The Signal from Santa Clarita, California • 10

B2 THE SIGNAL, Sunday, August 8, 2004 Olympics IPpjCss Gfcnt Reborn Sols HI: 'a 1 1 "AM -w. HI is that he wanted to gain the respect of the family of the woman he loved. Stories also say Louis gulped wine along the route. With the race entering its final stretch, an Australian accountant named Edwin Flack stumbled. Louis moved to the front.

"It's a Greek! It's a Greek!" the crowd roared as Louis entered central Athens, according to newspaper reports. Spectators pulled out guns and fired in the air. Louis was flooded with offers of generosity: cash, livestock; a sewing machine, free haircuts. Louis, however, fell on hard times. In 1915, a reporter visited Louis and was shocked to find a destitute man whose clothes were "full of dust and spiders." He had one last Olympic moment: appearing at the 1936 Berlin Games and presenting Adolf Hitler an olive branch from Ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the games.

Louis died four years later. The marble stadium will again be the marathon finish at this month's games. Archery will also use the famous 5 By Brian Murphy Associated Press Writer ATHENS, Greece A seat halfway up the tightly curved end of Athens' old, horseshoe-shaped marble stadium offers a rare vantage point of the first modern Olympics 108 years ago. At just the right angle, eyes see only the bone-white stone, flame-shaped cypress trees and Acropolis rising in the distance. The spectators who sat here during the 1896 Games had a very similar view.

But there are not many places like this left in Athens. More than years separate the Olympic rebirth and the version of the Summer Games that begin Friday. The world, the games and the host city are all profoundly different! "I don see too much of a connection between these games and 1896," said Bill Mallon, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. "A better analogy could be the ancient games. Back then it was the best athletes coming together with city states at war and all sorts of political tensions.

It's not so different now." The enduring snapshots of this year's Olympics will undoubtedly include the unmatched security: cameras, armed guards, surveillance aircraft, an Olympic Village with fortifications suited for a maximum-security prison. The 1896 Games, by comparison, were a casual affair. European royalty mingled with spectators. Athletes caught naps in shaded groves near the stadium. The tennis champion was a tourist who competed for Britain.

The Americans almost didn't make it. U.S. organizers miscalculated the starting date by relying on the Julian calendar used by Greece at the time. They arrived just a day before Greece's King George I formally opened the first Olympics since another ruler, new illuminated underpass near the main Olympic complex in on Friday. Olympics.

Dozens of men from 13 countries including the 13 late-arriving U.S. athletes made it to Athens to join at least 150 Greek competitors. Women were not allowed into the Olympics until four years later in Paris. The stadium with marble from the famed Mount Pendeli quarries outside Athens was built over the site of ancient festival grounds for the goddess Athena. The stadium price tag was picked up by an ethnic Greek businessman from Egypt.

The cinder-and-clay track was squeezed into the narrow infield with curves so sharp that runners had to slow or risk tipping over. But such shortcomings were mostly overlooked by the athletes of the age a collection of amateurs, adventurers and heirs with time on their hands. "Why, it was a moment to inspire," wrote a Boston triple jumper, James Brendan Connolly, in a memoir on his1 days as an Olympian in Athens. Connolly paid his own way because his Suffolk Athletic Club lacked the cash. He quit Harvard after the dean refused his request for leave.

He never regretted the decision. Connolly became the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years with a leap of 44 feet, 1 1 34 inches in the triple jump which was then a hop-hop-jump combination. His prize: a silver medal and olive wreath. The gold medal was not introduced until 1904. Coubertin wanted gold to be the top prize in Athens, but Greece's Crown Prince Con- Edwards Suspended venue.

Louis' great grandson, 27-year-old car salesman Manolis Louis, will be one of the last torch bearers before the Olympic flame enters the main Athens stadium north of the city. The event will cap a very difficult Olympic homecoming. But one that's worth it, say many Olympic historians. "The Olympics are seen as this universal, global institute. But if after the Greek experience they decide that only big, modern cities can host the games, then they run into troubles because (the Olympics) won't be as universal and global as they say," said Alexander Kitroeff, a history professor at Haverford College and author of a recent book on Greek identity and the games.

