News Round-Up
2008-09-22
Park returns to training; Thorpe action delayed; Manaudou may head to Marseilles; Matt Jaukovic sets the pace at Aussie s/c champs

 

Park Life: Olympic 400m free champion Park Tae-hwan, of South Korea, resumed training today after a month of celebration tours and celebrity appearances. His first post-Olympic race test will unfold between October 10 and 16 at the National Sports Festival. Led by his coach, Roh Min-sang, Park has been assigned two teammates as training partners at the Olympic training center in Seoul, according to the Korea Swimming Federation.

Thorpe Delay: According to ABC, Ian Thorpe faces a delay in his attempts to clear his name of doping allegations. Thorpe is suing L'Equipe, which during Melboune 2007 reported that the 400m free world record holder and then reigning Olympic champion had returned a blood sample with abnormal levels of testosterone. He was later cleared by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and FINA, but he says the accusation has lingered and wants compensation for damages to his reputation. Thorpe's lawyer Chris O'reilly told the New South Wales Supreme Court that he had served the legal case against the newspaper, but it had not responded to the claim. He said he had also been unable to find the journalist who wrote the original story in order to serve the legal papers. Mr O'Reilly says if the paper and the journalist do not respond to the case against them, he will ask the court for the case to proceed.

On this day: At the Sydney Olympics, Americans Gary hall Jnr and Anthony Ervin delivered the first shared gold in Olympic men’s swimming history when they touch together in 21.98s in the 50m freestyle final.

Manaudou to Marseilles?: Talking of L'Equipe, the paper today reports that Laure Manaudou is close to signing a contract with Marseilles. We assume that the talks with former coach Philippe Lucas did not go all that well.

Dip for Diversity: Cullen Jones has launched a US "diversity tour" for swimming. The Olympic gold medal winner in the 4x100m free said: "There are so many African-Americans and Latin Americans that are afraid of the water, but love to be in the water. And that's the problem. That's what this diversity tour is about."

Matt Finish: Australia has unearthed a new star in 22-year-old Matt Jaukovic (Sydney University). At the Australian Short Course Championships at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, he clocked 50.37sec to establish an Australian all-comers 100m butterfly record and shoot up to 6th best ever. The day before he gave warning with a 22.79 win in the 50m butterfly.