NEWS & NOTES
USADA Begins Program To Test Body Chemistry
Sprinters Allyson Felix, left, and Carmelita Jeter meet the press in Chicago.
(By M. Spencer Green -- Associated Press)
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The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has launched the opening phase of a voluntary pilot program it hopes will improve the accuracy of doping tests.
The anti-doping agency will profile the body chemistry of 12 participating athletes using a series of blood and urine tests, and those measurements will be used as a baseline for subsequent tests.
The program was described to the Associated Press by two people familiar with it, but who did not want to be identified because final details are still being worked out.
At a news conference yesterday, track athletes Brian Clay and Allyson Felix each announced they were part of the project, called "Project Believe."
"I know for me, anytime I get an opportunity to let someone know I'm clean, I take it," decathlete Clay said. "USADA picked a few athletes that they're going to test a whole lot. The goal is to prove we're clean instead of dirty, and we want to be part of that." . . .
Coca-Cola gave investors good news on the profit front, then stood by its support of the Summer Olympics in Beijing as vocal shareholders inside and protesters outside the company's annual meeting questioned the beverage maker's business practices.
The company believes the torch relay as part of the run-up to the Olympics should continue, Chief Executive Neville Isdell said.
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is a corporate sponsor of the torch relay. . . .
An activist group, Dream for Darfur, gave the International Olympic Committee a failing grade for what it called the organization's lack of effort to use the Beijing Games as a platform to stop suffering in Sudan.
In a 73-page report card, the group said the IOC has been "selectively apolitical in its refusal to address the Darfur genocide."
"I'd say the IOC indifference is a mark of smallness, pettiness and small minds seeking to protect their own turf," actress Mia Farrow, the group's advisory board chair, said in a conference call to discuss the report.
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said she saw the report -- "peppered with misleading and unmerited comments and information" -- on the Web site. . . .
