Some In Seattle Voicing Concerns

After looking at Atlanta’s experience with the Olympics, some Seattle residents have misgivings about the city’s bid for the 2008 Summer Games.

“This city is not ready to host something like the Olympics,” said Ken Register, 44, of West Seattle.

“I like this town. I came here to visit and never left. But Seattle is not ready for an event the size of the Olympics.”

City councilwoman Sue Donaldson said, “The Games have raised a lot of troubling issues like security and transportation that would have to be solved. It’s important to have a lively civic debate … discussing the pros and cons.”

Representatives of Seattle have been in Atlanta for two weeks laying groundwork for a bid for the 2008 Summer Games, but Donaldson doesn’t want the city to become so focused on trying to get the Games that leaders forget about the people and more pressing issues.

“My concern is that this doesn’t absorb all our energy and our dollars. It needs to be balanced with other priorities.”

The Seattle group has raised $600,000 to prepare its bid and has pledges for more than $4.8 million. Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, New Orleans and New York City also are expected to bid.

TV likely will be spread around

NBC’s coverage of the Atlanta Olympics proves a cable partner is necessary to keep the network’s grievance file from spilling over.

Cable could provide more extensive coverage in the afternoon, when NBC is airing its profitable soap operas.

At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, CNBC and MSNBC will be cable associates of NBC Sports for Olympic programming.

Two face bans for drugs

In the first confirmed drug cases of the Atlanta Games, two women track and field athletes from Bulgaria and Russia tested positive for steroids and face possible four-year bans.

The IOC said Monday that Bulgarian triple jumper Iva Prandzheva and Russian hurdler Natalya Shekodanova tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Prandzheva, fourth in the women’s triple jump, tested positive for metadienone. She was disqualified and her results wiped off the books.

Shekodanova tested positive for stanozolol. If a second sample is positive, her seventh-place finish in the women’s 100-meter hurdles will be thrown out.

Afghanis flee to Canada

The fate of an Afghani Olympic boxer and his coach is now up to a Canadian refugee board.

Jawid Aman Mukhamad, 24, and Hamad Samim, 33, took a bus from Atlanta to the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, seeking asylum.

Samim left a wife and two daughters in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and hopes to bring them to Canada eventually.

Notes

It was the worst Olympics in more than 44 years for Britain, which earned only 15 medals, just one of them gold.

“People can moan that other countries are overtaking us, and I would agree,” said Dick Palmer, secretary of the British Olympic Association. “I have a message for (Prime Minister) John Major, and I think these Games have already told him: we need money.”

The International Olympic Committee will investigate a disputed decision from the 1988 Seoul Games that resulted in U.S. boxer Roy Jones Jr. losing the gold medal to Park Si-Hun of South Korea, according to USA Boxing.

A special commission will investigate and report back in October.

With some members getting a little long in the tooth, the leadership role of the U.S. men’s basketball Dream Team in the next Summer Olympics will change with Grant Hill of the Detroit Pistons, Shaquille O’Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers and Anfernee Hardaway of the Orlando Magic likely the only holdovers.