Despite heat, Games move along
Athletes, fans find ways to handle high temperatures
ATHENS, Greece - It was steamy at the beach volleyball complex, and we’re not talking about those skimpy outfits worn by the female athletes.
The sand — and the fans — got really hot Sunday.
According to the Greek weather service, the high temperature at the Faliro Olympic complex was 92 degrees. Tournament officials checked the temperature of the sand for the first time, reporting a scorching 107.
“It’s hard to think,” said American Stein Metzger, who played in the afternoon’s opening match. “Your head gets so hot, you don’t think as well as you would if you were sitting in the shade.”
Volunteers sprayed the crowd with water hoses during breaks in play, when Metzger placed an ice pack on his head. After a long rally in the loss by the U.S. team to Swiss pair Patrick Heuscher and Stefan Kobel, all four exhausted players collapsed in the sand.
Brazilian Sandra Pires wore black socks to keep the sand from scalding her feet.
The mercury climbed to 99 at the main Olympic complex. Things had cooled by evening out in Marathon, where it was 89 for the 6 p.m. start of the women’s marathon. Racers chugged water and wiped their brows as they retraced the ancient course.
It was 92 at Helliniko, site of softball and several other sports.
Despite the oven-like conditions, U.S softball pitcher Lisa Fernandez twice asked for her warmup jacket after reaching base in a semifinal win over Australia. She also wore long sleeves under her jersey.
Each time a U.S. hitter reached base, American fans down the left-field line celebrated by unloading their water bottles on each other like kids at a water park. One reporter even left the venue to go take a swim.
There was plenty of splashing, too, at the rowing venue in Schinias. Among rowing fans — especially the Dutch — there’s a tradition of jumping into the water to congratulate the top performing crews.
That’s forbidden at the Olympics because of security issues. Some fans, though, couldn’t resist and police made little effort to stop them.
Officers rounded up soaked spectators after they emerged from the water, then hauled them to a police station. Authorities checked their identities and other documentation, then released them when nothing unusual turned up.
At the Markopoulo equestrian venue, show jumping riders wore formal team attire despite the stifling heat. The outfits include a scarlet wool coat that would be better suited to a winter foxhunt in Ireland, but they wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“I like the tradition of the riding coat,” U.S. rider McLain Ward said.
Bulgarian cyclist Evgenia Radanova said Athens was about 100 degrees too warm. A three-time winter Olympian in short-track speedskating, she raced at the Summer Olympics for the first time in track cycling’s sprint.
“Give me the weather in Lake Placid or Salt Lake City any day,” she said.
Fire fallout
The Olympic mountain bike course has been slightly changed and shortened because of a wildfire that burned at the venue, though officials said the changes won’t affect the difficulty of the race.
Cyclists will ride across about 80 meters of scorched earth. In another area, organizers carved another route through the woods and bushes of Mount Parnitha, a change that shortened the course by about 100 meters.
Sparks from a wire-cutting tool started the fire Friday as employees worked near a perimeter fence.
Stick to the rules
International amateur wrestling is adopting major rule changes starting next year in an effort to draw more interest in a sport little-watched in many countries except during the Olympics.
Among changes made by FILA, the sport’s governing body, are deciding all tournament matches in a single weight class in one day; switching from two periods of three minutes each to three periods of two minutes each and eliminating the overall scoring system.
Instead of keeping score over the length of a match, the winner will be the wrestler who wins the most periods. Thus, a wrestler could trail 6-0 in the first period but win the match by claiming the next two periods.
A five-point throw, two three-point holds or six technical points would end a period. Injury time will result in a point being awarded to the opponent, unless the injured wrestler is bleeding.
To speed up tournaments, wrestlers could have as little as 15 minutes between matches.
The changes likely won’t affect U.S. high school and college wrestling, which are governed by separate organizations — the National Federation of State High School Associations and the NCAA.
The rules likely will be used for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Hall's predicament
American sailor Kevin Hall was distracted during the Finn regatta because paperwork and scheduling problems delayed him from receiving the weekly testosterone shots he needs as a testicular cancer survivor.
Hall blamed himself for the first of the two mix-ups, but said various officials were to blame for the second. He finished 11th in the 25-boat fleet.
“I hate to even talk about it because it sounds like sour grapes and like I’m blaming everything on that,” Hall said. “But it’s not that. My goal was to sail well here. I can’t come away from this week feeling that. It’s just something that I’ll just need to forgive myself for eventually.”
Hall, diagnosed with cancer in the early 1990s, had to receive clearance from several governing bodies before sailing in these games.
Official ambassador
Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has signed up as an official ambassador for London’s bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The Blairs came to Athens for last week’s opening ceremony. Cherie Blair returned this week to watch competitions and support the bid.
“I have always been a great supporter of the plan to bring the Olympic Games to London in 2012 and look forward to helping that aim become a reality,” she said.
London is one of five cities in the 2012 race, along with New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow. The International Olympic Committee will select the host city in July 2005.
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