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TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2012 PAGE 3B
U.S. hoops moving on without Wade
B R I E F
Russell Westbrook will try to replace the recovering Heat star in the backcourt for Coach K. By BRIAN MAHONEY AP Basketball Writer
AP PHOTO
The passing of the torch
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron watches the Olympic Flame pass between his nominated Torchbearer Clive Stone and torchbearer Roland Read in Woodstock, England, on Monday.
Solo gets warning from USADA after drug test
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — U.S. national team goalkeeper Hope Solo has received a public warning from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency on Monday after she tested positive for the banned substance Canrenone in a urine test. Solo has accepted the warning and will still play for the United States in the Olympic tournament. The 30-year-old Solo tested positive for Canrenone in a test on June 15. She says she took a medication prescribed by her doctor for pre-menstrual issues and did not know it contained a diuretic.
LAS VEGAS — Russell Westbrook was so good in Game 4 of the NBA Finals that Kobe Bryant couldn’t turn it off. Bryant watched only one game in its entirety, and not surprisingly that was it. Westbrook scored 43 points, making 20 of 32 shots in a spectacular performance, but his Oklahoma City Thunder fell 104-98 in Miami. “He just was bonkers,” Bryant said. Good as Westbrook was, he couldn’t beat Dwyane Wade. Now the Americans need him to be Dwyane Wade. With Wade unable to play this summer, his former U.S. Olympic teammates believe Westbrook is the player who can inherit his role from Beijing as
the potent scorer and game-changer off the bench. “Absolutely, because he’s that type of player,” LeBron James said. “He’s that attacker, he’s that guy that can get in the passing lane, create steals. D-Wade, he changed the momentum when he came into the game. We told him we just want him to score, score the basketball, play high intensity on defense and he did that.” Wade underwent left knee surgery Monday in Miami and is expected to be ready in time for the Heat’s training camp. The Americans think they can be better this summer than the 2008 gold medalists, but it will be difficult to replace Wade, who seemed to be playing at another speed in Beijing. “One of the things that D-Wade brought to our team in Beijing was he created extra possessions for us,” Bryant said. “He shot the passing lanes extremely well. He got a great amount of steals, which created a lot of easy run outs for us, and Russell’s just as good at
that.” Wade was the Americans’ leading scorer in Beijing, averaging 16 points in just 18.8 minutes per game. He made 67 percent of his shots, almost unimaginable for a guard, by blowing by helpless defenders or capitalizing on repeated fast-break opportunities. His status was unclear heading into that summer after he had sat out the end of the NBA season with a knee injury, but it was obvious right from their first exhibition game, when he started in place of an injured James and sparked a rout of Canada, that he was back in top form. He ended the summer by scoring a game-high 27 points to help the U.S. hold off Spain in the gold-medal game. “D-Wade, he was the leading scorer of that team I think, and Russell can do the same thing,” said Kevin Durant, Westbrook’s Thunder teammate. “He can score at will, he’s so athletic, extend possessions for us with his offensive rebounding, his defense. So we’re looking forward to having him out there.”
Can an amputee’s handicap be an advantage?
CAS appoints 12 arbitrators
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Twelve arbitrators will be on duty during the London Olympics to rule quickly on any legal disputes that arise. The Court of Arbitration for Sport announced details Monday of the tribunal it will set up for the Olympics. CAS, the highest court in sports, has had arbitration panels in place at every Olympics since Atlanta in 1996 to resolve disputes over doping, eligibility and other issues. The London tribunal will be presided over by Judge Juan Torruella of Puerto Rico and Gunnar Werner of Sweden, and will consist of 12 arbitrators from 12 countries. All are lawyers or professors specializing in sports law and arbitration. A panel of three arbitrators will convene to hear any dispute and render a decision within 24 hours. It will be operational from July 17 — 10 days before the opening ceremony — until the end of the games Aug. 12.
