USADA confident in clean U.S. team

With 15 days remaining until the 2004 Olympics opening ceremony, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Terry Madden said his agency and the U.S. Olympic Committee have “done everything possible to send a clean team to Athens.”

Of the 531 athletes listed on the U.S. Olympic team roster, question marks remain. Sprinters Calvin Harrison, named to the men’s relay team, and Torri Edwards, who qualified in the 100 and 200 meters, have doping cases pending, with an outcome expected any day.

The U.S. team’s biggest star, Marion Jones, has been investigated by USADA but has not been charged. She made the team in the long jump and could race in relays and possibly the 100 meters depending on the Edwards outcome.

“I believe it’s a clean team. Am I saying that 100 percent of America’s athletes are going to be clean there? No. But I think we at the USOC have done everything possible to send the cleanest athletes,” Madden, of Colorado Springs-based USADA, said Wednesday.

Drug tests may catch cheaters by surprise

Drug testing authorities will neither confirm nor deny reports out of England that there will be a test for human growth hormone at next month’s Athens Olympics.

The strategy of no comment was hatched at a World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in April, according to Larry Bowers of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

“We decided there would be no announcement about a new test,” Bowers said of either having or not having the ability to detect hGH. “The athletes know what’s on the banned substances list.

“If athletes think we can’t test for it, they can keep taking it. We’ll see.”

At the 2002 Winter Games, testers did not advertise advances in testing for endurance-boosting EPO and caught athletes, who were stripped of medals.

HGH has been a drug of choice for athletes for more than a decade. More expensive than steroids, it has similar properties of promoting muscle growth and has been undetectable.

The drug has played a major role in the ongoing Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal. Kelli White, who accepted a two-year drug ban from USADA, acknowledged using the drug while passing tests for four years.

Tim Montgomery, the world record holder in the 100 meters, also admitted using the drug, according to his grand jury testimony leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We are confident we will have a test in place,” said WADA spokesman Frederic Donze. “If it’s not ready for Athens, it will be shortly afterwards.”

Urine and blood specimens can be stored and tested later once the test is finalized. In a similar situation last year, retroactive testing for the designer steroid THG resulted in five positive tests.

If there is a test in Athens, it will likely only be able to go back about 36 hours to detect hGH, which is a narrow window to catch an athlete. British researcher Claire Hartley told Reuters her group has a test that could go back 84 days but may not be ready for Athens. The test, applied retroactively, could pose a problem for hGH users.

“If any athletes are found guilty, then they will be stripped of their medals,” WADA chairman Dick Pound told the BBC.

Ginobili hopes for at least Silver

For many NBA players, the summer months provide time to recover from a grueling schedule and get ready for the upcoming season. Not Manu Ginobili.

In the space of three weeks, Argentina’s biggest basketball star has gotten married, signed a 6-year, $52 million contract to stay with the San Antonio Spurs and started training hard amid hopes of leading his country to a medal at the Athens Olympics.

He’s still taking some time out to celebrate his 27th birthday on Wednesday, sort of. He has to gobble down his cake just as Argentina begins a pre-Olympic tour of Europe.

With the Olympics set to begin Aug. 13, the 6-foot-6 guard said he looks forward to getting a chance to play, and beat, Spurs teammate Tim Duncan and the rest of the U.S. team.

“Silver is what we are going for, but if we are playing in the finals we are going to go with everything we have,” said Ginobili, a key member of San Antonio’s 2003 championship team as a rookie.

“Our goal is to beat everyone we come up against,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Fenton withdraws from Olympics with injury

Lorraine Fenton, the 2000 Olympic silver medalist in the women’s 400 meters, has withdrawn from Jamaica’s Olympic team because of a hamstring injury, officials said.

Fenton has not recovered from the injury that kept her out of competition for most of the season, said Bernie Panton, head of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association. Fenton was unable to compete in Jamaica’s national trials in June.

The 31-year-old, among Jamaica’s most consistent athletes in the past four years, was one of her country’s best medal hopes. She was the silver medalist at the World Championships in France in 2003.

Stojakovic too tired to play

Peja Stojakovic said he will not play for Serbia and Montenegro at the Athens Olympics, depriving the defending world champions of their best perimeter scorer.

The three-time NBA All-Star said he was tired and that his decision is irreversible – even though people in his homeland are urging him to change his mind.

“No way. I already spoke with the team officials. We talked about it, and it’s done,” Stojakovic told AP in a telephone interview. “I’m not going to go.”

Greek navy on patrols for ‘suspicious’ ships

Dozens of Greek Navy vessels have started patrolling the country’s coastal waters as part of a two-layer security zone to protect the Olympic Games, with NATO warships due to keep watch further out to sea, a naval official said.

At least 35 Greek ships are monitoring the Ionian Sea along Greece’s west coast, the Aegean Sea and areas off the coasts of Crete and the resort Cyclades islands.

The ships are checking “any ships with suspicious behavior,” a Navy source told AP on condition of anonymity.

About 70 vessels have been inspected by Greek forces in recent weeks, but there have been no indications of cargo or personnel considered as possible threats to the Aug. 13-29 Games, the source said.

The inspections will increase as the games approach, the source added. About 10 Navy helicopters and two military patrol aircraft are assisting the ships.

NATO plans to dedicate its entire Mediterranean fleet of about 15 vessels to Olympic patrols in international waters.