Bring on Brazil

HERAKLION, Greece — Heather O’Reilly had posters of Mia Hamm on her New Jersey bedroom wall for years and years and years and years. One of those years was 1999, when the 14-year-old O’Reilly went to the World Cup opener at Giants Stadium and screamed her head off for Mia.

So O’Reilly didn’t have to wait for U.S. Olympic soccer coach April Heinrichs to talk to her team for the first time about the elephant in the room. O’Reilly already had realized what this Olympic tournament meant for Hamm and the four other “91ers” – the women who had won the original Women’s World Cup in China.

“It was time to name the beast,” Heinrichs said of her pre-game talk Monday in Crete, when the U.S. beat Germany 2-1 in overtime to qualify for a third straight Olympic final. This one will be Thursday against Brazil, which beat Sweden 1-0 in its semifinal at Thessaloniki.

“She doesn’t even have to say it,” O’Reilly said. “It’s on our minds all the time.”

It, the beast, is trying to win another gold medal for Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly. It was not something Heinrichs wanted to turn into a burden so, while the players often were asked about it, the coach did not bring it up with them until now.”

“We ought to make a tribute to these players while there are still playing,” Heinrichs said. “The fitting way is to have them go out of their last world-class event with a gold medal around their necks.”

They got the chance after O’Reilly’s goal on a pass from Hamm nine minutes into overtime. It erased O’Reilly’s frustration for having missed an open net five minutes earlier—and the team’s frustration for having let Germany tie the match in the third minute of injury time added to the end of regulation play.

“Heather’s love for the game and the team inspires us old bags a lot,” Hamm said.

Graham turned in THG syringe

A mystery at the center of track and field’s biggest doping scandal has finally been solved.

Top track coach Trevor Graham has admitted he was the coach who anonymously sent a syringe of THG to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, a key piece of evidence in the BALCO case that helped lead to suspensions and possible lifetime bans against several athletes.

“I was just a coach doing the right thing at the time,” Graham said after one of his star pupils, Justin Gatlin, won the 100-meter gold medal Sunday night. “I have no regrets.”

Graham did not say why he turned in the syringe, which allowed chemists to unmask the previously undetectable steroid, or how he got the material.

Graham is the former coach of Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

USOC willing to consider 2 gold

While the U.S. Olympic Committee and South Koreans tried to work out a deal in a dispute over Paul Hamm’s gold medal, the head of gymnastics’ ruling body all but said they were wasting their time.

Bruno Grandi, president of the International Gymnastics Federation, told the Associated Press rules prevent him from asking for another gold medal to make up for the scoring error that cost Yang Tae-young the all-around title.

“I don’t have the possibility to change it,” Grandi told the AP. “Our rules don’t allow it.”

Hamm won the gold Wednesday after judges incorrectly scored Yang’s parallel bars routine, failing to give him enough points for the level of difficulty. Yang ended up with the bronze while Hamm became the first American man to win the event.

USOC officials met with members of the South Korean Olympic Committee on Sunday and Monday, and were trying to find an “equitable solution,” said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the USOC.

Greek prosecutor looks into claim

A prosecutor began investigating claims that weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis, stripped of his bronze medal for doping, could have been slipped a banned substance without his knowledge.

Prosecutor Grigoris Peponis opened the investigation a day after Sampanis became the first athlete of the Athens Games to be stripped of a medal for a doping offense. He lost his bronze medal in the 137-pound (62kg) category when a drug test showed he had an abnormally high level of testosterone.

Sampanis, who won silver medals in 1996 and 2000, has denied wrongdoing.

Russian shot putter’s gold stripped

Russia’s Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her shot put gold medal, the first athlete of the Games to lose an Olympic title because of doping.

Korzhanenko, the first woman to win a gold medal at the sacred site of Ancient Olympia, tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after Wednesday’s final. The backup sample confirmed the initial finding.

Cuba’s Yumileidi Cumba Jay moves up to gold, Germany’s Nadine Kleinert to silver, and Russia’s Svetlana Krivelyova to bronze.