International Capsules: Thames apotential security threat to Olympics
LONDON (AP) — The River Thames buzzed with activity Thursday — helicopters hovering ahead, speed boats ready to catch potential terrorists and military units testing their skills as part of a drill for the 2012 London Olympics.
The Thames is Britain's best-known river, immortalized in the novels of Charles Dickens, and a waterway once so putrid that it shut Parliament because of its stench. It's now getting the Olympics treatment because of its potential to give would-be terrorists a foothold.
"There's no specific threat, but we would be failing in our duty if we didn't consider it," national Olympics security coordinator Chris Allison said. He said forces were testing methods used to make vessels stop and practicing boarding-at-sea procedures.
A navy helicopter swooped overhead as crafts maneuvered on the Thames, known for its strong currents and tides, as London's Marine Policing Unit and Royal Marines worked to make sure the police and military know how to work together on the river that snakes some 210 miles (338 kilometers) across England. Journalists watched as a helicopter hovered over the river and security forces, with weapons drawn, boarded a ferry.
Policing the vast territory for the games in July and August won't be easy. The security detail around the Olympics has grown to involve the military and hundreds of security guards.
The tests this week have involved about 44 police officers and 94 military personnel in the run-up to the Games, which start July 27th and end Aug. 12th.
Some recent terror attacks like the Mumbai shooting spree in 2008 were launched from virtually unpatrolled waterways. Terrorists in the Indian metropolis arrived on small high-speed boats prior to their deadly attack that killed 166 people.
British authorities want to make sure the same type of attack doesn't happen in London. Security officials have expressed concerns over would-be attackers using the river as a means of access into the games, but they are also concerned that attacks could be launched against London's financial center, which sits close to its banks.
Security officials say they also worry about scares away from the Olympic Village that could divert resources away from a real attack.
Security has long been a high priority for the Olympics. A terror attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
And London was the first Western European capital to be struck by suicide bombers in 2005 — the day after the city won its bid to host the games. Some 52 commuters were killed during the rush-hour attack in July 2005.
About 12,000 police officers will also be on duty on the busiest days of the games — together up to 13,500 troops deployed on land, at sea and in the skies. A huge presence of private security guards will also safeguard Olympic venues.
The Thames is a less than enticing vantage point for the Olympics — even for would-be attackers.
Although it has been cleaned up since the "Great Stink" of 1858 that forced the House of Commons to stay at home, its muddy reputation precedes itself. Comedian David Walliams battled diarrhea after doing a charity swim along the River Thames last year.
The journey is almost seven times the distance of the English Channel and is associated with the Victorian era novels of Dickens, such as "Bleak House."
-- Paisley Dodds
Vonn gives advice to Youth Olympics athletes
INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Teen ski racers dreaming of becoming the next Lindsey Vonn received firsthand tips on how to do it from the Olympic downhill champion herself on Thursday.
Vonn gave her view on what it takes to be successful in a one-hour question and answer session with athletes aged 15-18 who are competing in the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck.
"You sacrifice a lot, but you're gaining more," said the 27-year-old American, who was accompanied by Angela Ruggiero, a former member of the U.S. ice hockey team.
Vonn, who has won 47 World Cup races and competed in three Olympics, recalled how her youth in Minnesota was influenced by her strong determination to become a skiing superstar.
"I always wanted be an Olympian since I was 9 years old, and everybody thought I was insane," Vonn said. "Picabo Street was my role model. I met her when I was 9 and she was the reason I started working hard and that really pushed me to where I am now."
Vonn also cautioned the teenagers that putting in the work needed to reach the top of their sport will probably damage their social life, as it did with hers when she was younger.
"It's definitely hard when you are a professional athlete ... to have a personal life outside of your sport," she said. "Skiing has always been my No. 1 priority. I didn't really have too many friends growing up. ... But at the same time, I have been traveling to Europe since I was nine, I've been to New Zealand, to Chile, so many unique opportunities. I have friends in Minnesota who I grew up with, who have never been out of the state or out of the country."
Most of Vonn's friends today share her passion for skiing, though there is one exception.
"I have one friend who has actually no idea about skiing. She is awesome. I go over to her house and have dinner and we watch movies. That's awesome."
Vonn, who is one of the five ambassadors of the event, used her visit to the Youth Games to watch the first run of the boy's giant slalom and to have a brief chat with International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge.
When asked by a young girl about her best Olympic memories, Vonn singled out her debut at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, where she competed in slalom and super-combined but didn't win a medal.
