Gold Medal

ATLANTA -- A year on tour, two weeks in the spotlight, and now, the U.S. women's basketball team is right where it wants to be:In the gold medal game at the Summer Olympics.Yesterday, Team USA battered Australia, 93-71, in front of 31,854 at the Georgia Dome. The victory set up tomorrow's gold-medal game with reigning world champion Brazil, an 81-60 winner over Ukraine.Center Lisa Leslie led the Americans with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Katrina McClain added 18 points and 15 rebounds, and Sheryl Swoopes added 16 points.

BADALONA, Spain -- While thunder and lightning parted the skies outside the arena and rattled its roof, Cuban boxers strong-armed three more gold medals out of what was supposed to be the most competitive Olympic boxing tournament since 1976.Yesterday, the final day of boxing, the Cubans won three of their four gold-medal bouts to finish the Summer Games with seven golds and two silvers -- the best boxing performance at a non-boycotted Olympics by any country.The 1976 U.S. team that was led by Sugar Ray Leonard and Leon and Michael Spinks won five golds in Montreal, the last Olympics at which all the major boxing nations competed.

BARCELONA, Spain -- In the end, the biggest words came from one of the smallest people.A 2-year-old boy named Bryan Baumgartner."I have a son and we called him on his birthday [July 24]," said Bruce Baumgartner, the U.S. super heavyweight in freestyle wrestling. "I missed it because I was here. My wife had coached him to say, 'Win the gold, Daddy.' That really motivated me. It was really difficult being away from him for two weeks."An inspired Baumgartner blanked Canada's Jeff Thue, 8-0, yesterday to win the gold medal in the 286-pound classification and become the first American wrestler in history to win three Olympic medals.

Archery When: Aug. 18-21. Top U.S. performers: Butch Johnson, Vic Wunderle, Janet Dykman. U.S. chances: U.S. men are well-seasoned at the elite level, winning team medals in three of the past four Olympics. U.S. women have won only one medal since 1976. Outlook: South Korea's men and women dominate the competition. - Hartford Courant Badminton When: Aug. 14-21. Top U.S. performers: The doubles team of Howard Bach and Kevin Han, the only U.S. players to qualify for Athens. U.S. chances: No U.S. Olympian has advanced beyond the second round since badminton joined the Games in 1992.

SALT LAKE CITY - Near the conclusion of this dreary game, a group of young men wearing Canadian hockey jerseys rose to their feet from their seats near the Belarus net and added a little noise to the arena by singing their country's national anthem. They were celebrating Canada's 7-1 victory over Belarus in a men's hockey semifinal, and also a berth in the gold-medal game tomorrow against the United States. Although yesterday's game was the most one-sided and least entertaining of the medal round, Canadians had much to sing and cheer about at the E Center rink.

DECENCY TOWARD EACH other, which should never be allowed to go out of style, has been thrown for a loss in the arena of sports. Is it a lack of civility, consideration or ignorance? Maybe we expected too much from Bernard Williams and James Carter at the Olympics, Terrell Owens in a football game and Ravens coach Brian Billick on the sideline. But they acted regrettably, none of them suggesting a modicum of class or personal dignity. Hurried-up explanations and alibis, even apologies, came later.

As Memorial Day month comes to a close, we join the nation in offering a very belated salute to William H. Cornish. Mr. Cornish, 87, served in World War II with the 332nd Fighter Group of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black bomber unit. After the war, the Tuskegee Airmen slipped too quietly back into a segregated society. The unit's extraordinary and valiant record put the lie to deeply ingrained racial segregation, so it had to be forgotten. For decades, the Tuskegee Airmen were at most a footnote in the story of World War II for most Americans.

If playing for a national team is just about every player's dream, this summer has given Ellicott City's Lauren Molinaro not only a better idea of where she is but also what she needs to do to progress, and maybe a taste of the future."

In the old days, the deal was simpler. Once every four years, an unknown in a tutu would skate right into America's heart. She would wave around a gold medal, smile a lot, and then enter a world of professional ice shows, Christmas television specials and hair care commercials.Well, it's sure not that way anymore.This is the age of made-for-television skating wars, endorsement contracts and book deals. It's the era in which teen-aged stars are transformed into millionaires, where an athlete's every bobble, injury and slump is picked over by media, fans, television executives and agents.

TOM CUSH, 10, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Cush of Chartridge, won a gold medal and two silver medals in swimming competition at the Dwarf Athletic Association of America games this month in Los Angeles.The soccer team his father coaches won a silver medal at the games, part of the annual conference of the Little People of America (LPA).Tom's gold medal came in the butterfly races and his silver medals in freestyle and backstroke.The Cushes joined LPA shortly after Tom was born with achondroplasia, or dwarfism, in Alexandria Hospital in Virginia.

