Americans take down
unbeatable Cuban team
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by Geoff Grant
September 28, 2000
Knight-Ridder Tribune
SYDNEY, Australia - It was a mob. And it
was on the move, a living, breathing. run
ning mass of humanity headed straight for
the mound and U.S. pitcher Ben Sheets.
Sheets - on his knees in celebration, arms
outstretched - didn't budge, at once embrac
ing the emotion, even as he was buried be
neath scores of red, white and blue team-
But the mob didn't stop there, not for long
anyway. It turned its exuberance to the edge
of the infield where it devoured left fielder
Mike Neill, consuming the night's second
biggest star in one big happy pile of sweat
and tears.
For the U.S. baseball team, Wednesday
night's 4-0 victory was about more than win
ning a game. It was about making a name
for itself on the world's biggest stage, for
players whose pro careers have been shunted
aside and for players whose pro careers are
about to blossom.
It was also about beating Cuba, the un
beatable best, and about bringing home the
gold medal in a sport America invented, hut
hadn't mastered.
"Everybody knew they (Cuba) were go
ing to win," said manager Tommy Lasorda.
"Everybody knew we didn't have a chance.
Everybody knew that we didn't have a good
team and that Major League Baseball didn't
give us the players. I managed 20 years with
the Dodgers, had a lot of great moments, but
this is the greatest moment of my life, beat
ing a team like the Cubans."
Cuba entered the gold-medal game as two
time champions, 25-1 in the three Olympics
in which it has participated, unbeaten in four
games vs. the United States. On the interna
tional level, the numbers were even more
staggering. Cuba was 25-3 vs. Team USA
and had won the past 19 World Champion
ships.
Jones advances in long jump, 200
by John Jeansonne
Newsday
September 27, 2000
SYDNEY, Australia - Just sharpening her
pencil for the next test, Marion Jones went
through a sort of rehearsal at 200 meters and
a practice long jump Wednesday night and
gave every impression she will ace her next
final, Thursday's Olympic 200.
That would be her second gold medal of
the Sydney Games, to go with last Saturday's
100-meter victory, as she seeks her grail of
five golds by this weekend. And her return to
the Olympic frying pan, following the fire of
three strange days off, during which her hus
band was cited for positive steroid tests,
somehow gave the impression of being rotely
carefree.
With plenty of gasping also-rans straining
to run the second round of the 200 in any
thing approaching 23 seconds, Jones didn't
even need her higher gears to go 22.50. Then,
more impressively, she took a single jump an
hour later and easily exceeded the automatic
21-11) qualifying standard to put her into
tomorrow's long jump final, going 22-3 in
spite of stutter-stepping into her takeoff. The
only other jumper to take care of qualifying
business on her first jump was former world
record-holder Heike Drechsler of Germany.
"As you know," Jones said, "I've had diffi
culty in the past with my qualifying jumps.
To come out this evening and pop the quali
fying jump on the first try, I'm pleased with
that. After the jump, I was, like, 'What?' I
turned around expecting a red flag (for a foul).
But, no worries at all."
In spite of the doping charges against hus
band C.J. Hunter, who has denied guilt, Jones
was in control and dominant as ever on the
track and in the field. She slowed so drasti-
11 1
t
- Mike Neill, Olympic gold medalist -
But Cuba proved vulnerable. It's a team of
aging veterans, thinned by players who de
fected for the lure of Major League cash. It
had to play for the first time with wooden bats
- "timber bats" as Cuban manager Servio
Borges said - and it had to face the world's
best for the first time, as the Games welcomed
professionals.
For the U.S. squad, that meant a disparate
collection of players from distant minor-league
outposts, players like Sheets and Neill, who
represent the team's yin and yang. There are
13 players younger than 25. Their futures look
bright. There are 11 players older than 25. They
don't have futures, at least not in the majors.
Sheets is 22, looks 17, and pitches like he's
30. And with his stuff, he'll be pitching in the
big leagues at least that long. He's got a fastball
that dances at 95 mph and a hard sinker that
rarely finds the middle of a bat.
Lasorda has enjoyed portraying his team as
a bunch of rag-tag underachievers, but make
no mistake, Sheets is the real deal and was
easily the best player Wednesday.
