U.S. irate over letter
U.S. Olympic officials on Friday rejected as “deplorable” a suggestion by the International Gymnastics Federation that men’s all-around individual champion Paul Hamm return his gold medal and, in a sharply worded letter to federation president Bruno Grandi, castigated the organization for what it called an “improper, outrageous request.”
On Friday, International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies said, “The IOC wasn’t consulted on the letter. This was never our position. The results were communicated to us by the federation and they stand as they are.”
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge slammed the door on the notion of awarding a second gold medal to South Korea’s Yang Tae-young in order to smooth over the controversy that overshadowed the gymnastics competition. “We are not going to be awarding gold medals for so-called humanitarian or emotional reasons,” Rogge said Friday.
That essentially was Grandi’s appeal in his letter to Hamm, the most decorated member of the U.S. men’s gymnastics team. With the phrase “FAIRPLAY” printed in bold above the salutation, the letter, was posted on the official FIG Web site.
Grandi concluded by stating that Hamm’s return of the gold to the Korean “would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of Fairplay by the whole world.”
Italians honor slain journalist
Italian soccer players wore black armbands on their uniforms during their 1-0 Olympic bronze-medal victory over Iraq on Friday in honor of an Italian journalist killed by Iraqi militants.
Other Italian athletes — including water polo, volleyball and basketball players — also wore tributes to freelance journalist Enzo Baldoni.
Baldoni had been kidnapped and killed by insurgents seeking to force Italy’s 3,000 troops out of Iraq.
American divers shut out
U.S. divers won’t be getting any medals at these Olympics — a stunning result for a country that used to rule the boards.
The first shutout in 92 years was assured when Caesar Garcia and Kyle Prandi failed to advance out of the men’s 10-meter platform preliminaries.
“It is a surprise and it’s been a difficult Games for USA Diving,” team leader Russ Bertram said. “We’ve struggled internationally for a while.”
Banner Olympics for Greece
With a powerful javelin throw, Mirela Manjani broke a different sort of record: earning host nation Greece its most Olympic medals in more than a century.
Manjani’s throw of 210 feet, 11 inches won her the bronze and granted Greece its 14th medal — one more than it won in the 2000 Sydney Games and the most it has gathered since Athens hosted the first modern games in 1896.