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No moment of silence at opening
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge says the organization will not change its position on adding a minute of silence to the opening ceremonies to honour the 11 Israelis killed by terrorists during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
Despite a public outcry, Rogge says the IOC will stick to its original plan, which is to honour the athletes on the day of the killings, Sept. 5, at the Furstenfeldbruck military airport in Germany.
Espinoza fears for family after shooting
GLASGOW – Honduran soccer player Roger Espinoza — shocked by the cinema shooting in his hometown of Aurora, Colo., last week — said Saturday he phoned his father to make sure his sister was not harmed in the tragedy.
“I grew up just five minutes away from there and that is the movie theatre I used to go to when I was young,” he said. “One of my international teammates told me about it and I called my dad Anibal right away to see how the family was because I know my little sister Nicole, who is 13, loves going there now.”
Countries go high tech to gain an edge
As Olympic training became more detailed, more scientific and more complicated, France created an agency within its sports ministry. Its nondescript name — Preparation Olympique et Paralympique — masked a more ambitious purpose: to boost medal counts through athletic surveillance.
But France is not the only nation looking for an Olympic edge through stealth. Someone from the United States’ BMX cycling team surreptitiously rode the competition course in London for this summer’s Olympic Games with a threedimensional mapping device so the Americans could build an exact replica of the Olympic track.
USA Sailing opportunistically snatched up property near the Olympic competition site in Weymouth, England, to build a training base in enemy territory to study weather and current conditions before the Games. ❚ Swedish former Olympic heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft will miss the London Games after suffering a hamstring injury on Sunday, her coach said.