Federer has yet to decide whether to carry Swiss flag
WIMBLEDON, England — Roger Federer has not decided whether to accept an offer to carry Switzerland’s flag during the opening ceremonies for the London Olympics. Federer says he might give the honor to someone else. The 17-time Grand Slam champion was the Swiss flag-bearer at two other Summer Games. He teamed with Stanislas Wawrinka to win a gold medal in doubles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Speaking Monday a day after winning his record-tying seventh Wimbledon title, Federer says an announcement on the flag choice could come “in the next 10 days or so.” The opening ceremonies are July 27. The Olympic tennis competition, which is being held at the All England Club, starts the following day.
Put your missiles on another roof please
Residents go to court to stop construction of base for Games on top of apartments.
Report: No Saudi women qualified for Olympics
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudiowned newspaper says no women from the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom have qualified for the London Olympics. The report adds that Saudi male athletes have qualified to compete in track, equestrian and weightlifting at the games that start in less than three weeks. The pan-Arab daily newspaper AlSharq al-Awsat is an important media tool for Saudi rulers. Saudi leaders have been under pressure to end the practice of sending all-male teams to international competitions. They could face IOC sanctions after the London Games if women are excluded from the country’s Olympic team. The Saudi Embassy in London said two weeks ago that women who qualify will be allowed to compete.
Yet Westbrook isn’t for everybody, and he plays perhaps the NBA’s most scrutinized game. He isn’t a pass-first point guard and he’s prone to awful shooting nights. Perhaps the combination of the Olympic stage and a playing style that suits his skills better will help Westbrook win over his critics. “Maybe, but you know my job is not to worry about that,” he said. “My job is to come in every day and try to get better.” Westbrook doesn’t understand why his game has so many haters, nor does Mike Krzyzewski. But the coach is focused on the good, and on the opportunity for Westbrook to do for him what Wade did. “There’s that potential that Russell can do that,” Krzyzewski said. “I think Russell’s a great player. It baffles me how people can be so critical of him. I think what he does is absolutely sensational. His ball pressure, his offensive rebounding, his athleticism is off the charts.”
By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
AP FILE PHOTOS
Chosen to run in the Olympics for South Africa in the 400 and 4x400 relay, Oscar Pistorius has re-ignited a fierce debate over his right to compete alongside able-bodied athletes. He had a competitive ban overturned in 2008.
The Blade Runner By GERALD IMRAY AP Sports Writer
LONDON — Is manmade material superior to muscle? Are those blades better than real legs? Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee runner, is taking the issue of disabled vs. able-bodied competition into new territory as he prepares for the London Olympics. His inclusion on South Africa’s team clears the way for him to become the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics. And because it’s the sporting world’s biggest stage, his participation is likely to fire up the long-running debate over whether his flexible, carbon-fiber blades give him an unfair advantage. Pistorius, 25, runs on Cheetah FlexFoot blades, J-shaped limbs that are 16 inches (41 centimeters) long and weigh a little over a pound each. Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was a baby after he was born without the fibula bones in his shins, has a personal best in the 400 meters of 45.07 seconds — almost two seconds off Michael Johnson’s world record — and ran a 45.20 this year, both inside the top Olympic qualifying time. Never before has a disabled person been such a threat to the able-bodied in a sports event. “There are tens of thousands of people with the same prosthetics I use, but there’s no one running the same times,” Pistorius wrote in a column in a British newspaper last week after he was chosen to run both the individual 400 meters and the 4x400 relay in London. “You’ll always get people who have their opinions on whether I should be competing in London, but they can’t explain my times.” The Blade Runner doesn’t just want to show up at the London Games, flash his photogenic smile and wave, and then retire graciously and let the top runners get on with it. Pistorius wants to be on the track among the eight fin-
South African amputee Oscar Pistorius runs on these Cheetah Flex-Foot blades, which are 16 inches long and weigh a little over a pound each.