Cuba scratched out just three hits against
Sheets, who struck out five, walked none and
induced 16 groundouts. He was throwing in
the mid-90s in the ninth. Sheets - a bonus baby
and 1999 first-round draft pick of the Milwau
kee Brewers - is already rich and could be
pitching in the National League as early as next
season.
Neill, however, is going nowhere. He's 30,
stuck in the Seattle Mariners farm system and
has all of 15 at-bats in the big leagues. His
future was Wednesday. He homered in the first
inning, giving the U.S. a lead it wouldn't re
linquish. Neill was batting just .185 entering
the night. As he touched home plate, he was
met by the team, which cleared the dugout to
congratulate him.
In the ninth inning, Neill made a diving catch
of a ball slicing down the left-field line. It was
the game's final out, touching off the wild cel
ebration that engulfed both he and Sheets.
"This is something I'll never forget," Neill
said. "This will last forever."
cally through the last 30 meters of the 200 that
Australia's Melinda Gainsford-Taylor - whose
personal best is .61 of a second (or about six
meters) slower than Jones' - actually nipped
Jones by .01 with a mighty charge in their heat.
Of course, the only purpose was to finish in
the top four and advance to Thursday's semifi
nal.
"I let up a bit too much in that one," Jones
said, "but that's the easiest 22.5 I've ever run. I
feel good. Everything else is pushed to the back
of my head. It's all about racing; I'm fine now."
Today she faces the 200 semis and, not quite
two hours later, the 200 final.
Following Friday's long jump final, which
appears a more dicey challenge, particularly
due to the consistency this season of Italy's
Fiona May, the competitive risks go up yet more
for Jones with Saturday's 4xloo and 4x400 re
lays.
Meanwhile, Jones seemed supremely confi
dent and at ease after Wednesday's quick, effi
cient work, which began eight hours after she
had cruised through the first round of the 200
in 22.75.
"This morning, getting up, I just wanted to
focus on my rounds in the 200 and the jump,"
she said. "All along, I said that I thought this
was going to be my most difficult day. I had to
juggle two rounds of the 200, even though it's
not incredibly difficult to run 22.7 and 22.5.
But, at the end of the day, I had to come back
and get that qualifying mark in the long jump."
What might be daunting to virtually every
other athlete in her situation was a joy to Jones.
"This is where I love to be," she said. "I love
to be out there in front of the fans, in front of
the lights. It kind of gets my mind off every
thing. There is so much going on right now,
which we'll all deal with once the Sydney
Games are done. But this is what I love to do.
And it was a good day overall."
Williams sisters
grab gold...with
help from King
by Bill Dwyre
Los Angeles Times
September 28, 2000
SYDNEY, Australia - This being the Olym
pics, it was nice to see a torch being passed
here Thursday.
When sisters Venus and Serena Williams
won the women's doubles tennis gold medal,
keeping intact a U.S. monopoly on the event,
they accepted, at least figuratively, a major
role in the future of the women's game from
one of the greats of the past.
Their coach here was the fabled Billie Jean
King, owner of 12 Grand Slam event titles in
singles, 15 in women's doubles and 11 in
mixed. She came from the public courts of
Long Beach, Calif., and set the tennis world
on its ear for more than 20 years, starting in
the early 19605.
And while she is best remembered by the
general public for knocking back Bobby
Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in the Astro
dome in 1973, she has become deeply dedi
cated, as Olympic and Fed Cup captain, to
ensuring a U.S. tennis future by sharing her
part in a U.S. tennis past.
The Williams sisters spent two weeks here,
learning the game and its history from King
and her assistant, Zina Garrison. There were
doubles drills and more doubles drills. And
there were many questions from King about
history.
"That's how I teach," King said. "I ask
questions."
It wasn't as if Venus and Serena Williams
needed instruction on the Continental grip.
That was evident in their 6-1, 6-1 shellack
ing of Kristie Boogart and Miriam Oremans
of the Netherlands in the gold medal match.
The first set took 20 minutes, the second 29.
The legacy of U.S. women's Olympic
doubles, inherited here by the Williamses, re
started when tennis returned to the Olympics
in 1988 in Seoul and Pam Shriver and Garri
son outlasted Czechs Jana Novotna and
Helene Sukova, 4-6, 6-2, 10-8. The difference
in drama between that one and Thursday's was
night and day. Shriver and Garrison battled
every point, every inch, before prevailing, and
Shriver would remember, years later, "We just
couldn't get Novotna to miss."