"Then the Olympics become a sort of jeweled big boys' club This is not what was in mind back in 1896." IOC Delay Frustrating Track Officials By Rob Gloster AP Sports Writer ATHENS, Greece The International Olympic Committee delayed ruling Saturday on whether to strip the U.S. relay team of gold medals from the Sydney Games, prompting criticism from a track official who said it was "not a good message" in the fight against doping. The team, which included Michael Johnson, could lose its medals because of a doping violation by teammate Jerome Young a year before the 2000 Olympics. Young has already been stripped. The International Association of Athletics Federations recommended last month that the entire team be penalized because Young should have been ineligible.

The IAAF allowed 60 days for appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The deadline is Sept. 18. The U.S. Olympic Committee hasn't appealed, and it was unclear whether any of the runners Johnson, twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison, Antonio Pettigrew and Angelo Taylor had done so on their own.

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davis said the executive board would wait until the IAAF decision is "final and enforceable" before acting. The IAAF had hoped otherwise. "We believed they would not wait and would support the decision of the international federation," IAAF general secretary Istvan Gyulai said. "We were led to believe they would. We thought it would be a good signal to the world that the entire sports leadership has the same opinion.

This is hesitating a little bit, so it's not a good message." Young tested positive for the steroid nandrolone in 1999, but was exonerated in July 2000 by a U.S. appeals panel. USA Track Field never gave the IAAF specifics about the (Ase. Associated Press in Athens on Saturday. The stantine didn't want it to seem as if the athletes were being paid.

The Greeks had expected to dominate the games. Instead, the Americans were on their way to taking the most victories: 1 1 in all. The marathon became a point of national pride for the host country. The race is inspired by the legend of messenger Pheidip-pides running to Athens in 490 B.C. to announce with his dying breath Greek victory over Persians in the Battle of Marathon.

In 1896, a water-seller named Spyridon Louis joined 16 others in the first Olympic marathon. What got Louis there in the first place is lost to history. Some versions say he was picked by a military officer impressed by his speed and stamina. A more romantic tale Associated Press Torri Edwards wins her heat in the women's 200 meters during the Olympic Track and Field trials in Sacramento, in this July 16, 2004 photo. A review panel recommended that sprinter Torri Edwards receive a two-year suspension for taking a banned stimulant contained in a supplement, several newspapers reported.

stantial appearance fee and was the meet's leading attraction. Edwards was expected to contend for medals in the 100 and 200 in Athens. Her absence could give Jones a chance to defend her gold medal in the 100 because it would free up a spot in the event. Gail Devers, the fourth-place finisher in the 100 at the trials, would be entitled to Edwards' spot. But the 37-year-old Devers, in her fifth Olympics, could decide to focus on the 100-meter hurdles, an event she has dominated for the last decade, except at the Olympics.

If she does run in the 100 and hurdles, Devers would face the possibility of six races, counting the qualifying heats, in the first five days of the Olympic track competition. Besides, she already is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 100. If Devers withdraws from the 100, the next in line would be Jones, who was fifth in the trials and qualified for the U.S. team only in the long jump. Jones has been training for the 100 during her work at the relay camp in Municll Germany, this week.

IS- a I tit it. y.j. A woman walks through a 2004 Summer Olymics beg Roman Emperor Theodosius, banned them as pagan in 393. The improbable dream of a French baron, Pierre de Cou-bertin, had come true. Coubertin an avid admirer of ancient Greek ideals lobbied for years to stir interest in reviving the games.

The idea got a cool reception. Earlier attempts had already sputtered, including 17th century games in England and a series of 19th century meets in Greece called the Zappas Games after founder Evange-los Zappas, whose head is entombed in the Zappeion villa in Athens. The rest of his remains were sent to his adopted home in Romania. But Coubertin persisted. At an international sports meeting in France in 1894, he managed to push through a proposal to resurrect the "We just keep getting better," LeBron James said.

