The Olympic flame began a final swing through the suburbs of Athens on Thursday before a journey after dusk up the Acropolis Hill to the 2 500-year-old Parthenon, the icon of Athens’s ancient glory. As the flame travelled around ancient monuments and through blue-collar districts, thousands of Athenians turned out to cheer.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Just a few hours before she was supposed to board the United States Olympic tennis team’s flight to Athens, Serena Williams sent word via e-mail that she wouldn’t be going to the summer Games because of a bad left knee. ”I’ve never been this disappointed in my career,” Williams said from Florida on Wednesday night.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Kumar Sangakkara scored his third Test double century on Thursday as Sri Lanka reached 395 runs for five wickets at lunch on the second day of the second cricket Test against South Africa. Resuming on 157, Sangakkara survived a chance after adding 20 runs to his overnight total.
Manchester United overcame a host of absentees, a bomb scare and an early own goal to beat Dynamo Bucharest 2-1 in Bucharest on Wednesday to make themselves the firm favourites to reach the Champions League group stages. An own goal by Angelo Alistar in the second half proved the winner.
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Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister, Aeneas Chigwedere, accused Britain on Wednesday of pressuring Greece into barring him from attending the Athens Olympics and described the decision as ”completely out of order”. EU member Greece announced on Tuesday it will bar Chigwedere from attending the Olympics.
Two trains collided head-on in north-western Turkey on Wednesday, killing six people and injuring about 30 others, an official said. Firefighters were trying to enter the first car of one of the trains to pull out passengers. The car was smashed and flipped over in the collision near the village of Tavsancil in Kocaeli province.
A man who once weighed more than 450kg has lost 144kg under the care of a team of doctors and hopes to lose 203kg more. Patrick Deuel (42) of Valentine, Nebraska, weighed 482kg when he was admitted to Sioux Falls’s Avera McKennan hospital eight weeks ago. Deuel is on a 1 200-calorie-a-day diet.
Four Russian doctors who were arrested as they tried to remove both kidneys from a critically injured but still living patient will stand trial for attempted murder, the Russian prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The doctors were planning to use the kidneys for transplantation.
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete on Wednesday informed the African National Congress, the Democratic Alliance and the New National Party of the names of their MPs on the Scorpions’ preliminary list of 23 MPs allegedly linked to the parliamentary travel voucher scam. Only the DA was prepared to identify its MP.