Olympics
Notebook: Pots of gold await medalists back at home

Haile Gebrselassie has two gold medals in the 10,000.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

ATHENS — There's less than $100 worth of gold in the most coveted of Olympic medals, but winning one can mean hitting the jackpot — especially for athletes from developing countries.

Romanian gold medalists will receive tax-free bonuses of $50,000 — twice what U.S. champions will get. Iraq's new government has pledged $25,000 per gold. And Kenya's winners will get flat-screen TVs and washing machines along with cash.

Governments, national Olympic committees and corporations have teamed up to ensure the spoils of victory are far more than chump change. But many athletes and coaches have mixed feelings about the Olympic pots of gold.

Romania's champion women gymnasts, who won the team gold, will receive two cars, a free college education and a lifetime of rent courtesy of the government along with their bonuses. In a country where the average monthly take-home pay is just $170, that's wealth of which most Romanians can only dream.

Octavian Belu, who coaches the women's team, thinks big payoffs backfire because athletes tend to quit after their first Olympics. Most of his champions are in their late teens, and he's frustrated that he has few repeat Olympians such as 25-year-old Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina.

But Olympic payoffs are getting bigger, especially in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, where nations are eager to win prestige.

Ukraine will double what it paid gold medalists at the 2000 Sydney Games. Victors will get $100,000 from the government, sweetened by free apartments in Kiev.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is offering $25,000 for golds, $15,000 for silvers and $10,000 for bronzes. USA Swimming says it will chip in another $25,000 for golds in the pool.

Gebrselassie will race

If it were any other race, Haile Gebrselassie would not be running. But this is the Olympic 10,000, and probably the last track event of his legendary career.
 
So despite an Achilles tendon injury, the two-time defending Olympic champion from Ethiopia will compete tomorrow.

"I was very close to pulling out," Gebrselassie said.

One of the greatest long-distance runners of all time, Gebrselassie, 31, is seeking to become the first individual athlete to win the same running event at three Olympics. He plans to move up to marathon for the rest of his career.

"Even if I am not doing very well, I feel I need to be there," he said.

Notes

• Moroccan weightlifter Wafa Ammouri failed a drug test and was sent home before she could compete in the 63kg final, and positive tests of at least five more weightlifters were expected to be announced within a day, The Associated Press learned. It was unclear whether the other athletes, who were not identified, have already competed.

• Ron Bensimhon, 31, of Montreal, was convicted of interrupting the Games and sentenced to five months in jail after jumping off the 3-meter springboard at the diving venue Monday wearing a blue tutu and white tights with polka dots. The incident prompted organizers to tighten security at Olympic venues with police officers dressed as volunteers.

• Judo coach Suh Joung-bok was expelled by the South Korean Federation after a journalist reported seeing him strike one of his athletes, Ye Gue-rin, after she lost in the 105-1/2-pound tournament Saturday.

Also, an International Judo Federation panel plans to review the circumstances surrounding an Iranian athlete who was disqualified for being overweight before he was to face an Israeli opponent. Arash Miresmaeili had been quoted earlier as saying, "I refused to play against an Israeli rival to sympathize with the oppressed Palestinian people." The panel will investigate whether Miresmaeili was overweight intentionally.

• Former Mariner Rob Ducey, playing for the Canadian baseball team in the Olympics, fainted due to dehydration and was taken to the hospital. He is expected to be released today, pending further medical testing.

• Terrye Jackson, a 42-year-old real estate agent from Baltimore, broke the Guinness world record for consecutive hours watching television. She saw 50 hours, seven minutes of the Olympics on TV — two minutes longer than the previous mark. Jackson set the mark during an NBC-orchestrated viewing party at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida.

• During a victory celebration at weightlifting gold medalist Udomporn Polsak's parents' home in the northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima province in Thailand, a gang brawl led to the shooting of a 21-year-old man, police said.

Further dampening the spirits of the Olympian's family was bickering between distributors of Coca Cola and Pepsi, who both staked claims to give away their drinks in front of the house.

Polsak is the first Thai woman to win an Olympic gold medal.