LAS VEGAS - Manager Robert Mittleman pleaded guilty to fixing fights and trying to pay a federal prosecutor and judge $15,000 to have a case against one of his indicted boxers dismissed, authorities said.
Mittleman, 61, of Oak Park, Ill., pleaded guilty to two counts of sports bribery and one of bribery of a public official, according to a plea memo unsealed by court order last week.
Mittleman admitted that he arranged for boxer Thomas Williams, known as Top Dog, to lose a match with Brian Nielsen in Denmark on March 31, 2000, the guilty plea memo states.
GYMNASTICS: Comaneci defends 10s
Nadia Comaneci defended her perfect 10s in gymnastics at the 1976 Montreal Games after a top Olympic official said the scores were inflated.
Dick Pound, a former IOC vice president, wrote in his forthcoming book, Inside the Olympics, that Soviet bloc judges had awarded "slightly higher than normal" marks, hoping to benefit Soviet athletes.
The Romanian-born Comaneci received the first perfect marks in Olympic history for her compulsory routine on the uneven bars. The year before, she beat reigning world champion Ludmilla Tourischeva in the all-around event at the European championships.
"I think I was not a surprise for the Russian team in Montreal because in 1975 I won against Tourischeva," Comaneci said
OLYMPICS: Drug czar claims racism
Former U.S. Olympic Committee drug czar Wade Exum was denied promotions by a USOC hierarchy of white men because he is black, his attorney, John McKendree, told a federal appeals court in Denver.
Exum, who sued the organization shortly after resigning in 2000, is asking the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate his lawsuit, which a lower court dismissed last year.
TORCH RELAY: Bob Carr, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, has appealed to the IOC to intervene in a dispute with Greek organizers over security for the Olympic torch relay. Carr said he was negotiating with Athens officials over their insistence on using Greek security staff throughout the torch's world tour.
ET CETERA
FOOTBALL: The minor-league St. Petersburg Sharks will defend their 2003 Southern States League championship Saturday at the Orlando Citrus Bowl against the Magic City Bulls of Miami. Admission is $10 for adults and free for children. Visit the SSFL Web site at www.ssflonline.com
HORSES: Tampa Bay Downs' 78th season, which ended Sunday, established records in 10 statistical categories thanks to double-digit gains in handle ($294,442,706) and attendance (325,025). The Oldsmar track distributed a record $12,662,650 in purses. ... Limehouse, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, likely will not run in the May 15 Preakness.
ROWING: After more than 100 days at sea, Sarah and Sally Kettle are about to become the first mother-daughter team to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat. They are expected in Port St. Charles, Barbados, today.
SPORTS WRITING: The late Jimmy Cannon won the Red Smith Award, honored for a career that made him one of New York's most prominent sports writers in the 1940s and 1950s.
SWIMMING: Three-time NCAA swimmer of the year Natalie Coughlin won the 100-meter freestyle Sunday at the Grand Challenge Invitational in Los Angeles, finishing in 54.87 seconds to break the meet record.
