International Capsules: Armstrong enters Milan-San Remo classic
MILAN — Organizers for the Milan-San Remo have confirmed that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong will take part in Saturday's race.
RCS Sport said Monday that Armstrong made the commitment in a phone call with race director Angelo Zomegnan.
The Milan-San Remo is the opening single-day classic of the cycling season, and at 185 miles it is one of the longest races of the year.
Armstrong is riding to get in shape for the Tour de France. Last year, in one of his first races back from retirement, he finished 125th — 8 minutes, 19 seconds behind British winner Mark Cavendish.
Before retiring, Armstrong raced the Milan-San Remo six times and never won.
Russia's Ignatiev wins stage; Scarponi keeps lead
MACERATA, Italy — Russia's Mikhail Ignatiev has won the next-to-last stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico. Italy's Michele Scarponi holds a slim overall lead in the weeklong cycling race.
Ignatiev, who rides for the Katusha team, covered the hilly 83-mile route from Montecosaro to Macerata on Monday in 3 hours, 18 minutes, 9 seconds.
Defending champion Stefano Garzelli of Italy beat world champion Cadel Evans in a two-man sprint for second. Both finished five seconds behind.
Scarponi finished sixth in the stage, six seconds back. His overall lead over Garzelli was sliced to two seconds.
The race ends Tuesday with a mostly flat 102-mile leg from Civitanova Marche to San Benedetto Del Tronto.
Olympics and Paralympics
Visually impaired cross-country skier strikes gold
WHISTLER, British Columbia — The medal was eight years in the making, and it helped ease some of Brian McKeever's Olympic heartache.
McKeever won the 20-kilometer cross-country ski race for the visually impaired Monday, giving Canada its first gold medal of the Winter Paralympics. It was the first time he had won this race after finishing second in 2002 in Salt Lake City and in Turin in 2006.
"That was the one we were waiting to win," said McKeever, who finished almost 42 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. "That's the one we really wanted."
McKeever qualified for the Canadian Olympic team in January and was poised to become the first winter sports athlete to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics. But at the Winter Games, the Canadian coaching staff decided against starting him in his event, the 50 kilometers.
"We are never going to forget what happened but this helps us move on," the 30-year-old McKeever said. "We still have more racing to go and more things to look ahead to."
McKeever and his brother Robin, who acts as his guide, finished the race in 51 minutes 14.7 seconds. Nikolay Polukhin of Russia was second in 51:55.6 while Vasiki Shaptsiaboi of Belarus was third in 52:22.5.
McKeever has Stargaard's disease, a genetic disease that has reduced his vision to about 10 percent, all of which is peripheral.
It's the fifth Paralympic gold for McKeever. He also has two silvers and one bronze in his collection. He won two gold, a silver and a bronze at the 2006 Turin Paralympics. McKeever finished sixth in his first Paralympic race Saturday, the 3-kilometer biathlon pursuit.
Not competing at the Olympics was a blow.
"I keep saying it hurts as much as the day I was told I was going to lose my eyesight," McKeever said before the Paralympics. "That's how big it was for me. It was huge, crushing. But I got over the eyes. I will get over this."
On Sunday, Canada won three silver medals. Colette Bourgonje captured the host country's first medal, then Viviane Forest and Josh Dueck added silvers of their own.
Bourgonje was second in the women's 10-kilometer sit-ski cross-country, finishing in 31 minutes 49.8 seconds to become the first Canadian to win a Paralympic medal on home turf.
"Wow, I'm shocked and I can't believe it," the 48-year-old Paralympian said. "Age is nothing, attitude is everything and I lived by that today."
The only Canadian to have competed in all five Paralympics to go along with four Summer Paralympics, Bourgonje was on pace to win the gold before crashing on the second of three laps.
"I am still racing because I wanted to compete at a Paralympics in Canada and I'm just so proud to have done this in front of all Canadians," she said. "I share this medal with the entire country."
Cities step up race to host 2018 Winter Olympics
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Three cities in the race to host the 2018 Winter Olympics met the deadline on Monday for submitting their preliminary bid files.
The International Olympic Committee said it received completed questionnaires from Annecy, France; Munich; and Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The so-called bid book "provides the IOC with an overview of each applicant city's project and is the key element in the first phase of the procedure leading to the election of the host city," the IOC said in a statement.
A working group will now prepare a report for the 15-member IOC executive board. The board, led by IOC president Jacques Rogge, meets June 21-23 in Lausanne to confirm the official candidates.
The full IOC assembly will choose the 2018 host by secret ballot at its session in Durban, South Africa, on July 6, 2011.
Pyeongchang is bidding for the third straight time after narrow defeats to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics and Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Winter Games.
