ACU'S delegation
Abilene Christian University will have seven current or former students competing at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Sacramento this month:
Kevin Dilworth Long jump
Eric Thomas 400 hurdles
Trafton Rogers Decathlon
Stephen Moore Decathlon
Kempa Busby 400 meters
Mickey Grimes 100 meters
Meredith Garner Pole vault
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NAME: Sheryl Swoopes
SPORT: Basketball
POSITION: Forward
HEIGHT : 6-0
WEIGHT: 145 pounds
AGE: 29
HOMETOWN: Brownfield
RESIDENCE: Houston
COLLEGE: Texas Tech (1993)
PRO TEAM: Houston Comets
COMPETITIVE HIGHLIGHTS: 1996 Olympic gold medalist; three WNBA championships with the Houston Comets; WNBA's leading vote-getter during 1999 All-Star balloting; 1993 NCAA Championship with Texas Tech; 1993 National Player of the Year; 1993 NCAA Final Four MVP.
PLUS: Last week, Swoopes was named to the USA team that will compete at the Sydney Olympics; averaged 13 points for the 1996 Olympic championship team; has a son, Jordan, born on June 25, 1997; was the first woman to have a Nike basketball shoe (Air Swoopesnamed after her _ the Air Swoopes; once played one-on-one against Michael Jordan.
FAVORITE PASTIMES: playing volleyball, shooting pool and playing video games.
FAVORITE BOOKS: romance novels.
FAVORITE ACTRESS: Halle Berry
FAVORITE FOODS: Mexican food, pralines and cream-flavored ice cream.
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Softball shakeup
An arbitrator ordered the reselection of the U.S. Olympic Softball Team in April, which caused alternate Kelly Kretschman to protest after she was scratched from the new lineup. Now the team awaits another call on its roster's stability.
'It's a huge distraction,' said infielder Jennifer McFalls of Grand Prairie. 'Now, it's really starting to wear on the team. The team is up late having meetings every night, trying to decide what to do.'
The original roster was announced after a tryout in Midland, Mich., last September. Though the selection process had U.S. Olympic Committee approval, the procedure was required to use only criteria after last August, when the USOC endorsed the process.
'We all felt that over the last four years we've been training and practicing,' said McFalls, a Texas A&M graduate. 'The selection committee scouted us at the World Championships and Pan Am Games and so on through 1998 and `99. We feel that, for whatever reasons, the selection committee picked the team it thought was the best 15 players to win a gold medal. Chemistry is huge.'
The team is in the middle of its 'Central Park to Sydney' tour, which includes a stop in Fort Worth on July 29. McFalls said the team expected a decision from the arbitrator by July 9.
'Hopefully, the selection committee can go back and defend its decision,' McFalls said. 'We've really united as a team.'
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Atler's progress
Gymnast Vanessa Atler of Plano, Texas, made the most of her stretch run at Bela Karolyi's training camps near Houston. Atler, bidding to earn one of the six women's spots on the U.S. Olympic team, had a strong camp last week, said Karolyi, USA Gymnastics' women's team coordinator.
'Overall, she had a solid, a sturdy and consistent improvement for the whole year,' Karolyi said. 'She did her routines in all four events in a good, solid manner. On the vaulting event, she was excelling.'
Atler, second at the 1999 national championships, had two surgeries performed on her left ankle last November. Her agent, Sheryl Shade, said a nutritionist hired in late May contributed to Atler's improvement.
'She was just dragging so much,' Shade said. 'She needed electrolytes and some minerals.'
The June camp was the final session in the series that Karolyi launched in January. The top 12 women from the John Hancock U.S. Championships in St. Louis on July 26-29 qualify for the Olympic Trials in Boston in August. Scores from the two events will be combined to help choose the team, with committee input also a potential factor.
Atler, 18, is coached by Valeri Liukin at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Plano. Karolyi also praised another WOGA athlete, Marie Fjordholm, 16, of Frisco.
