Olympics | New drug testing system revealed

CHICAGO — ,profile the body chemistry of 12 participating athletes using a series of blood and urine tests, and those measurements will be used as a baseline for subsequent tests.

The program was described to The Associated Press by two people familiar with it, but who did not want to be identified because final details are still being worked out.

At a news conference Wednesday, track athletes Brian Clay and Allyson Felix each announced they were part of the project, called "Project Believe."

Cyclist Kristin Armstrong had previously told AP she was asked to join a USADA pilot program.

"I know for me, anytime I get an opportunity to let someone know I'm clean, I take it," said Clay, a decathlete. "USADA picked a few athletes that they're going to test a whole lot. The goal is to prove we're clean instead of dirty, and we want to be part of that."

Clay said he first was tested under the auspices of the program before the world indoor championships last month.

"I'm anxious to let people know, 'Hey, look, I'm clean. I'm the athlete you should be behind,' " he said. "I'm going to do it right so these things don't happen."

Under a series of questions about doping at a USOC news conference, Clay and Felix revealed the program. Felix said it requires her to be tested twice a week, giving a total of five vials of blood, and repeat the regimen over a "period of time."

"Whatever I can do to prove that I'm clean, I'll do it, no matter what time I have to wake up, where I have to drive," Felix said.

This type of system could someday replace the current anti-doping system, which establishes arbitrary limits for a large number of controlled substances. It's believed athletes can manipulate the system so they can dope but remain under the threshold where they'd get caught.

"Bird's Nest" gets modest opening

BEIJING — The centerpiece of the Beijing Olympics rises 230 feet tall, its lattice of steel beams sometimes vanishing in a thick blanket of smog.

Quietly and without fanfare, officials have opened the National Stadium — nicknamed the "Bird's Nest" — and it's ready to hatch its first sports event.

The final touches on the $450 million, 91,000-seat stadium won't be completed until next month, but organizers let journalists in Wednesday to look around.

Its unusual design was created by twisted steel beams that wrap around the exterior to resemble silver twigs binding a nest together. The icon of the Beijing Games, it's been called the best work produced by Switzerland-based architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

However, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was a consultant on the project, has since criticized it. He has likened the stadium to a "fake smile," designed to hide social and political problems in China, which hopes to use the Olympics to show off its new political and economic power.

Of China's 37 Olympic venues, the stadium is the last to be completed.

Notes

• Suspended Greek national weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou resigned amid a doping probe that has led a majority of his team into court.

Meanwhile, a Greek court gave 11 members of the country's weightlifting team until next month to prepare testimony for a prosecutor investigating their alleged use of banned substances.