Olympics Highlights: Day 13
— -- The flap over whether all-around gymnastics winnerAndreea Raducan of Romania gets her gold medal back will last atleast another day.
Raducan was stripped of her medal because she took over-the-countermedicine containing a banned stimulant. Romanian officials said thepenalty was unfair because the 16-year-old was only trying to curea cold and took the drug on doctor’s orders.
After a 4½-hour hearing today, the Court of Arbitration forSport said it would rule on Raducan’s case by Thursday.
Baseball
A ragtag bunch of minor leaguers led by Hall of Fame manager TomLasorda beat mighty Cuba 4-0 for the gold medal.
Ben Sheets, Milwaukee’s first-round draft pick last year, allowedjust three hits.
Mike Neill hit a first-inning homer as the Americans scoredearly instead of late. Ernie Young — at the center of Saturday’sbench-clearing dust-up — more than got even with a bases-loadedsingle.
Catcher Pat Borders also had an RBI double as an exquisitepayback.
In the bronze medal game, Lee Seung-yuop doubled home a pair ofruns with two outs in the eighth inning to give South Korea a 3-1victory over Japan.
Basketball
Lisa Leslie, the 6-foot-5 center from the Los Angeles Sparks,hit three jump shots from 15 feet and beyond early in the secondhalf to help the United States beat Slovakia 58-43 and move intothe semifinals of the Olympic tournament.The Americans meet SouthKorea next.
South Korea, which advanced with a 68-59 victory over France,gave the United States fits in the first game of the preliminaryround.
In the other quarterfinals, Brazil edged Russia 68-67, andAustralia routed Poland 76-48.
Boxing
Featherweight Rocky Juarez powered past a 1996 Olympic championand into the Olympic boxing semifinals.
Juarez, a 1999 world champion, landed 23 scoring blows in thefinal two rounds and stopped Somluck Kamsing of Thailand on the15-point rule (31-16) with eight seconds remaining in the 125-poundbout.
Ricardo Williams Jr. assured himself of at least a bronze medalWednesday, fighting his way into the 139-pound Olympic boxingsemifinals with a 17-12 win over Russia’s Alexandre Leonov.
He became the second American boxer to reach the semifinals,where he will face big punching Cuban Diogenes Luna on Friday forthe right to fight for Olympic gold.
Williams joined Juarez and 119-pound teammate Clarence Vinson inthe semifinals.
Canoe-Kayak
Martin Doktor of the Czech Republic, the 1996 champion in boththe canoe 500- and 1,000-meter events, was disqualified from themen’s C-1 500 for drifting too close to a competitor. The rule isdesigned to prevent boats from riding in another’s wake.
Doktor was thrown out after Germany filed a protest accusing himof getting within 5 meters of German Andreas Dittmer, who won theheat. The competition committee agreed.
Cycling
Lance Armstrong, the two-time Tour de France champion, finished13th in the road race, beaten by his longtime cycling rival andfellow Tour winner Jan Ullrich of Germany.
Ullrich, who won the Tour in 1997 and finished second threetimes, won by nine seconds over Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakstan,who won the silver and bronze medal winner Andreas Kloeden ofGermany.
Ullrich pulled away from the pack midway through the 12th of 14laps and never got caught in the 148-mile event.
Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, crossed the line in a pack 1:29behind Ullrich. George Hincapie of Greenville, S.C., was eighth,1:26 behind the winner.
Diving
Jenny Keim of Miami and Michelle Davison of Columbia, S.C.,trying to give the United States its first Olympic medal in women’sspringboard diving since 1988, qualified for the final.
Defending champion Fu Mingxia of China was seeded first afterthe semifinals with 585.57 points in her bid to become the thirddiver to win four gold medals.
Guo Jingjing of China was seeded second with 583.89. Russia’sYulia Pakhalina was the No. 3 seed with 552.51. Keim was the eighthseed with Davison 11th.
Equestrian
For the third straight Olympics, Germany, the Netherlands andthe United States finished 1-2-3 in team dressage.
Germany, which topped the field with 5,638, won its seventh goldmedal since 1964.
Christine Traurig of Carlsbad, Calif., aboard Etienne scored1,745 on the last combination of the day to secure the bronze forthe United States.
Field Hockey
India, the eight-time gold medalist, was forced out of the men’scompetition at the Olympics after it drew 1-1 with Poland.
Despite being a power for years until cricket took over as amajor sport, India’s hockey players still live in dormitories andsleep on the floor during tournaments at home.
Sailing
Today’s sailing races were postponed. Storms kept theboats in port in the early morning, then the wind died away whenthe weather calmed.
Competition continues on Thursday.
