event in 1989.

"Our nation is deeply honored to have been selected as the site of the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships," Bill Marolt, head of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, said in a statement.

Vail won on the first round, receiving a majority eight of the 15 votes cast by members of the FIS ruling council. Cortina got four votes and St. Moritz three.

"We knew from the outset that we had our work cut out for us with three world class candidates," said Ceil Folz, president of the Vail Valley Foundation. "We can’t wait to get home and share this with our community."

The winning bid calls for a new women’s downhill course to be created for the championships in Beaver Creek. It will share a finish area with the adjoining men’s Birds of Prey course that was created for the ‘99 worlds. Women’s technical races will be run on the Giant Steps course at Vail.

Vail-Beaver Creek finished second in the vote two years ago when all three of Thursday’s candidates lost to the Austrian resort of Schladming for the 2013 championships. Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany will hold the 2011 worlds next February.

In other votes Thursday, Falun in Sweden was awarded the 2015 Nordic skiing world championships.

Falun had an 8-7 edge over Lahti, Finland, in a third-round ballot after Zakopane, Poland, and Oberstdorf, Germany, were eliminated.

Kreischberg in Austria was awarded the 2015 freestyle and snowboard worlds as the only bidder. Harrachov in the Czech Republic was the lone candidate for the 2014 ski flying championship.

FIS sanctions Russian ski federation over doping

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — The International Ski Federation warned Russia on Thursday to clean up its act on doping or risk having its athletes barred from the 2014 Winter Olympics on home soil in Sochi.

FIS also fined the Russian Ski Association $156,000 and ordered some Russian coaches to be fired because of persistent doping by its athletes before the 2010 Vancouver Games.

The governing body issued a "strong recommendation" that Russia install new leaders and coaches who were not involved in "multiple" doping cases in recent seasons, notably in cross-country skiing.

A fresh start would help "in view of building up a new team for Sochi 2014 that rejects doping," FIS said in a statement.

The FIS ruling council gave Russian officials a Nov. 1 deadline to improve its anti-doping program or face further penalties.

The toughest possible sanction would be to "suspend that national ski association’s membership for a period of up to four years," FIS said in a statement.

Suspending membership would prevent Russia’s athletes from competing in FIS competitions, including the Winter Olympics, and bar officials from taking part in FIS meetings and decision-making. Russia also would not be allowed to host World Cup races.

Under FIS rules, a four-year suspension is allowed if eight anti-doping violations are committed in a 12-month period by athletes or others affiliated with a national association.

The Russian association did not respond to calls at its headquarters Thursday.

FIS said Russian skiers failed a "high number" of drug tests and criticized the federation’s "lack of adherence" to anti-doping rules.

It ordered cross-country coach Anatoly Chepalov, who worked with Sergey Shiryaev and Julia Chepalova, to be removed from any position of authority or influence on athletes.

Coaches and medical advisers to three other skiers caught using the banned blood-booster EPO — Evgeni Dementiev, Natalia Matveeva and Nina Rysina — should be "removed indefinitely" from their jobs, FIS said.

The fine imposed Thursday amounts to half the funding Russia’s federation was entitled to get from FIS in 2009. The remaining half could be taken away in November if Russia does not make progress, FIS said.

The governing body said Russian officials had expressed "sincerest remorse for the situation" and had begun working to improve the anti-doping program.

Russia’s poor doping record prompted International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge to raise the matter with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this year.

"We have alerted the Russian authorities, and we expect them to comply," Rogge said in Vancouver in February.

Poland’s Marek gets 2-year ban for Olympic doping

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — Polish cross-country skier Kornelia Marek has received a two-year ban for doping at the Vancouver Olympics.

The International Ski Federation applied the ban Thursday from the date her provisional suspension started, to run through March 15, 2012.

The 24-year-old Marek was previously suspended for two years by Poland’s ski federation.

She was the only athlete disqualified from the games by the International Olympic Committee.

Marek tested positive for EPO, a blood-boosting hormone, after helping Poland finish sixth in the 20K relay.

All her Olympic results were voided including ninth in team sprint, 11th in the 30K mass start, 39th in 10K freestyle and 35th in 15K pursuit.

Under IOC rules, Marek cannot compete at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

FIS promotes parallel Alpine racing next season

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — Alpine skiing will start next season with a new parallel-racing national team event on the glacier at Soelden, Austria.

The International Ski Federation agreed Thursday to add the event where 16 teams, each of two men and two women, compete in a knockout bracket, with two skiers racing side-by-side on giant slalom courses.

FIS scheduled the Friday event for Oct. 22, with traditional World Cup men’s and women’s giant slaloms on the weekend.

FIS agreed that parallel slalom events for top-16 racers will now carry World Cup points.

Munich’s Olympic Park will stage it over the New Year holidays, after Moscow hosted the past two editions.