"As time wears on, we are becoming more of a team." But Brown is never satisfied, never entirely happy. He accentuated the negative before grudgingly acknowledging the positive. "We still turned it over. We still didn't get into a lot of things, but we played hard and we tried to do what was right. And I think that was a significant step," he said.

Brown is coaching a team he didn't bargain for, a collection of youngsters who could have used another four years to prepare for their roles as national team players. What he had irf mind a year ago was Tracy McGra'dy, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd feeding the ball to Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett and Elton Brand, while he sat at the helm of a U.S. team that re-established itself as the class of the sport. Instead, he retained just three holdovers from the squad that qualified for the Olympics last summer in Puerto Rico. Injuries, security fears and disinterest knocked out the best players, leaving Brown with a kiddie corps more versed in body art and entourage management than in Associated Press U.S.

basketball head coach Larry Brown reacts during a press conference at the Ottoman era Ciragan Palace in Istanbul.Turkey, Saturday. The USA Basketball team will face Turkey for a friendly game in Istanbul on Sunday in preparation for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Did Coach Brown Bite Off More Than He Can Chew? By Bob Baum AP Sports Writer GIORGIOUPOLI, Greece Barring a successful appeal, sprinter Torri Edwards will be suspended for at least two years for taking a banned stimulant, knocking her out of the Olympics and perhaps giving Marion Jones a chance to defend her gold medal in the 100 meters. A review panel concluded there were no exceptional circumstances that would warrant a lesser penalty, Travis Tygart, director of legal affairs for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"The rule says it's a minimum of two years," Tygart said. The finding by the panel of the International Association of Athletics Federations has been forwarded to the U.S. arbitration panel that initially heard Edwards' case. That panel will determine Edwards' penalty but has no authority to make it less than a two-year ban, Tygart said. The American Arbitration Association panel had found that there may be exceptional circumstances in Edwards' case, but the IAAF board disagreed.

The panel's official finding is expected next week. Edwards can appeal to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport, whose ruling would be binding. Edwards' lawyer, Emanuel Hudson, did not return several phone calls to his office, but he told The New York Times that Edwards was "very saddened and disappointed" by the ruling. She said during the U.S. Olympic trials in July that she would appeal any suspension as far as she could.

The world champion in the 100, Edwards tested positive at a meet in Martinique in April, but she blamed a glucose supplement, saying she was unaware it contained the stimulant nikethamide. She said her physician bought the glucose at a store there because she wasn't feeling well. She had argued there was no reason to cheat at the meet because there was no prize money and the field was weak. She said she felt compelled to run because she was paid a sub- By Chris Sheridan AP Basketball Writer BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro Larry Brown's face turned redder and redder as he lamented the demise of American basketball, the disinterest of Gen and the dangers of overconfi-dence. To say Brown was at his wit's end in the wee hours Friday would only begin to describe his feelings.

"They don't get it," he said repeatedly, shaking his head in a mixture of disgust and foreboding. When someone suggested the U.S. Olympic team could lose by 20 points in its exhibition game against Serbia-Montenegro, Brown didn't blanch. "It might be like that at half-time," he said. It wasn't.

On Friday night at Belgrade Arena, his team finally played some defense and managed to look inspired in a 78-60 victory over the defending world champions. Brown even had a bounce in his step as he walked down the hallway from the interview area to the locker room, his team giving him hope that its worst days might already be behind them. A the nuances of ball movement or weak-side help defense. "We don't have the team we expected to have," has been Brown's stock comment to anyone questioning what the expectations should be for a country that has gone 109-2 since head coach Joseph Needles set sail for Berlin in 1936 the first year men's basketball was an Olympic sport. Brown himself was a member of the 1964 team that won the gold medal in Tokyo, and he would have been an assistant coach on the 1980 team that boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

He says one of his fondest memories was when Antonio McDyess removed his gold medal after the U.S. team's 2000 victory in Sydney and placed it around Brown's neck because coaches didn't receive golds. That was no easy victory. If anything, those games illustrated how much the world has caught up to the United States in the 12 years since the Dream Team stormed through the Barcelona Games. How else to explain a two-point semifinal victory over Lithuania and a 10-point win over France in the final?).