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International Capsules: Cyclist Evans expects big things from Armstrong
Comments 0 | Recommend 0MELBOURNE, Australia — Road race world champion Cadel Evans is predicting bigger things for seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in 2010 than he achieved in his comeback to professional cycling this season.
Armstrong finished third in this year's Tour de France at age 37, his first since retiring following his unprecedented seventh straight win in 2005.
"He's going to be bigger and more dangerous than in 2009 — we'll see Armstrong at another level in 2010," Evans said Wednesday during a promotional tour in Australia.
Armstrong has left the Kazakh-backed Astana team and will be the main rider for the new ProTour squad Team RadioShack.
Evans has also switched teams, the 32-year-old Australian leaving Belgium-based Silence-Lotto earlier this month for new American squad BMC.
He was 30th in the Tour de France this season after runner-up finishes in 2007 and '08, but got his year back on track by finishing third in the Tour of Spain and then winning the road race world championship at Switzerland in late September.
Both Armstrong and Evans will compete in the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, South Australia state, in January. Armstrong, a cancer survivor, made his competitive comeback in the same Australian race this year.
Evans' team BMC has been given a wild-card entry for the Jan. 17-24 race.
Evans conceded he'd taken a risk signing with a new team, which will also need a wild card to race the Tour de France, but there were many benefits.
"BMC, they're not a big team now, but they're growing — for me, to join a team as they're growing is an interesting project," he said. "They have everything in place to be a very good team and that's really what I'm looking for, the core values and philosophies.
"Maybe I will miss out on the Tour, but we have all the capabilities to prove we deserve a place."
Cycling aims for gender equality at 2012 Olympics
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Cycling's governing body confirmed Wednesday it will deliver proposals to the IOC for a track race program at the 2012 London Olympics that offers equal gold medal opportunities for men and women, and likely would deny American phenom Taylor Phinney a chance to compete in his specialty event.
The Dec. 3 meeting with the International Cycling Union will work toward an International Olympic Committee target of gender equality at the games, IOC sports director Christophe Dubi said.
Last year's Beijing Games had seven track events for men and three for women — a bias the UCI acknowledged is "out of line" with other Olympic sports.
"I think the UCI is doing great work, because they know it's good for them to look at this aspect," Dubi told The Associated Press.
Cycling's governing body will risk upsetting riders and national teams by cutting traditional races to create the balanced schedule. Phinney is among those already speaking out — he's the reigning world champion in the individual pursuit, one of five endurance races targeted for elimination.
In a recent interview with the AP, Phinney said losing pursuit "would be devastating." He has launched a campaign on Twitter to try and save his event.
Bradley Wiggins of Britain, a two-time individual pursuit gold medalist, has said that dropping his favored event to focus on sprint races could kill off endurance cycling.
The UCI reportedly is considering a program of the same five gold medal events for men and women: individual sprint, team sprint, keirin, team pursuit and the five-race omnium event.
Under that plan, five endurance races — in men's and women's individual pursuit and points races, plus the men's madison — would be dropped.
UCI president Pat McQuaid said Wednesday the program changes were not finalized, but described track cycling's current medal bias for men as "way out of line."
"It's a stated objective of the IOC to have gender balance. It's a strong principle," McQuaid said.
Dubi said the IOC understood events such as the individual pursuit were part of cycling's "heart and soul." He will lead talks with the UCI before putting a firm proposal to the IOC's executive board, which meets Dec. 9-10 in Lausanne.
"Normally when we go to the executive we will have all elements in place for a final decision," Dubi said.
-- Graham Dunbar
Olympics
Already a world champ, Hamlin eyes Olympic gold
For $5.89, anyone can taste how Erin Hamlin was immortalized.
Vanilla ice cream, stacked with Reese's peanut butter cups, Oreos and hot fudge, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. In the sleepy village of Remsen, N.Y., pop. 514, that's how homage was paid to a local who stunned the luge world — the World Champion Erin Hamlin Sundae, a popular item at The Soda Fountain in town.
"It's very good," Hamlin said.
Sweet, too.
After all, it marks the sweetest moment of Hamlin's luge career — an 80 mph trip down an ice-coated mountainside track that carried the American who turns 23 on Thursday to a place many thought impossible to reach.
She beat the unbeatable Germans for a gold medal in the world championships.
"A miracle," said USA Luge executive director Ron Rossi.
This February, she'll try again, with higher stakes. Olympic gold will be on the line.
Hamlin formally opens the defense of her world championship this weekend, when the World Cup luge series opens in Calgary, Alberta. The Germans will be gunning for her, as will everyone else on the circuit. Hamlin certainly knows that and is embracing what she sees as an ultimate challenge.
