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Try the McBorscht instead

Remember the NBC “Olympic Moment” profile of Russian weightlifter Andrei Chermerkin?

He’s shown chomping into a burger at the Moscow McDonald’s and talking to a friend as he chews.

SportsLetter reports that Russian sports expert and linguist Robert Edelman said Chermerkin uttered the word “Uzhasno!”

Translation: “This is terrible!”

He wants to be like Mike

People have asked Jim Oelstrom for his autograph, bought him free drinks, followed him around and even whispered about his presence. All because he looks like Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren.

“The guy at the bank asked me how I like looking like Mike Holmgren,” Oelstrom said. “I said it’s all right as long as we win. If we start losing, then what will happen?”

Oelstrom, 49, got his first clue of what was in store five years ago, as he sat at a Green Bay hotel’s cocktail lounge. It was the week the Packers hired Holmgren. Suddenly, the bartender set a free drink in front of Oelstrom.

“He said, ‘This is on the guy in the corner, because you’re Mr. Holmgren, right?”’ Oelstrom recalled. “I said thanks for the drink and started chuckling.”

Because he knows that out there somewhere is a Wayne Fontes look-alike.

Rocket’s glare not red, white and blue

Roger Clemens a traitor?!

Sure is, a U.S. government spokesman says, for leaving Boston to pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays.

“That is the official position of the State Department,” Nicholas Burns said in a tongue-in-cheek denouncement of Clemens that could only come from a Boston native and diehard Red Sox baseball fan.

“Roger Clemens is not a great American,” Burns said during an otherwise routine State Department briefing. He “will never be able to say what Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski could say: ‘We were lifelong Red Sox.’ Roger Clemens is a traitor.

“This has nothing to do with Canada,” Burns added. “It would have been worse if he had gone to the Yankees.”

Pool hand Luc

The reports of Luc Longley’s encounter with a big wave have been greatly exaggerated. The Chicago Bulls center said one headline in his home country of Australia read, “Freak Wave Nearly Kills Longley.”

But Longley is not near death - merely out for seven weeks with a separated shoulder during an ill-advised body surfing outing in the Pacific on the Bulls’ West Coast road trip.

The club is keeping a close eye on Longley, because part of his rehabilitation takes place in the water.

“They have jets in that pool,” Longley said, “but they won’t let me turn them on.”

A couple of chili dogs should do the trick.

Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

George Karl’s son cried when the Seattle SuperSonics lost a game to the Sacramento Kings in last spring’s NBA playoffs. The sensitivity may be a little different in the Ainge family.

Danny Ainge has taken over coaching the woeful Phoenix Suns, and his seventh-grade son, Tanner, does his best to lighten the mood. His first try was a joke.

“Knock, knock,” said Tanner.

“Who’s there?” asked Danny.

“Owen.”

“Owen who?”

“0 and 13.”

Smooth operator

Golfer Greg Norman was rhapsodizing on a year that earned him $1.3 million in prize money and $18 million in endorsements.

“I feel confident in my beliefs and my approach to whatever I do that I can do it,” he said. “If I wanted to be a brain surgeon, I could.”

Just keep him away from the throat.

The last word …

“When we went 11-5 in San Diego, it was ‘The Rebirth of the Chargers.’ We went 11-5 here and it was ‘The Demise of the 49ers.’ ” - San Francisco linebacker Gary Plummer

, DataTimes