Olympics notes

By Compiled from Times wires

U.S. track official fires back at IOC leaders on drug issue

SYDNEY, Australia -- U.S. Track and Field chief executive officer Craig Masback lashed out Thursday at International Olympic Committee vice president Dick Pound and other critics of his organization and the United States, saying he was fed up with "gratuitous shots from people who have no idea what the facts are."

U.S. track's governing body has been under attack since International Amateur Athletic Foundation medical chief Arne Ljundqvist said the sport's world body hadn't been informed of the results of 15 to 20 positive drug tests administered in the past couple of years.

Ljundqvist said Thursday the widespread perception is that the United States has been covering up positive results to protect American athletes from prosecution.

Masback said the shots taken by Pound and other IOC members are partly due to lingering frustration at the United States in general over the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal and irritation at criticism of the IOC in the past year from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and U.S. national drug policy director Barry McCaffrey.

"It's clear to me that this is all about Salt Lake City, John McCain and Congress, and Barry McCaffrey and his comments," Masback said. "This is payback time. There is no factual basis for what has been said. People couldn't resist. They went to town on it."

PEREC SPEAKS: French track star Marie-Jose Perec, who fled Sydney before her planned 400-meter showdown with Cathy Freeman, says fear overwhelmed her dream of obtaining a third gold medal and she "cracked."

"I missed the most important rendezvous I ever had with myself," she was quoted as saying by the French sports daily L'Equipe. "I cracked when I shouldn't have cracked. I was defeated."

Perec said her fear grew out of harassment from strangers at her hotel, in supermarkets and everywhere else.

"There wasn't a day that I wasn't tracked, like an animal, truly," she said.

In particular, she said, she was threatened by a man who knocked on her hotel room door.

"I opened it, and he tried to force the door. I threatened to call the police, but he said he didn't care. "I was so afraid, so afraid," she sobbed, according to the magazine.

DOKIC FEUDS WITH PRESS: Upset over news reports that focus on her father's temper, tennis star Jelena Dokic has vowed never to play for Australia again.

The Daily Telegraph said Dokic was angry about an article in Australian Tennis magazine that suggested her father, Damir, needed psychological help to control his volatile temper.

"I am going to speak to my Fed Cup captain Lesley Bowrey ... and tell her I don't want to play for Australia again," she said. "I don't care what people say and do to my Poppa -- the bond between us, my mother and (brother) Savo, no one can break."

DANTZSCHER'S FATHER: The father of U.S. gymnast Jamie Dantzscher is slowly improving, able to recognize his wife's voice a week after a car accident left him with severe internal injuries.

John Dantzscher remains in critical but stable condition in the intensive care unit of a Sydney hospital, and it will be six weeks before doctors know the extent of any brain injuries. But he is making progress each day, his wife, Joyce, said.

WALKER'S COMPLAINT: New Zealand's former world record-holder in the mile, John Walker, says today's athletes are breaking records for using too many consultants.

"There is no secret to running: run hard, have a beer, have a pizza," said Walker, who won 1,500-meter gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

"But today we've got podiatrists, doctors, physios, physiologists, psychologists, all these support networks around you," he said. "If an athlete has a bad day, they go off to a psychologist. We are trying to make it too complicated."

Walker's 1975 world record of 3 minutes, 49.4 seconds in the mile was broken in 1979 by Britain's Sebastian Coe.

FIRST FOR VIETNAM: Vietnam won its first medal in 48 years of participation when Tran Hieu Ngan captured a silver in the women's tae kwon do competition.

She defeated Jung Jae-Eun of South Korea, the world's great tae kwon do power, 2-0 in the 126-pound division.

ATHLETES VOTED ONTO IOC: Former U.S. volleyball star Bob Ctvrtlik is among eight athletes selected by competitors at the Games to be IOC members, officials announced Thursday.

The top vote-getters, who will serve eight-year terms, were Ukranian pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, Russian swimmer Alexander Popov, Australian swimmer Susie O'Neill and Ctvrtlik. Serving four-year terms will be Czech javelin thrower Jan Zelezny, former Canadian runner Charmaine Crooks, German rower Roland Baar and Spanish water polo player Manuel Estiarte.

All will become full IOC members Saturday unless rejected by a review board.