"Everything is totally different now," Hamlin said. "It's going to be night and day compared to the last Olympics. Before, I was the young kid who wasn't supposed to go. It's definitely going to be the polar opposite. But it's four years later, I've matured a lot and hopefully the experiences I've had between then and now has evened everything out."
Well, perhaps.
The scoreboard, however, still shows Germany with a decided advantage.
In luge, the sport where racers slide on their backs, feet-first and at breakneck speed down a track while using only subtle shifts of their bodies to steer, there's Germany and then there's everybody else — at least on the women's circuits. Germans had won 99 straight international races before last season's world championship and Hamlin's victory.
"Breaking a 99-race streak by arguably the most dominant force in any sport was amazing and ranks among the greatest moments in U.S. winter sports history," said USA Luge's Gordy Sheer, a 1998 Olympic silver medalist and now an official within the federation. "It's the most under-recognized miracle on ice."
There are some parallels between Hamlin's win and the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.
In 1980, the Soviet Union was the immovable hockey object, when the Winter Olympics rolled into Lake Placid. The U.S. hockey team had gotten thumped by the Russians 10-3 just days before those Olympics began in the Adirondack Mountains.
In 2009, Hamlin was coming off an eighth-place finish in the most recent World Cup race before those world championships, finishing two runs at Altenberg 1.194 seconds behind German winner Natalie Geisenberger — who led a 1-2-3-4 finish by her countrywomen. In luge, a gap of 1.194 seconds over two runs is about as decisive as a 10-3 loss in hockey, a colossal margin.
Somehow, everything changed for Hamlin in Lake Placid, where she won the two-run competition by 0.187 seconds.
"Her winning at worlds definitely gave me hope," said Kate Hansen, a 17-year-old who's now Hamlin's teammate on the World Cup team. "I've always had hope, but just to see her finally do it, it was like it told all of us that 'Yeah, we can do some damage at the Olympics. It can be possible.' I strive to be like Erin, because she wasn't really fazed by all the stardom that she got."
Doing it once, that's one thing. The trick is doing it again.
Hamlin was 12th as a 19-year-old at the Turin Olympics, racing without the burden of expectation. She speaks with respect and reverence for the German machine, with good reason. Germany has four tracks, thousands of kids involved in sliding and spends more money on sliding sports than any other nation. Only gold matters.
And yes, she acknowledges, the German mystique is intimidating.
"It's like the Tiger effect," Hamlin said, referring to Tiger Woods' hold on the No. 1 ranking in golf. "You go to a golf course and automatically play worse because Tiger's there. It happens in luge, too. If the Germans are going to race ... Put it this way, there's been a lot of times that I've placed fifth and people are like, 'Well, you won,' because I was the first non-German. And that's not how it works."
Not anymore.
Not for her, anyway, not after winning a world title.
After Vancouver, the folks at The Soda Fountain might have to re-name that sundae.
"I'm getting acknowledged for what I've done and what I've worked for," Hamlin said. "It's kind of refreshing. But if I never become famous for being a world champion luge athlete, is that going to bother me? Not completely, because I know what I've accomplished. And I want to accomplish more."
-- Tim Reynolds
Ramzi stripped of Olympic 1,500-meter gold medal
LONDON — Fifteen months after the Beijing Olympics, Bahraini middle-distance runner Rashid Ramzi was stripped of his 1,500-meter gold medal Wednesday and four other athletes were disqualified because of doping at the games.
The International Olympic Committee took action against the five athletes who tested positive in April in retroactive tests for CERA, an advanced version of the blood-boosting drug EPO.
The Moroccan-born Ramzi was the only gold medalist from Beijing caught using performance-enhancing drugs. He had given Bahrain its first Olympic track and field gold medal by winning the 1,500, one of the most prestigious events in the sport.
The athletes' samples were collected and tested at the Beijing Games in August 2008. They tested negative at the time, but the IOC reanalyzed the samples this year when a fully validated test for CERA became available.
Ramzi can appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The IOC also stripped Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin of his silver medal in the Beijing road race, a decision announced Tuesday by the Italian Olympic Committee.
Also disqualified Wednesday were German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, Croatian 800-meter runner Vanja Perisic and Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka. They did not win medals in Beijing.
All five athletes face possible two-year bans from their international sports federations. Under IOC rules, they are ineligible for the 2012 London Olympics.
The IOC stores Olympic doping samples for eight years with the option of reanalyzing them once new testing methods are developed. IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist said Wednesday's decision shows the Olympic anti-doping effort is working.