"I was 17 and didn't know what to expect," she said. "In the Olympic village, I was getting autographs from other athletes, who asked me, how did you get in here? 'Well, I am an athlete as well but I still want your autograph.'"
Vonn also talked about the importance of learning from setbacks, recalling how she crashed in downhill training at the 2006 Turin Games.
"I first thought it was the worst thing in the world and I thought I was never going to ski again," she said. "But I came out of it and raced again two days later (in the super-G). Then I really realized how lucky I am to be able to do what I do. I learned from a negative experience. That was a turning point for me. I committed myself even more to the sport and started to work even harder."
That paid off in her third Olympics, the 2010 Vancouver Games, when she won her first gold medal.
"Before that downhill, it was actually the least nervous I had ever been," she said. "I felt like I had learned so much that year going up to that point. I felt like, this is it, I didn't question it and just trusted myself. That was weird because in other Olympics, I was so nervous and shaking and just didn't know what to do with myself."
With the help of the Youth Games — which Vonn never had a chance to compete in — young athletes may go through that learning curve a lot quicker, she said.
"This is really a unique chance to be able to be on a world stage and figure out how you can compete well in a high-pressure situation," Vonn said.
-- Eric Willemsen
Britain says Olympic doping lab will catch cheats
LONDON (AP) — A new doping lab will be used to catch athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs during the London Olympics, scientists and government officials said Thursday.
The lab, which covers the size of seven tennis courts and is located outside London in the town of Harlow, will house a team of more than 150 scientists working 24 hours a day during the games. More than 6,250 samples — or up to 400 a day — will be tested during the Olympics and the Paralympics.
"With 50 percent of the athletes being tested, anybody who does try to cheat will stand a good chance of detection," said Professor David Cowan of King's College, head of the doping team. "For any athlete who wants to cheat when they come to London, my advice is just don't come."
More than 10,000 athletes will be competing during the July 27-Aug. 12 Olympics. All medalists will be tested, and others at random. Athletes can be tested at any time or anywhere during the games, including at residences and training sites.
British Sports Minister Hugh Robertson called the testing facility the "most up-to-date, modern testing lab that exists anywhere in the world."
"Of course we cannot absolutely guarantee that these will be a drug-free games, but we can guarantee we have got the very best system possible to try to catch anybody who even thinks of cheating," he said.
The International Olympic Committee stores doping samples for eight years so they can be tested retroactively when new detection methods are devised.
WW II bomb scraps Youth Olympics medals ceremony
INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — An aerial bomb from World War II was found at a construction site Thursday, forcing the postponement of the daily medals ceremony at the Winter Youth Olympics.
The 550-pound bomb was discovered by workers nearby. The bomb was being disposed at the time the downtown ceremony was scheduled to start. The ceremony will be held Friday.
The Austria Press Agency says about 10 similar bombs have been found over the past 20 years in the same area near Innsbruck's main train station.
Skiing
Canadian freestyle skier Burke dead at 29
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Sarah Burke was an X Games star with a grass-roots mentality — a daredevil superpipe skier who understood the risks inherent to her sport and the debt she owed to it for her success on the slopes.
The pioneering Canadian freestyler, who helped get superpipe accepted into the Olympics, died Thursday after a Jan. 10 crash during a training run in Park City, Utah.
Burke, who lived near Whistler, in British Columbia, was 29.
"Sarah was the one who, in a very positive way, stood in the face of adversity and asked, 'Why not?'" said Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle team. "What she would have wanted was for her teammates and others in her sport to stand up and also say, 'Why not?' To benefit from the significant opportunities available to them, being able to compete in the Olympics and the X Games. Those were the things she wanted and cherished and fought for."
A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke crashed on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce sustained a traumatic brain injury during a training accident on Dec. 31, 2009.
Tests revealed she sustained "irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest," according to a statement released by her publicist, Nicole Wool, on behalf of the family.
She said Burke's organs and tissues were donated, as the skier had requested before the accident.
"The family expresses their heartfelt gratitude for the international outpouring of support they have received from all the people Sarah touched," the statement said.
Judge said the accident did not come on a risky trick, but rather, a simple 540-degree jump that Burke usually landed routinely.
"It was more the freak nature of how she landed," he said. "The angle of how she hit must have been exactly the right way, to create a very bizarre circumstance."