Mary Joe Fernandez and Gigi Fernandez,
not related, had a similar struggle in
Barcelona in 1992, finally getting past
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Conchita
Martinez, 7-5, 2-6, 6-2, and had no waltz in
Norway shocks U.S.
The U.S. women's soccer team staves off upset with the
tying goal in the waning minutes of Thursday's final, but
Norway scores in OT to shock the Americans 3-2 and win
Olympic gold.
Atlanta in 1996 when they beat Novotna and
Sukova, 7-6, 6-4.
The Williams sisters, who have won 33 of
their last 34 doubles matches, now have taken
titles in four of the last five major events they
have entered: the 1999 French Open, '99 U.S.
Open, 2000 Wimbledon and now the Olym
pics. They got as far as the semifinals of this
year's U.S. Open, but Venus pulled out of the
doubles with a slight injury that allowed her
to rest for the singles title she eventually won.
It is seldom a struggle for them. They lost
only one set here.
But as happy as King was about the doubles
gold medal, as well as Venus' gold in singles
and Monica Seles' bronze in singles - and the
prospect of Lindsay Davenport healing up
soon and rejoining the American team - she
was even happier about the amount of time
she had here to coach and teach.
"It was great to have them here, to be able
to spend this much time," she said. "We were
able to work on a lot of things. Venus' serve,
if you can imagine, needed some work. She
was getting in trouble when she turned her
head a certain way."
"And we really worked on their doubles,
on their volleys and their court movement."
The Williamses acknowledged that afterward.
"We worked on moving like a team," Ve
nus said, "and one time, when we had a point
where we did that, moved like a team, and
we got the point, we looked up there in the
stands at our coaches. Kind of like,"Hey, it
works.—
Something else obviously worked during
the tutelage of King and Garrison - the his
tory lessons.
With her doubles victory, Venus Williams
became the first U.S. woman since Helen
Wills in 1924 in Paris to win a singles and
doubles gold medal in the Olympics. Venus
Williams was asked if she knew who Wills
was.
"Yes, I do," she said, smiling like some
body who had prepared for the test question.
"I know that she played with a real steely
look on her face," Venus said.
King was quick to acknowledge that Ve
nus and Serena have been coached all along
by their parents, Richard and Oracene Will
iams. But left unsaid was the reality that nei
ther has experienced in tennis what King has.
She's been there, done that, and is eager to
keep the U.S. women's tennis flame burning
brightly.
Tis the Olympic spirit.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2000
Total
Medal Counts
United States 32
Russia 19
China 26
Australia 15
Germany 9
France 12
Italy 11
Korea 6
Britain 6
Itothanie , 10
Netherlands 8
Ukraine 3
Japan 5
Cuba 5
Belarus 3
Bulgaria 5
Greece 4
Poland 4
Canada 2
Switzerland 1
Sweden 4
Spain 3
Czech Republic 2
Brazil 0
Hungary 3
Indonesia 1
Slovakia 1
Belgium 0
Chinese Taipei 0
Turkey 3
Finland 2
Lithuania 2
Norway 1
New Zealand 1
Denmark 0
Jamaica 0
South Africa 0
Georgia 0
Austria 2
Iran 2
Mexico 1
Estonia
Ethiopia
North Korea
Slovenia
Kazakhstan
Croatia
Latvia
Nigeria
Trinidad & Tobago
Argentina
Kenya
Costa Rica
Anxienia
Algeria
Colombia
Azerbaijan
Mozambique
Yugoslavia
Uruguay
Moldova
Ireland
Saudi Arabia
Bahamas
Vietnam
Kyrgyzstan
Thailand
Portugal
India
Kuwait
Barbados
Iceland
Qatar
Morocco
Sri Lanka
Olympic Moment of the 'Week
American Rulon Gardner
won his first Olympic Gold
Medal in Greco-RomanWes
tling by defeating RUssian
Aleksandr &aril?? on Wednes
day.
Kareiin, who is known as
*The World's Meanest Man,"
had never lost in international
competition, and has not lost
at all since 1987.
Gardner was competing in
his first 01,ympics when he beat
Karelin, who was heavily fa
vored in the match. .Karelin
was attempting to win his
fourth consecutive Olymp ic