"It is a very good message," he told The Associated Press. "We do have this type of possibility to go back and make use of the eight-year statute of limitation. This sends a very serious warning to people. Even though you may not be caught at the competition today, you may be identified tomorrow. That is a deterrent, for sure."
The IOC ordered Bahrain's national Olympic committee to return his gold medal "as soon as possible" and asked the International Association of Athletics Federations to modify the 1,500 results and consider further action against Ramzi.
Asbel Kipruto Kiprop of Kenya stands to be upgraded from silver to gold in the 1,500. Nicolas Willis of New Zealand could go from bronze to silver, and fourth-place finisher Mehdi Baala of France would get the bronze.
"We are entering the era where athletes can be confident that those that are considering taking alternate routes — like performance enhancing drugs — they're going to be looking over their shoulders," said Willis, who trains in Ann Arbor, Mich. "They might not get caught today, but down the line ... This has maybe brought some aches and pains, but it's an important part to shake some of those cobwebs free so we can enter the new era of the sport."
Sebastian Coe, the winner of 1,500 Olympic titles in 1980 and 1984, is an IAAF vice president. He praised the stripping of Ramzi's medal because of doping, the latest in a string of drug scandals in track and field.
"That was the right decision," Coe told the AP. "Cheats cannot prosper in our sport and people will realize that sooner or later. ... Unfortunately, that was high profile and we can do without it, but it also shows the quality of our testing procedures now."
Rebellin, the cyclist, was the only other medalist caught up in the retesting cases. He is the first Italian athlete stripped of an Olympic medal for doping.
Samuel Sanchez of Spain won the road race in Beijing. Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland is set to move from bronze to silver and Alexander Kolobnev of Russia from fourth to bronze.
Schumacher was stripped of his 13th-place finish in the Olympic individual time trial cycling race; Tsoumeleka lost her ninth-place in the women's 20K walk; and Perisic was removed of her sixth-place in a heat of the women's 800.
A sixth athlete was found positive in the retesting process, but women's weightlifter Yudelquis Contreras was cleared by the Dominican Olympic Committee after the "B'' sample came back negative.
The IOC said Wednesday that it reserves the right to reopen disciplinary procedures against Contreras "in the event that new evidence comes to light."
-- Stephen Wilson
IOC sanctions race walker Tsoumeleka for doping
ATHENS, Greece — The IOC sanctioned Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka for blood doping at the Beijing Olympics.
The Greek Olympic Committee said it was informed Wednesday of the International Olympic Committee disciplinary committee's decision to disqualify Tsoumeleka.
Tsoumeleka, who won gold in the 20-kilometer walk at the 2004 Athens Olympics, finished ninth in Beijing.
The Greek Olympic Committee said the IOC has also asked the international track and field federation to amend the 20-kilometer results for Beijing.
Tsoumeleka was one of five athletes who tested positive in April for CERA, an advanced version of the blood-booster EPO, in retesting of Beijing samples.
Greece's track and field federation had already handed her a two-year ban, while a prosecutor charged her with breaking doping laws, which carries a maximum two-year jail sentence.
Tsoumeleka denies knowingly using the substance, and announced her retirement from competition when the positive result was announced.
Her case was one of many last year for Greek athletes. Fani Halkia, the 2004 Olympic 400-meter hurdles champion, was dropped from the team in Beijing and expelled from the athletes' village after testing positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.
Fourteen other Greek athletes, including 11 weightlifters, tested positive for the same substance before the Olympics.
BMW becomes 2012 London Olympics top-tier sponsor
LONDON — BMW is the latest top-tier domestic sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, and organizers remain in talks with additional potential investors.
The German carmaker was presented Wednesday as the official automotive sponsor of the games in a deal worth an estimated $67 million in cash and services.
BMW will provide about 4,000 vehicles for athletes, officials and other members of the Olympic community.
As the seventh top-level sponsor and 24th overall of the games, the deal brings London's total revenue from domestic sponsors to nearly $1 billion. The overall target is $1.17 billion.
"We are well on our way to that with two and bit years to go," Sebastian Coe, who heads London's organizing committee, told The Associated Press. "There are a number of competitive discussions out there in any number of categories. We have got other things lined up."
The other top-tier sponsors are Adidas, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB.
-- Rob Harris
Penguins captain Crosby runs with Olympic torch
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Five months after lifting the Stanley Cup, Sidney Crosby carried the Olympic torch as thousands of people lined a downtown street.
Clad in an official torchbearer uniform, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain ran about 300 yards Wednesday before passing the torch to snowboarder Sarah Conrad.
"You look at the people out there, you see the signs of the excitement," Crosby said. "You never dream of carrying the torch. For me, that wasn't something that I ever thought would be a possibility."