Burke will be remembered as much for the hardware she collected as the legacy she left for women in superpipe skiing, a sister sport to the more popular snowboarding brand that has turned Shaun White, Hannah Teter and others into stars.
Aware of the big role the Olympics played in pushing the Whites of the world from the fringes into the mainstream, Burke lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Winter Games program, noting that no new infrastructure would be needed.
Her arguments won over Olympic officials, and the discipline will debut in two years in Russia, where Burke likely would have been a favorite for the gold medal.
She was, Judge said, as committed to mentoring up-and-coming competitors and giving clinics as performing at the top levels.
"She was a kind person who was easygoing and approachable," Judge said. "There was no pretense about her."
News of Burke's death spread quickly through the action-sports world, where the Winter X Games are set to start next week in Aspen, Colo., without one of their biggest and most-beloved stars.
"She's probably one of the nicest people I've known in my life, and that's about the only thing I have to say about it," said American superpipe skier Simon Dumont, a multiple X Games medalist.
Jeremy Forster, the program director for U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding, said freeskiers would remember Burke "first, as a friend, and then as a competitor who constantly inspired them to do greater things."
"She was a leader in her sport, and it's a huge loss for the freeskiing community," Forster said.
"I am eternally indebted to Sarah for what she has done for this sport," said American superpipe skier Jen Hudak. "Every turn I ever make will be for her."
A moment of silence for Burke was observed before Canada's women's soccer team played Haiti in an Olympic qualifying match in Vancouver on Thursday night.
Burke's death is sure to re-ignite the debate over safety on the halfpipe.
Pearce's injury — he has since recovered and is back to riding on snow — was a jarring reminder of the dangers posed to these athletes who often market themselves as devil-may-care thrillseekers but know they make their living in a far more serious, and dangerous, profession.
The sport's leaders defend the record, saying mandatory helmets and air bags used on the sides of pipes during practice and better pipe-building technology has made this a safer sport, even though the walls of the pipes have risen significantly over the past decade. They now stand at 22 feet high.
Some of the movement to the halfpipe decades ago came because racing down the mountain, the way they do in snowboardcross and skicross, was considered even more dangerous — the conditions more unpredictable and the athletes less concerned with each other's safety.
But there are few consistent, hard-and-fast guidelines when it comes to limiting the difficulty of the tricks in the halfpipe, and as the money and fame available in the sport grew, so did the tricks. In 2010, snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton told The Associated Press that much of this was self-policed by athletes who knew where to draw the line.
"If the sport got to the point where halfpipe riding became really dangerous, I think riders would do something about it," Burton said. "It wouldn't be cool anymore."
His opinion is shared by many.
"From a safety perspective, it's just very difficult to really understand if there was anything that could've been done any differently to make it any safer," Judge said.
In 2009, Burke broke a vertebra in her back after landing awkwardly while competing in slopestyle at the X Games. It was her lobbying that helped get the X Games to include women's slopestyle — where riders shoot down the mountain and over "features" including bumps and rails.
It wasn't her best event, but she felt compelled to compete because she pushed for it. She came to terms with her injury quickly.
"I've been doing this for long time, 11 years," she said in a 2010 interview. "I've been very lucky with the injuries I've had. It's part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I'd probably do the exact same thing again."
She returned a year after that injury and kept going at the highest level, trying the toughest tricks and winning the biggest prizes.
A native of Midland, Ontario, Burke won the ESPY in 2007 as female action sports athlete of the year.
In 2010, she married another freestyle skier, Rory Bushfield, and they were headliners in a documentary film project on the Ski Channel called "Winter."
In her interview with AP two years ago, Burke reflected on the niche she'd carved out in the action-sports world.
"I think we're all doing this, first off, because we love it and want to be the best," she said. "But I also think it would've been a great opportunity, huge for myself and for skiing and for everyone, if we could've gotten into the (Vancouver) Olympics. It's sad. I mean, I'm super lucky to be where I am, but that would've been pretty awesome."
A little more than a year later, with Burke's prodding, her sport was voted in for the next Winter Games.
-- Lynn DeBruin and Eddie Pells
Swiss ski star Cuche to retire after season
KITZBUEHEL, Austria (AP) — Swiss ski star Dider Cuche will retire after the season despite being in contention for a record-equaling fifth World Cup downhill title.
The unexpected announcement Thursday by the 37-year-old former butcher skier came at a news conference leading to Saturday's classic race on the Streif course, where he is a four-time winner.
"Kitzbuehel represents something for me and I decided to make my decision here," Cuche said. "It's not a decision that I took last night or today."
