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Afghanistan Wins Its 1st Olympic Medal Timekeeper's Relationship With Phelps A Conflict Of Interest?

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 21, 2008

BEIJING - In Rohullah Nikpai's war-torn country, fighting is a part of life. Living in tough conditions is a given. Training for the Olympics is a luxury few can afford, or even imagine.

But Nikpai has proven it can be done: On Wednesday he won Afghanistan's first-ever Olympic medal.

"I hope this will send a message of peace to my country after 30 years of war," Nikpai said after winning the bronze in the men's under 58-kilogram taekwondo event.

The victory brought immediate congratulations from President Hamid Karzai.

"The president personally called Rohullah Nikpai and congratulated him for this achievement," presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said.

For his accomplishment, Nikpai will be given a house at the government's expense, Hamidzada said.

Along with the president's offer of a house, Nikpai's bronze medal also brings him a $10,000 prize from a mobile phone company in Afghanistan.
Heptathlon Silver Medalist Has Positive Drug Test

Track and field got its first doping case at these Olympics when the heptathlon silver medalist Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine had her "A" sample turn up positive, international track and field federation officials confirmed. There have already been four positives at the games in other sports.

Lamine Diack, president of the IAAF, said that Blonska's "B" sample would be tested today and if positive, Blonska would be stripped of her silver medal. In that case, American Hyleas Fountain would move up to the silver medal and Tatiana Chernova of Russia would get the bronze.

The IAAF did not say what substance turned up in Blonska's test.

Blonska also would face a lifetime ban from track and field because she already has tested positive once, for the steroid stanozolol, and served a two-year ban that ended in 2006.

After a week of arriving at the finish earlier than anyone else, Michael Phelps arrived fashionably late for a public appearance at the Omega Pavilion on Wednesday, grabbed a chocolate chip cookie on the sly and put his finger to his mouth, as if to hush any word that he was breaking training.

Phelps was clearly in a relaxed mood, his quest for eight gold medals having been achieved, but some find his relationship with Omega as troubling as it is cozy.

Omega not only is the official timekeeper of the Beijing Games. It is also one of Phelps' corporate sponsors, an arrangement that appears to be a conflict of interest.

The most visible athlete at these games is getting a paycheck from the same company whose equipment decides the outcome of Phelps' events.

Most of the time, such a relationship probably would not draw much attention or concern. The Olympic timing system is a seemingly fail-safe, objective determination of the order of finish.

But Phelps was involved in a disputed race last Saturday, and Omega has declined to release underwater video images showing conclusively that Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly by a hundredth of a second over Milorad Cavic of Serbia.

Shortly after Saturday's disputed race, Alina Ivanescu, a spokeswoman for Omega, told The New York Times that the company would soon forward the video images to the news media. Later Saturday, though, Ivanescu sent an e-mail message, saying that swimming's world governing body, known as FINA, decided not to release any timekeeping images to the news media.

ESPN Eyes 2014, 2016 Games

ESPN is interested in acquiring the television rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympics and would carry more of them live, regardless of the time zone, than NBC traditionally has done.

If ESPN follows its Euro 2008/World Cup model, the live feeds would be carried to all time zones; when NBC shows events live in prime time, they are seen in real time in the Eastern and Central time zones, not in the Mountain and Pacific zones.

The International Olympic Committee has not set a date for selling the TV rights to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 Summer Games, whose host city will be chosen in October 2009 from Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo.

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