The bid is based around the Alpensia ski resort in what officials claim would be the "most compact games in history."
South Korea has never staged the Winter Games, which have been held twice in Asia and both times in Japan: Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.
Annecy is aiming to bring the Winter Olympics to France for the fourth time, and a third time in the Savoy Alps region following Chamonix in 1924 and Albertville in 1992.
Bid leaders propose using eight ski resorts around Mont Blanc, including Chamonix, Megeve, and Morzine. All are within 31 miles of Annecy.
Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics and is trying to become the first to city to stage both summer and winter games. The ice events would be held in Munich and snow competitions about 50 miles away in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which hosted the games in 1936.
If accepted as candidates, the cities must give the IOC detailed bid books and guarantees by Jan. 11, 2011.
An IOC evaluation commission is scheduled to visit the candidates next February and March and submit a report to the 100-plus IOC voting members.
Russia criticized over Sochi Olympics construction
MOSCOW — The UN's top environmental watchdog criticizes Russia in a report to be released Tuesday for ignoring the effects that several building projects for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will have on the region's unique wildlife.
In the report — obtained Monday by The Associated Press — the United Nations Environment Program says impact assessments undertaken by the government "did not take into account the cumulative ... effects of the various projects on the ecosystems of the Sochi region and its population."
Russia's dated Black Sea resort of Sochi is under the spotlight as it takes the torch from Vancouver as the next Winter Olympic host. As constructors set about building all the required facilities from scratch, green activists say the ecosystems have already suffered irreversible damage and bird and bear habitats have been destroyed. The government says it has taken their concerns on board and accuses the activists of trying to sabotage the games as a public relations stunt.
The Sochi games are a pet project of Russia's powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who broke tradition to deliver a speech in English to the International Olympic Committee in 2007 during the bidding stage.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused immediate comment, saying he hadn't seen the UNEP report.
Russia's dated Black Sea resort of Sochi is under the spotlight as it takes the torch from Vancouver as the next Winter Olympic host.
As constructors set about building all the required facilities from scratch, green activists say the ecosystems have already suffered irreversible damage, and bird and bear habitats have been destroyed. Ecologists say the pristine rivers and forests of the North Caucasus mountain range are home to thousands of protected plant and animal species.
The government says it has taken the activists' concerns on board and accuses them of trying to sabotage the games as a public relations stunt.
The "Sochi 2014 Report of the UNEP 2nd Expert Mission" was based on the body's three-day trip to Sochi in January, which involved visits to various sites considered sensitive along the construction path of a combined road and rail link that connects a coastal facilities with a mountain facilities.
The WWF and Greenpeace Russia say the chief environmental threat is to the Mzymta River, which the communications link is set to follow. Thousands of beech trees have been felled to clear the path for the link.
UNEP also said Sochi organizers were procrastinating on political decisions that would mitigate and compensate for the unwanted environmental fallout of the games.
"The mission observed that decisions taken at the political level ... are taking too long," the report said. The report cited such projects as the enlargement of Sochi National Park, better protection of the Mzymta valley, and the creation of new protected areas along the Black Sea coast that would host migratory birds.
The WWF and Greenpeace recently suspended their co-operation as consultants for Olympstroi, the state-run constructor, in protest that their concerns were being ignored.
The UNEP report urged both the activists and the government to continue cooperating, saying there was a "reluctance to engage with or even listen to each other's calls for actions from both sides."
In the recommendations section, UNEP said a "comprehensive assessment of the overall impact of the Olympic and tourism projects on the ecosystem" should be conducted.
UNEP said the activists' concerns sparked the decision to visit Sochi and produce a report.
The Sochi games is adopting a unique "cluster" strategy. A coastal cluster of arenas will cater for ice skating sports, and a mountain cluster will accommodate ski, snowboard and other events.
-- David Nowak
Rio organizers warn of funding shortfall for games
SAO PAULO — Organizers of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games warn that they will be unable to fund the construction of Olympic projects if a new law passes reducing the state's oil revenues.
The Brazilian Olympic Games Organizing Committee said in a statement that a bill approved last week in the country's lower house of congress would mean that Rio de Janeiro state would lose about $4 billion in annual oil revenues.
Currently, Rio de Janeiro state receives a large share of the royalties for any oil extracted from the offshore fields off its coast. Under the new bill, those royalties will be shared equally between the federal government and all of Brazil's 26 states.
The committee said the impact would "leave Rio de Janeiro without the conditions needed to (finance) the projects needed for the 2016 Games."
The bill still faces debate and a vote in Brazil's senate. President Luiz Inacio da Silva has promised to veto it if changes aren't made so it doesn't jeopardize the games.