Cuche captured the downhill title four of the past five seasons. He won a race in Lake Louise, Alberta, in November.
"I'm in top form and I can still aspire to win races. It's in this condition that I wish to retire from the World Cup," he said.
"Today marks a very emotional moment for me," Cuche added while fighting tears. "An important milestone in my career and in my life. .. I am convinced this is the right moment to retire."
Cuche said the announcement was a relief.
"Now that I am freed from other thoughts, I can give them full throttle," he said about Friday's super-G and Saturday's downhill in Kitzbuehel. "I would like to leave my mark one way or another."
Cuche became the oldest men's world champion in 2009 when he won the super-G in Val d'Isere, France, at 34. He was a silver medalist in the super-G at the 1998 Nagano Games, but he never won an Olympic gold medal.
"Of course, that's a race I would have loved to win," Cuche said. "But being runner-up to someone like Hermann Maier made it bearable."
Cuche also is the oldest racer to win a men's World Cup race since his victory at the 2011 Kitzbuehel downhill at 36, beating Liechtenstein great Marco Buechel's record by 85 days.
Cuche is beloved in Switzerland, and on Saturday was elected the country's top personality of 2011. Hours earlier, he failed in his 13th — and final — attempt to win Switzerland's biggest sports event, the Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen. He was runner-up three times, twice to Bode Miller (2007, 2008).
Swiss ski federation president Urs Lehmann called Cuche "a fantastic sportsman, a wonderful person, and a superb role model."
"He has done great things for Switzerland as a skiing nation," Lehmann said. "We hope Didier will remain part of the Swiss ski sport one way or the other. That would be great."
Cuche made his first appearance in the World Cup at a downhill in Bormio, Italy, on Dec. 29, 1993. He was 57th.
After his Nagano medal, when he was beaten by Maier, Cuche's career was interrupted by injuries, including a broken leg and ruptured knee ligaments.
Cuche came back even stronger to win his first crystal globe when he was 32 as downhill World Cup champion in the 2006-07 season. Now, with four downhill trophies, Cuche trails only another Austrian great, Franz Klammer, whose five season-long titles leads the list.
Cuche also won the giant slalom World Cup title in 2009 and the super-G title last season.
In the overall standings, Cuche finished in the top three six times. His best finish was second last season behind runaway winner Ivica Kostelic of Croatia. He has four career world championship medals, with back-to-back downhill silvers in 2009 and 2011 and a giant slalom bronze in 2007.
Buechel, who retired two years ago, understood Cuche's reasoning.
"He is a great athlete and a great person," Buechel said. "I know Didier would rather go on until he is 60, but someday you feel your time has come. You have to respect such a decision."
-- Eric Willemsen and Graham Dunbar
Air bags presented as ski racing's safety solution
KITZBUEHEL Austria (AP) — A high-tech air bag meant to improve safety in ski racing was presented by the International Ski Federation and the manufacturer on Thursday, two years before its planned introduction at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
The D-air system inflates air bags under the race suit in case of a crash, helping to protect the skier's back, chest, shoulders and collar bones.
"Crashes may always happen, but this could help racers walk away from it without serious injuries," FIS race director Guenter Hujara said.
A year ago, the ski federation teamed up with the Italian company, Dainese, which has already developed a similar protection system for motor racing.
Several World Cup skiers, including former overall champion Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway's Kjetil Jansrud and Italy's Werner Heel, have been assisting in the development of the system.
They've been wearing a special back protector containing a computer chip that collects various data about speed and movement of the body during racing.
"It's just a normal back protector," Svindal said. "We have been using them every downhill this year except in America. Now they have a lot of data they can start working with."
According to Alessandro Bellati, the Dainese engineer who is coordinating the project, the data is needed to determine the exact moment that the air bags should inflate in case of a crash.
"They will open within 40 milliseconds and reach maximum pressure within 100 milliseconds," Bellati said. "But we still need a lot of data to tune the system. We are still in the first phase."
Svindal wore the initial prototype of the air bag equipment during a practice session and said he was hardly affected by it.
"It's comfortable to ski with," the Norwegian said. "You don't really feel it. Even the small gas tanks, they have hidden them well in the back protector. They might still have to work a bit on the shape so it will fit even better."
The manufacturer planned to use gather data this year, before fine-tuning the system in 2013 and introducing it the year after.
The FIS is aiming to integrate the system with other safety measures. The air bags won't protect legs or knees — the most harmed parts of a skier's body in a crash because of the attached skis.
