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More than a dozen athletes who have changed nationalities were given permission Tuesday to compete for their new homelands at the Athens Games.

One of the highest-profile cases concerned Swiss rower Xeno Mueller, an Olympic gold medalist in Atlanta and silver medalist in Sydney, who wants to compete for the United States during the Aug. 13-29 games.

Also, former world-class javelin thrower Sofia Sakorafa of Greece can represent Palestine if she qualifies for the Games.

Olympic rules allow an athlete who has competed for one country to represent another provided he or she hasn’t taken part in international events for three years. The IOC regularly deals with these requests, particularly in the months before the Summer and Winter Games.

Mueller, a 31-year-old single sculler, has lived in the United States since 1992. He has had a long-standing dispute with the Swiss Rowing Federation.

Mueller will be able to join the U.S. rowing team in Athens if he wins one of the top two spots in single sculls at the final Olympic qualifying regatta at Lucerne, Switzerland, in June.

The 47-year-old Sakorafa was part of the Greek Olympic team at the 1980 Moscow Games and won a bronze medal at the 1982 European championships. She hasn’t competed for Greece since the early 1990s.

On Sunday, she said she hoped to represent Palestine in an expression of solidarity for their plight as people living under Israeli occupation. Sakorafa met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Monday.

A three-day meeting of the IOC board didn’t discuss her case, Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli told the Associated Press.

“If she hasn’t taken part in a competition for Greece for three years then she doesn’t need our executive board’s decision,” he said. “From what I know, that’s the case. But she would still need to qualify on the sporting side if she wants to go to Athens.”

Sakorafa said her participation with the Palestinian team at the Olympics would be purely “symbolic,” and she doesn’t expect to seriously compete for any medals.

If she qualifies for Athens, Sakorafa will become the fifth athlete slated to compete for the Palestinians, joining two runners, a swimmer and a boxer, Palestinian deputy sports minister Jamal Mohainsen said.

White accepts ban

Sprint star Kelli White of Union City, Calif., has accepted a two-year ban from competition that will keep her out of this summer’s Olympics in Greece, the San Jose Mercury News has learned.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency plans to announce the decision on Wednesday, two sources familiar with the case said. White, 27, is the first of what could be a handful of American track and field athletes forced to withdraw before the Athens Games because of their connections to the Balco Laboratories drug scandal.

Anti-doping officials declined to comment.

Using unprecedented measures – known as non-analytical positives – anti-doping officials are trying to weed out any athlete suspected of using banned drugs – even those who have not been caught by a positive drug test.

“USADA wants to create a domino effect so others fall,” said a source familiar with the agency’s new tactic. “It will have implications at the Olympics and beyond.”

White could not be reached for comment.

Organizers give more security assurances

Athens organizers offered the IOC more assurances that “everything humanly possible” was being done to safeguard the Olympics.

A week after International Olympic Committee inspectors gave the Greeks a strong vote of confidence, Athens organizing chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki briefed the executive board on final venue preparations and security measures for the Aug. 13-29 Games.

“If preparations continue at this pace then everything needed for successful games will be in place,” said Denis Oswald, the IOC’s chief overseer of the Athens Games.

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki reiterated that security remains Greece’s top priority.

Greece is spending more than $1 billion to protect the Games and asked NATO to provide air and sea patrols.

“This summer, no nation will be doing more than Greece to protect those within its borders,” she said. “No organizing committee and no host government have ever put greater emphasis on safety and security.

“Greece has the budget, the personnel, and the security strategy we need to do everything humanly possible to protect the Olympic Games.”

The next time Athens officials report to the IOC board will be in the Greek capital on the eve of the Games.

Despite repeated delays that have clouded preparations, Angelopoulos-Daskalaki promised that Athens would offer “magical games on a human scale.”

Wrestler tests positive for stimulant

Wrestler Faruk Sahin tested positive for a banned stimulant and accepted a provisional suspension while the case goes to arbitration, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said.

Sahin tested positive for phentermine at the U.S. National Championships on April 10, where he won the 145 1/2 -pound division in Greco-Roman wrestling.

USA Wrestling said Sahin has agreed not to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials this weekend in Indianapolis.

He would have been the No. 1 seed, meaning he would have needed only to win a best-of-3 series Sunday against the winner of the trials’ preliminary tournament to make the Olympic team.