Earlier, Silva said Brazil plans to build sport centers in poor communities across the country.
"So when the 2016 Olympics are held, we will have poor children from all over the country competing for a gold medal," Silva said during his weekly radio program.
Also Monday, the Brazilian Futsal Confederation said it wants the sport to be included in the next Olympics. Futsal is a version of soccer typically played indoors and is regulated by FIFA.
In a statement on its Web site, the confederation said its president and vice president recently met with honorary FIFA president Joao Havelange, who promised to ask FIFA president Joseph Blatter to persuade the IOC to include the sport.
The statement says that Havelange support the sport's inclusion and plans to discuss the matter with Blatter in May.
Havelange and Blatter are also expected to discuss Brazil hosting a women's futsal world cup, the confederation said, adding it could be held this December.
"One of the reasons the IOC has not accepted including futsal is the fact there is no women's world cup, which is why we want to organize such an event in Brazil in 2010," confederation president Aecio de Borba Vasconcelos said.
-- Stan Lehman
Russia's Plushenko planning to skate in Sochi
MOSCOW — Vancouver Olympics silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko says he plans to skate at the 2014 Sochi Games in his native Russia.
Plushenko says Monday in comments carried by Russian state news agencies that he "proved" his ability during the Vancouver Games, where he narrowly finished second to American Evan Lysacek. Plushenko also has a gold medal from the 2006 Turin Olympics and a silver from 2002.
The 27-year-old Plushenko spoke at a Kremlin ceremony where President Dmitry Medvedev awarded him the Order of Merit for the Motherland for his Vancouver performance. Many Russians felt Plushenko, who came out of a three-year retirement, was robbed of first place last month.
Plushenko will be in Turin next week for the World Figure Skating Championships.
Doctors: Pechstein suffers from blood anomaly
BERLIN — German doctors say a hereditary anomaly was responsible for the abnormal blood levels that led to multiple Olympic speedskating medalist Claudia Pechstein being suspended for doping.
Gerhard Ehninger, the head of the German Society for Hematology and Oncology, said Monday that an evaluation of the case points to a light form of a blood anemia called spherocytosis — apparently inherited from her father.
The 38-year-old Pechstein is fighting a two-year suspension imposed last year.
She insists she wasn't using performance enhancers but has lost appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland's Federal Tribunal and couldn't compete at the Vancouver Olympics.
Pechstein won nine medals at four Olympics.
Track & Field
IAAF wants 2004 US relay team stripped of gold
DOHA, Qatar — The IAAF is recommending the U.S. women's 4x400 meter relay team at the 2004 Athens Olympics be stripped of its gold medal because qualifying runner Crystal Cox has admitted to doping.
The IOC has opened a formal investigation into the case, and the IAAF international athletics federation said Monday that under its rules the "U.S. relay team results will be disqualified."
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said this year that Cox admitted to using anabolic steroids and accepted a four-year suspension and disqualification of her results from 2001 to 2004. Her admission came after an investigation that was triggered by information from the BALCO case.
If the U.S. is stripped of its medal, Russia would move from silver to gold and Jamaica from bronze to silver.
Cox ran in the prelims for the American team led by Sanya Richards, who ran the final along with Dee Dee Trotter, Monique Henderson and Monique Hennegan.
Under international rules, an entire relay team can be disqualified because of the doping of one member, even an alternate.
IOC vice president Thomas Bach is heading a three-man panel into the case.
Past panel decisions have resulted in the IOC stripping national relay teams of medals retroactively — including three U.S. teams from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The IAAF deals with official results and placings at the Olympics but had no specific rule in place in 2000 for dealing with a relay team in the event of doping by a single member. However, at the Athens games four years later the IAAF had a rule specifying that the entire team should be disqualified and lose medals.
"It was always going to be clear to us," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said. "The rule was in effect in 2004."
The admission by Cox came after an investigation that was triggered by information that came from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case.
The IOC and IAAF are still waiting for the results of an appeals case involving U.S. women's relay runners from the 2000 Games.
The U.S. was stripped of the gold medal in the 4x400 relay and bronze in the 4x100 relay following Marion Jones' admission of doping. Jones returned her medals, but her teammates appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in an attempt to keep theirs. CAS is due to rule on the case this year.
The IOC also stripped the U.S. men's 4x400 relay team of their Sydney gold after Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping.
The IAAF also rejected a request from Justin Gatlin for an early return to competition following his four-year doping ban. Gatlin wanted to return early in the outdoor season because of "substantial assistance" to the IAAF in dealing with doping.
"It was rejected, I can confirm that," Davies said.
Gatlin will return July 24.
-- Raf Casert