"We are interested in how to get the most out of this system," Hujara said. "If you can define the exact moment that a racer loses control over himself or his material, you could use that also to find a system that immediately releases his skis before he lands in the safety nets."
-- Eric Willemsen
Germany's Neuner wins again in World Cup biathlon
ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — Magdalena Neuner of Germany won a 7.5-kilometer sprint Thursday for her fifth biathlon World Cup victory of the season.
Neuner won two gold medals and one silver at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She holds a 69-point lead over Darya Domracheva of Belarus in the overall standings at the season's midpoint.
Neuner missed one target but still finished 17.5 seconds in front of Kaisa Makarainen of Finland, who shot cleanly. Domracheva was third with two misses, 30.5 seconds behind.
A men's 10-kilometer sprint is scheduled for Friday.
Downhill training canceled to protect Streif
KITZBUEHEL, Austria (AP) — Organizers have canceled Thursday's final training session for the classic World Cup downhill race on the Streif to avoid damage to the course after forecasts of relatively warm weather. Race director Guenter Hujara said "we have to protect the course prior to the race."
Two training runs for Saturday's downhill were held over the last two days, with Austria's Klaus Kroell and Switzerland's Didier Cuche posting the fastest times. The traditional Hahnenkamm event starts with a super-G Friday and ends with a slalom on Sunday.
Figure Skating
With eye on Sochi Olympics, Weir announces return
NEW YORK (AP) — Johnny Weir is ready to give up the fashion shows and the red carpet for another shot at the Olympics.
The popular figure skater said Thursday he was returning to competition with hopes of taking the ice at the 2014 Games in Sochi. Even if it means living what he describes as a "monk"-like life of an elite athlete in training.
"I wanted to do this while I still have the time," the three-time U.S. champion said at a news conference in Manhattan. "I didn't want to be 50 years old and look back and say, 'Oh, those last two years before Sochi and I kind of let them go doing other things.'"
Not that he didn't enjoy doing other things in the two years since last competing at the Vancouver Olympics, where he finished sixth. Makeup modeling, dress designing, reality TV starring.
Weir also came out in an autobiography, "Welcome to My World," and last month married Victor Voronov.
"That's very fulfilling and lovely," the 27-year-old Weir said of his break from training. "It gave me the opportunity to fall in love and get married and build a beautiful life for myself. But going back into competition, it will be so stressful to give up a lot of the extracurriculars and only skate."
And he is committed to sacrificing those other activities for three hours in the rink each day with coach Galina Zmievskaya along with another 60-90 minutes of training off the ice.
He's already turned down an invitation to Madonna's movie premiere next week. Weir will skate at a benefit in Japan in March for victims of last year's earthquake, but otherwise you'll mostly find him practicing in Hackensack, N.J.
"I won't be able to spend Saturday night drinking in a corner booth with my friends," he said. "I'll be sleeping."
He plans to work hard on his quad, the all-important element in men's skating these days. Not only are all the top men doing quads, but world champion Patrick Chan has two in his free skate.
Weir has tried them in competition, but struggled to land them cleanly.
"So I can actually be a real threat and not show up as just kind of a face of figure skating," Weir said of perfecting the four-revolution jump. "I want to show up and be competitive and actually have people take this seriously. This isn't a publicity stunt."
Wearing a kelly green blazer, his hair in a pompadour with a light brown streak, Weir said he hoped to perform to a musical medley of the opera "Carmen" and Lady Gaga.
He's especially popular in Russia, and the chance to compete in the Olympics there played into his decision.
"It would be a perfect ending," Weir said. "And I will retire after Sochi."
One of skating's most popular figures, Weir had never ruled out coming back for Sochi and had been quietly training since the fall. He finished fifth at his first Olympics, the 2006 Games in Turin, and was the bronze medalist at the 2008 world championships.
Weir, who will likely return to competition at a small event in Hackensack at the end of the summer, could have to go through qualifying to earn a spot at next year's U.S. championships. He said he needed to lose about 8 pounds; choreographer Nina Petrenko recalled that her mother, Zmievskaya, described Weir as being in "awful shape."
For now.
"He's very, very disciplined," said off-ice trainer Fatima Bruhns. "Once he sets a goal, he follows through."
With Voronov looking on, Weir said his new husband was supportive of the return to competition — and even pushed him toward it.