TaekwondoAmerican Kay Poe, who made the Olympic team thanks to thekindness of her best friend, lost her first-round flyweight matchin taekwondo and is out of medal contention.
Poe entered the Olympic trials in May ranked No. 1 in the world in theflyweight class. But she dislocated a kneecap in the semifinals,and couldn’t compete in the final against her best friend, EstherKim.
Kim, who would have been an underdog if Poe had been healthy,decided to give up her chance to make the team by forfeiting thematch to Poe, sending Poe to the Olympics.
Lauren Burns of Australia won theOlympic women’s 49kg class gold medal in taekwondo. Urbia Melendez of Cuba took the silver. Shu-Ju Chi of Taiwan wonthe bronze medal.
Juan Moreno of Miami, in his third Olympics, lost hisfirst-round match in the men’s 58-kilogram division.
Track and Field
Marion Jones resumed her quest for five gold medals by advancingto the semifinals of the 200 and qualifying for the long jumpfinal.
Jones captured gold in the 100 meters last weekend but since hasbeen engulfed in controversy surrounding husband C.J. Hunter’spositive drug tests. She won her first-round heat in the 200 in22.75 seconds.
Nils Schumann of Germany won the men’s 800, Angelo Taylor of theUnited States took the men’s 400 hurdles and Ellina Zvereva ofBelarus took the women’s discus.
Chris Huffins of Indianapolis led the decathlon at the end ofthe first day with world recordholder Tomas Dvorek of the CzechRepublic in seventh place.
Two winners from the 1996 Olympics, Gail Devers of the UnitedStates and Nourredine Morceli, faltered. Devers pulled up in herhurdles semifinal with a slight hamstring tear. Morceli was bumpedand bounced out of the men’s 1,500 semifinals.
World record-holder and world champion Mihaela Melinte ofRomania was escorted away by officials when she tried to compete inthe women’s hammer throw, two days after Romanian officials wereinformed she had failed a pre-games drug test. This is the firstOlympics for the women hammer throwers.
Tennis
Venus Williams beat 18-year-old Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-4 to winan Olympic gold medal, extending Williams’ winning streak to 32matches.
Williams became only the second player to win Wimbledon, theU.S. Open and the Olympics in the same year. Steffi Graf did it in1988.
Monica Seles won the bronze medal on Tuesday.
Williams will try for her second gold when she and sister Serenaplay in the doubles final against Kristie Boogert and MiriamOremans of the Netherlands.
Sebastien Lareau and Daniel Nestor of Canada won the Olympicgold medal in double’s tennis, defeating Todd Woodbridgeand Mark Woodforde of Australia in four sets.
Arnaud Di Pasquale won the men’s bronze medal, France’s first inthat sport since 1924. Spaniards Alex Corretja and Albert Costa wonthe bronze in men’s doubles.
Volleyball
Russia had a a dramatic 21-25, 25-23, 25-19, 19-25, 15-13victory over Cuba when Angel Dennis netted a serve on the matchpoint to give Russia a spot in the men’s semifinals.
Russia will play the Brazil-Argentina winner in Friday’s firstsemifinal.
In another quarterfinal, tournament favorite Italy dropped a setto Australia before recovering to win 25-14, 22-25, 25-19, 25-15.Italy will play the winner between the defending Olympic championNetherlands and Yugoslavia.
Water Polo
The U.S. men’s water polo team ended its opening round at theSydney Games with a 9-3 victory over Greece to gain thequarterfinals as Group B’s fourth and final team.
The United States needed some momentum to bring against Russiain Friday’s quarterfinals.
Aleksandar Sapic ripped a short shot past Hungary’s Zoltan Koszas time ran out, lifting Yugoslavia to a 10-9 victory in Olympicmen’s water polo.
Yugoslavia, 4-0-1, clinched a share of the Group B title.Hungary, 3-2-0, will take third in the pool. Both teams already hadqualified for Friday’s quarterfinals.
Wrestling
Rulon Gardner, of Afton, Wyo., ended Alexander Karelin’s stringof three Olympic gold medals and 13-year unbeaten streak by winningthe Olympic super heavyweight wrestling gold medal 1-0 today.
Karelin is universally considered the greatest Greco-Romanwrestler of all time, a man who had never lost in internationalcompetition, who had not been scored upon in 10 years.
Armen Nazarian of Bulgaria pinned Kim In-sub of South Korea towin the in 127¾ pounds; Filiberto Azcuy of Cuba beat KatsuhikoNagata of Japan 11-0 to capture 152 pounds and Hamza Yerlikaya ofTurkey defeated Sandor Istvan Bardosi of Hungary in 187¼ pounds.