Swimming NBAC's Morris qualifies for U.S. team at worlds A strong U.S. nationals for North Baltimore Aquatic Club continued Saturday night, when 18-year-old Brennan Morris surprised everyone, including himself, by finishing second in the 1,500-meter freestyle, earning a spot on the United States team headed to the world championships in Rome in two weeks. Morris, who moved to Baltimore with his family three years ago from Lewisburg, Pa., lowered his career-best time by 20 seconds in the preliminaries Friday morning and then shaved an additional four seconds off that time in the final a day later, touching the wall in 15 minutes, 13.47 seconds.

In the interest of building some modicum of suspense, the people at Sports Illustrated have assembled a large group of candidates for the magazine's Sportsman of the Year award, which will be announced Tuesday. It is an eclectic group that includes Kobe Bryant (for his altruistic efforts to enhance the globalization of pro basketball), NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson (because he's not the Jimmy Johnson who used to coach the Cowboys), Alex Ovechkin (because he's a hockey player you've actually heard of)

In Beijing, Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva dueled in the Olympic women's singles quarterfinals with a gold medal at stake. Tomorrow at 1st Mariner Arena, Williams will once again be thundering blazing serves and Dementieva answering with wicked forehands. In China, Dementieva won that quarterfinals match and ultimately the gold medal, and Williams and her sister, Venus, won gold in women's doubles. When Williams and Dementieva play this time, though, the winners will be the young people served by the local charities that benefit from the proceeds of the PNC Tennis Classic, an annual charity event led by former Baltimore County resident and tennis pro Pam Shriver and presented by The Baltimore Sun. The Williams-Dementieva exhibition match is the centerpiece attraction of a tennis card that will also feature Orioles Adam Jones and Garrett Olson in a doubles match.

Long gets fourth gold, wins 400 freestyle paralympics Middle River's Jessica Long took her fourth swimming gold medal and set her third world record of the Paralympics on her way to winning the women's 400-meter freestyle in Beijing. Long swam the fastest in the preliminaries, finishing in 4 minutes, 47.45 seconds and cutting more than five seconds off the world record she set in 2006. In the finals, Long's winning time was 4:50.17. "I wasn't expecting to add three seconds to my time [in the finals]

Carmelo Anthony cupped his hands over his ears for protection but allowed his baby face to break into a giddy grin as the shrieks of congratulation cascaded over him. "Melo, Melo, Melo," hundreds of elementary schoolers shouted as Anthony strode into his downtown recreational center to give Baltimore its first live glimpse of his Olympic gold medal. To hear Anthony tell it, he hasn't stopped smiling much since he claimed the gleaming disc two weeks ago in Beijing. "At the top," he said, when asked where the victory ranked among his career achievements.

BEIJING - The players can almost feel it now, dangling in front of their chests. Their prizes won't weigh too much, but it won't be that slight tug of the neck that they'll notice most. The gold medals will feel as light as a feather, in fact, because the 5-ton burden that U.S. basketball players have been carrying on their shoulders for a half-dozen years is almost gone. Just one game separates Team USA from the medal stand. Tomorrow's gold-medal game feels like somewhat of a formality.

BEIJING - A storied era in U.S. women's soccer ended when Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and other pioneers retired as Olympic champions after the Athens Games, but another promising era might have dawned yesterday on a soggy field at Workers' Stadium. The U.S. women won their third gold medal awarded for women's soccer in four Olympic tournaments by edging Brazil, 1-0, on midfielder Carli Lloyd's extra-time goal. The U.S. team had defeated Brazil in Athens, also in overtime, but this team has a different roster and is less famous than its predecessor.

BEIJING - Henry Cejudo called it the American dream. The son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who had to work two jobs to keep food on the table, Cejudo gave the United States an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling yesterday with a stunning win over Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga in the 55-kilogram (121 pounds) final. "I'm living the American dream right now, man," Cejudo, wrapped in an American flag, said moments after his win. "The United States is the land of opportunity. It's the best country in the world, and I'm just glad to represent it."

BEIJING - Shawn Johnson had dark circles under her brown eyes and a headache, but when she jumped on the balance beam last night, she switched on her smile and defiantly pounded out a gold-medal routine. It wasn't the gold Johnson wanted. She had come here as the favorite to win the all-around title, had hoped to lead the U.S. team to a gold medal, had hoped to defend her world championship in the floor exercise and add to that a balance-beam gold medal. But through a succession of silvers - team, all-around, floor - Johnson, 16, of West Des Moines, Iowa, stuck out her chin, wiped away tears and insisted that silver was just as nice as gold.

BEIJING - The U.S. finally got untracked in the track and field competition at the Olympics yesterday. After a sluggish start over the first weekend that included no gold medals, Americans won five overall medals yesterday, including a 1-2-3 sweep in the men's 400-meter hurdles. Pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski also won a silver medal, and Stephanie Brown Trafton won a surprise gold in the women's discus - the first for a U.S. woman in the event since 1932. The U.S. hurdlers talked about the slow beginning for the track team at the Olympic Village and during the warm-up period for their final.