"I'm very fulfilled," Weir said. "I'm very happy, and I feel like I have a partner in crime going into all this craziness that's about to spring on me with the figure skating again."
-- Rachel Cohen
Cycling
Greipel wins third stage of Tour Down Under
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — Germany's Andre Greipel won the third stage of cycling's Tour Down Under in a bunch sprint on Thursday to regain the overall lead he lost a day earlier.
Greipel, riding for the Belgium-based Lotto-Belisol team, started the 84-mile stage from Unley in suburban Adelaide to Victor Harbor two seconds behind Switzerland's Martin Kohler on general classification.
His second stage win of the 2012 tour — he won the first stage on Tuesday and has won 10 stages of the Australian event overall — allowed him to reclaim the tour leader's ocher jersey.
Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus, riding for FDJ-Big MAT, was second in the stage and Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway, from Britain's Sky Procycling team, was third.
Greipel won the Tour Down Under in 2008 and 2010. He was also the winner of the criterium prelude to this year's tour, the Down Under Classic.
Riders battled strong crosswinds throughout Thursday's stage which took riders through undulating grape growing country on the exposed Fleurieu Peninsula.
"It's always a tricky stage with the wind and I was quite nervous with the corners at the finish, but crossing the line first can't be any better," Greipel said. "We have reached our goals for this year (at the Tour Down Under)."
Greipel's stage win gave him the lead on general classification after three of six stages from Kohler, who is eight seconds behind.
Australia's Michael Matthews is a further four seconds back and Belgium's Thomas de Gendt is 14 seconds behind Greipel.
De Gendt, of the Netherlands-based Vaconsoleil-DCM team, was part of a four-man breakaway which led through the early and middle parts of Thursday's stage.
With the Katusha rider Eduard Vorgnov of Russia, Belgium's Jan Vakelants, of the U.S.-based Radioshack team, and Mattew Brammeier of Ireland, de Gendt led until the 92-kilometer point and by a peak margin of almost five minutes.
The peleton was together for the remaining 40 kilometers of the stage, swept by strong winds which made further breakaways difficult.
The approach to the finish line on the esplanade at Victor Harbor included a number of traffic roundabouts which tightened the 131-rider field and added a new tactical element.
Several teams, including Rabobank and BMC, took turns at the front of the peleton in the final stages before Greipel burst clear to claim the stage win. His 10 stage wins place him second on the all time list behind Australia's Robbie McEwen with 12.
Greipel dedicated his stage win to teammate Jurgen Roelandts, who suffered a neck injury in a fall near the end of Wednesday's second stage. The Belgian rider remains in Royal Adelaide Hospital.
"This victory is for Jurgen Roelandts who unfortunately supports us from the hospital," Greipel said. "We're nearly three riders down, but the rest of the team that is not injured has been awesome today."
Friday's fourth stage takes riders 80 miles from Norwood to Tanunda.
Track & Field
CAS clears marathon runner Thys after six-year case
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — South African marathon runner Gert Thys has won his doping case, nearly six years after testing positive for a steroid when winning the Seoul International Marathon.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the World Anti-Doping Agency's appeal to clear Thys after South African authorities failed to hear his case.
The CAS panel says it is "undisputed" that Thys tested positive for norandrosterone after winning his third Seoul title in 2006. But it agreed with WADA that "Mr. Thys's due process rights are seemingly being ignored" in South Africa.
The South African athletics federation had banned Thys for two years and seven months. CAS cleared Thys in 2009 because of laboratory errors in South Korea.
Injury rules out Evora's Olympic title defense
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Olympic triple jump champion Nelson Evora of Portugal has fractured his shinbone for the second time in two years and won't defend his title in London.
Evora said in a statement on Thursday he won't recover in time for the games. The 27-year-old former world champion collapsed in pain during warmups for a field event in Lisbon on Wednesday and was rushed to hospital. He had surgery on the same shin two years ago, sidelining him for more than a year.
Evora, a surprise winner at the 2007 world championships, won the triple jump gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Bolt to run at Golden Gala in Rome in May
ROME (AP) — Usain Bolt will run the 100 meters at the Golden Gala in Rome as preparation to defend three sprint titles at the London Olympics.
Organizers announced the Jamaican's participation Thursday in the meet on May 31. In a statement, Bolt calls the Rome race "a good early season test."
Bolt also confirmed he will run the 100 at another Diamond League meet in Oslo on June 7. Bolt made his season debut in Rome last year, winning the 100 in 9.91 seconds to edge former record-holder Asafa Powell.