'She has a realistic chance,' Karolyi said of Fjordholm's Sydney Olympic goal.
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Grappling with the numbers
Dallas 2012 president Richard Greene said the bid committee was delighted with the 50,170 tickets sold for the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials at Reunion Arena last week. Greene said the accounting was not finished, but he expected a positive result from the wrestling event and the U.S. Olympic Triathlon Trials at Las Colinas in May.
'In the end, we expect to have a profit on the two events,' Greene said.
Despite the success of the wrestling trials, Dallas 2012 and the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Sports Commission decided not to make a proposal for the 2001 World Wrestling Championships. Florida 2012 also pulled out of the bidding. USA Wrestling last week awarded the championships to NYC2012 _ the lone bid group.
NYC2012 is the group heading New York's campaign for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Florida 2012 represents Tampa-Orlando's bid. Dallas 2012 is working to bring the Games to North Texas. In all, eight cities are competing to be the U.S. Olympic Committee's candidate for the 2012 Olympics.
Florida 2012 president Ed Turanchik said the eight-day World Wrestling Championships will be a complicated event to stage.
'It didn't seem practical,' Turanchik said. 'It's expensive, and it's hard to hold people's attention for eight days. Communities have limitations on their resources.'
Florida 2012 hosted Olympic-related boxing competitions in the spring that lost money.
Greene said all of the bid cities are trying to build impressive track records to demonstrate their ability to stage events.
'We'd like to do everything we have a shot at,' Greene said. 'Now, we've got to move into an attitude about being smart about the way we do it.'
Jay Kriegel, executive director of NYC2012, said the New York-New Jersey area was excited about the World Wrestling Championships.
'This could be a great event,' Kriegel said. 'We were in Dallas, of course. I thought the arena felt great.'
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Good news for paddlers
The International Canoe Federation on Tuesday approved the addition of men's slalom double canoe and women's sprint double kayak to the Sydney Olympic program. Athletes who breathed a sigh of relief were Matt Taylor, Lecky Haller and Kathy Colin.
They had earned the right to represent the USA, pending approval of their events for Sydney. Taylor and Haller team in the slalom. Colin's partner in the sprint kayak is Tamara Jenkins, who already had qualified for the Games in the single kayak.
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Security concerns
A Greek police official said his force needs to acquire the expertise to protect athletes, officials and visitors at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Security has become a major concern for Athens Games organizers since terrorists on a motorcycle shot and killed Stephen Saunders, a British diplomat, in Athens on June 8. He was driving his car near the Olympic Stadium.
'The security of the Olympic Games is know-how,' Public Order Minister Michalis Chrisohoides told the Associated Press. 'It is knowledge that we do not have. We have to acquire it.'
Briefly
Former Olympians John McNally of Heath and Terry Anderson of Dallas finished first and second, respectively, in the men's rapid-fire pistol at the USA Shooting National Championships in Atlanta last week. The United States did not qualify in the event for the Sydney Olympics. ... Sprinter Floyd Heard, 34, won the 200 meters in 20.18 seconds last month at an Olympic Trials qualifier in Chapel Hill, N.C. Heard, an NCAA champion for Texas A&M in 1986 and `87, is a two-time national champion at 200 meter. ... Entering the 2000 Oldsmobile Chicago Grand Slam, the beach volleyball team of Annett Buckner Davis and Jenny Johnson Jordan held the USA's No. 1 ranking. The women's main draw opens Sunday. The Davis-Jordan team trailed only the Adriana Behar-Shelda Bede team of Brazil in the Olympic Qualification Rankings _ 2,980 points to 2,512. Jordan's father is former Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson, a Hillsboro native who lived in Dallas until he was 11. ... Sydney Olympic organizers are worried that many in the volunteer work force will not stick around until the end, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Organizers are discussing a plan to offer volunteers an Olympic passport that provides chances to win valuable prizes if workers fulfill their shifts.
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(c) 2000, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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