World high-jump champion Hestrie Cloete holds the focus as South Africa’s athletic gold medallist hopeful when she takes to the Olympic Stadium on Thursday, but there are still loads of colour among South Africa’s Olympians as the finishing line comes into sight for these vibrant and historical Games in Athens.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj will try to erase the memory of past Olympic nightmares on Tuesday as Iraq’s footballers bid to continue their dream run in the semifinals at the Athens Games. In another drug bust, Hungarian discus champion Robert Fazekas will be stripped of the gold medal he won on Monday.
The excitement of acquiring highly touted Zimbabwean coach Sunday Marimo fell flat for Bush Buck fans after the club finally gave up on his services on Tuesday. Marimo was unveiled at the beginning of the month as the new man to take over the coaching reins of the newly promoted East London outfit.
Osama bin Laden’s Yemeni driver will on Tuesday become the first Guantánamo Bay prisoner to stand before a United States military commission to face war crimes charges, in proceedings that have been denounced as unfair by human rights groups and American military lawyers.
Finnish police said on Monday they were investigating a large-scale art fraud in which dozens of high-quality photocopies of works by artists such as Salvador Dalí were passed off as originals and sold for up to 10 000 euros each. Helsinki police said their prime suspect was the organiser of an exhibition in the Finnish capital that claimed to display original works by Dalí and such other famous artists as Chagall, Rembrandt, Picasso and Andy Warhol.
South African tennis veteran Wayne Ferreira, due to retire from the sport next month, scrambled to a 6-2, 6-3 win over Spaniard David Sanchez on Monday to reach the second round of the 000 ATP Long Island event. The South African will wrap up his career after the US Open and a final Davis Cup appearance.
International athletics newcomer Jeremy Wariner succeeded United States great Michael Johnson as Olympic 400m champion on Monday as the US became the first nation since 1992 to sweep the medals in an athletics event. In gymnastics, fans’ frustration with judging sparked a shout-fest that briefly brought the proceedings to a halt.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Athletics South Africa (ASA) on Monday appealed to athletes not to participate in the Spoornet Great Train Race in Port Elizabeth on Saturday as the event is not sanctioned by the organisation. ”We sincerely hope that all law-abiding and disciplined athletes will act responsibly and respond positively to this appeal,” ASA said.
Greece pledged on Tuesday to redress its finances one day after official figures showed that Olympics-related costs pushed Greece’s public debt, already one of Europe’s biggest, to new depths. ”There is a budgetary problem, and it will be dealt with,” the country’s Finance and Economy Minister Yiorgos Alogoskoufis told private radio station Flash.
A United Kingdom-based rugby player who left South Africa after playing for the SA Africans side in the 1950s to pursue a professional league career in the United Kingdom was officially given his Springbok colours at a function on Tuesday. The event was part of the South African Rugby Football Union’s (Sarfu) Yesterday’s Heroes programme.