Crosby's hometown of Cole Harbour lies across the harbor from Halifax.
"It's not just about me carrying the torch or another person — this is a celebration of the whole country and just to be a part of that, I feel so honored," Crosby said. "Whether I was playing hockey or whether I was someone here locally who just got the chance to do it, I think we can all say that it's a tremendous opportunity and we're proud to be able to do it."
The relay began in Victoria last month and will make stops in every province and territory leading up to the Winter Games in Vancouver in February.
Fans to have chance to design Vonn's helmet art
NEW YORK — Fans will have a chance to design the artwork that appears on star skier Lindsey Vonn's helmet during February's Vancouver Olympics.
NBC said Wednesday that fans as young as 13 can submit entries online from Nov. 23-Dec. 21.
A team of judges will narrow the entries to three finalists, which will be displayed on NBCOlympics.com in early January. Fans will then be able to vote for their favorite, though Vonn will have the final say.
Vonn is the two-time defending overall World Cup champion and will be one of the most closely watched Americans in Vancouver.
Track & Field
New study finds Pistorius gets boost from blades
LONDON — The prosthetic legs of double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius give the South African a 10-second advantage over a 400-meter race, according to a study by researchers from two American universities.
Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University and Matthew Bundle of the University of Wyoming found that Pistorius, who has been cleared to compete against able-bodied athletes, runs the 400 distance 10 seconds faster than he would if his prosthetic limbs acted like normal legs.
Their conclusion, as part of a point-counterpoint, will be published Thursday in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
"Pistorius' sprinting mechanics are anomalous, advantageous and directly attributable to how much lighter and springier his artificial limbs are," Weyand said in a statement. "The blades enhance sprint running speeds by 15-30 percent."
The counterpoint, written by seven other researchers from around the United States, disputed the claim by Weyand and Bundle.
"There is insufficient evidence to conclude that modern running specific prostheses provide physiological or biomechanical advantages over biological legs," the counterpoint claims.
Based on tests performed by German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann, the IAAF banned Pistorius from competing against able-bodied athletes in January 2008. The decision was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in May.
The CAS ruling cleared Pistorius to compete at the Beijing Olympics, but he failed to run the required qualifying time of 45.95 seconds. His personal best is 46.25.
After failing to reach the Olympics in Beijing, Pistorius won three gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400 at the Paralympics last September. He also failed to meet the qualifier standard ahead of this year's world championships in Berlin.
The 22-year-old Pistorius, known as the "Blade Runner," is still hoping to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.
Weyand and Bundle said the lightweight blades allow Pistorius "to reposition his limbs 15.7 percent more rapidly" than five of the most recent world-record holders in the 100 meters.
"The springy, lightweight blades allow Pistorius to attain the same sprinting speeds while applying 20 percent less ground force than intact-limb runners," the pair concluded, according to the statement. "The springy blades reduce the muscle forces Pistorius requires for sprinting to less than half of intact-limb levels."
The counterpoint disputed the lightweight prosthetics give Pistorius an advantage.
"Brief leg swing times increase the fraction of a stride that a leg is in contact with the ground and thus reduce the vertical impulse requirement for the contact phase," the counterpoint says. "But, the notion that lightweight prostheses are the only reason for Pistorius' rapid swing times ignores that he has had many years to train and adapt his neuromuscular system to using prostheses."
The counterpoint was written by Rodger Kram and Matthew T. Beale of the University of Colorado, Alena M. Grabowski and Hugh M. Herr of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Craig P. McGowan of the University of Texas, Mary Beth Brown of Georgia Tech and William J. McDermott of the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.
-- Chris Lehourites
IAAF: Runner Semenya still undergoing gender tests
MONACO — Gender tests on South African world champion Caster Semenya have not been completed, the International Association of Athletics Federations said Wednesday.
The IAAF had been expected to announce its findings on Friday, but instead said it would not discuss her medical tests.
"The IAAF will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya's case," the track and field governing body said in a statement. "There will be no discussion of Caster Semenya's case at the forthcoming IAAF Council Meeting. ... No further comment will be made on this subject until further notice."
The IAAF Council plans to meet on Friday and Saturday.
The 18-year-old Semenya won the women's 800-meter world title in August in a season's best 1 minute, 55.45 seconds, but her accomplishment was overshadowed by gender-test revelations.
Before the final, the IAAF said it had ordered gender tests because of her muscular build and rapid improvement in times.
In South Africa, the case also entangled the president of the South African athletics federation, Leonard Chuene. In September, Chuene admitted he lied about his knowledge of gender tests performed on Semenya in South Africa before the worlds. He was later suspended.
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