Olympics
Notebook: Greek baseball team has ample backing

By Seattle Times news services

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BALTIMORE — The Greek Olympic baseball team has sufficient financial backing to go to Greece after working out next month in the United States, an official of the Baltimore Orioles said yesterday.

On Friday, the president of the Greek Baseball Federation declared the team was so short of cash that it had no funds to return for the Summer Games.

"At this moment, we do not have money to pay for the tickets for our team to come to participate in the Olympic Games," Panos Mitsiopoulos told The Associated Press.

That is not the case, according to Orioles spokesman Bill Stetka.

"We were surprised to hear that," Stetka said. "It's a non-issue. The flights have been arranged, and the cost already covered, through a cooperative effort by the Orioles, Major League Baseball, the Greek Federation and the family of Peter Angelos."

Peter Angelos, a Greek American who owns the Orioles, helped organize the Greek Olympic baseball team.

Stetka said the team will begin practicing in the Baltimore area on Aug. 2 and will stay through Aug. 4 before heading home.

Divers win titles

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Olympic team members Caesar Garcia and Kimiko Soldati won titles in their specialties at the U.S. National Diving Championships, their final tuneups before the Athens Games next month.
 
Garcia won the men's 10-meter platform event on his sixth and final dive, edging Matt Bricker and 14-year-old Thomas Finchum. Garcia scored 625.77 total points to 617.64 for Bricker and 583.47 for Finchum.

Soldati won the women's 3-meter springboard over Chelsea Davis, 515.04 to 502.23, despite losing several days of training this week after receiving two cortisone shots to treat an injured right shoulder.

Security blimp makes test patrol over Athens

ATHENS, Greece — A sensor-laden blimp made a patrol over Olympic venues and sensitive areas in Athens as Greek authorities carried out final tests for the safeguarding of the Aug. 13-29 Olympic Games.

The 200-foot blimp, mounted with dome-shaped sensors, including chemical "sniffers" and ultra-high-resolution cameras, flew over Athens for more than three hours. During the Games, the airship is expected to float over the capital for more than 15 hours daily, joining a network of surveillance vans and nine police helicopters.

The blimp is part of an electronic web of more than 1,000 cameras, sensors and other devices tied together over a secure communications network to a command center. The system cost $312 million and took up a considerable portion of Athens' record security budget of more than $1.5 billion.

Today, Greek authorities will test part of the network — including its system of cameras and communications — during a three-hour Olympic security transportation drill. The drill involves public transit and the operation of special Olympic traffic lanes to be used by accredited vehicles, including buses carrying athletes.

Notes

• Paralyzed gymnast Ronny Ziesmer was released from intensive care in Berlin two weeks after the German Olympic hopeful broke his neck during a fall in practice. Ziesmer, who will turn 25 tomorrow, broke a neck vertebra and damaged his spinal cord while executing a double somersault on the rings July 12.

• Former Olympic champion Allen Johnson believes athletes like his girlfriend, sprinter Torri Edwards, are paying the price for the misdeeds of Ben Johnson. "We're all treated like we're cheaters first, and it's up to us to prove that we're not cheaters," Johnson said. "It's definitely a case of guilty until proven innocent." Edwards tested positive for a stimulant in April. She contends she was given glucose tablets by her physical therapist, who did not know they contained the drug.