est runners in the world when the gold medal is decided on Aug. 6. “It’s a personal dream of his to run in the final at the Olympic Games,” Pistorius’ coach for all his career, Ampie Louw, told The Associated Press. “It’s not qualifying only.” Pistorius told the AP: “My goals are just to be able to look back at my career and know that I didn’t let my talent go to waste. I’m just trying to prove to myself that I can be the best that I want to be.” Sports engineer David James, a senior lecturer at England’s Sheffield Hallam University, disagrees with Pistorius’ inclusion in the Olympics on both scientific and ethical grounds. “Sport is hard-nosed and brutal and bloody and has no place for sob stories. People want Oscar to run and do well. However, will they think the same if he wins?” James said. “I predict a backlash if he wins anything. They will attribute that performance to the blades. I think there would be real implica-
tions if he won.” Pistorius’ case was settled — legally anyway — in 2008 when sports’ highest court lifted the ban from able-bodied events imposed on him by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The Court of Arbitration for Sport said that Pistorius probably gets some advantages from the springy, curved blades, but also suffers some disadvantages, and they even out in the end. James doesn’t agree. “To say he doesn’t have an advantage is stretching it,” the sports engineer said. “When he’s up to speed, he is more efficient than someone with muscle and bone. He can relocate his legs faster because they are lighter.” Hugh Herr, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert in biomechanics and bionics who has conducted studies on Pistorius, agreed with the decision to reinstate Pistorius, saying there is no evidence the blades give Pistorius an edge. Pistorius’ leg speed is quicker than that of some other athletes but not all of them, Herr said, meaning he’s “not abnormal.” And in terms of the energy he uses and the way he tires, there is, crucially, no difference, Herr said. Pistorius is probably at a disadvantage because he cannot hit the ground as hard as other athletes, the professor said. “The view that he’s a robot that doesn’t fatigue is nonsense,” Herr said. “The science is immature. We don’t know very much, but what we do know says there’s no overall advantage for Pistorius in a 400-meter race.” Sports ethicist and philosopher Ivo van Hilvoorde of Free University in Amsterdam said the South African represents the shifting boundaries between able and disabled sport. “We are used to thinking of disabled as less,” Van Hilvoorde said, “but it could be the other way round. “Oscar Pistorius is a nice example of this.”
LONDON — Residents of a London apartment tower went to court Monday in a bid to stop their rooftop from being used as a missile base during the Olympic Games, saying the deployment in a densely-populated area could make the building a terrorist target. The British military plans to deploy surface-to-air missiles at six sites around London as part of a vast security operation for the July 27-Aug. 12 games. But residents of the 17-story Fred Wigg Tower in Leytonstone, east London, say they were not consulted about the move. Judge Charles Haddon-Cave said he would rule Tuesday on whether residents can seek a judicial review of the plans to put the missiles on their roof. The residents’ lawyer, Marc Willers, told the High Court that his clients had “a fully justified fear that installation or deployment of the missile system on the roof of the Fred Wigg Tower gives rise to the additional risk that the tower itself may become the focus of a terrorist attack.” They claim the missiles breach their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects an individual’s “right to private life and peaceful enjoyment of their home.” Missiles also will be stationed at another apartment building, at a reservoir and farmland in east London and along hillsides in south London. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond has said the missiles — capable of shooting down a hijacked aircraft menacing the Olympic Park — are a prudent part of security precautions intended to provide “both reassurance and a powerful deterrent.” Hammond says objections to the security plans, which also include 7,500 soldiers, RAF fighter jets on standby at nearby air bases and a helicopter carrier on the River Thames, are confined to “a small number of activists.” Intelligence officials say there has been an expected increase in chatter among extremist groups ahead of the Olympics, but there are no specific or credible threats to the games. Britain’s terror threat level remains at substantial, the middle point on a fivepoint scale, meaning an attack is a strong possibility. Over the past week, 14 people have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism activity. Police insist none of the cases are linked to plots against the Summer Games.