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Paul Hamm gives up his spot

FalconRanger

New Member
Paul Hamm gives up his spot because of "beat-up body"

By McClatchy Newspapers and The Associated Press

Olympic gymnastics champion Paul Hamm shows his hand last month in Philadelphia before the U.S. Olympic trials. Hamm won't be healthy enough to compete in next month's Beijing Games.
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Paul Hamm displayed breathtaking control over his body during gymnastics routines so graceful and powerful he became the first U.S. man to win Olympic and world all-around titles.

In the end, though, Hamm couldn't make a small bone in his right hand heal fast enough to complete a storybook ending to his career.

Hamm announced Monday he was resigning his position on the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team and thus will not be able to defend the gold medal he won four years ago in Athens, Greece.

"I have put my heart and soul into my comeback and done everything I could to get ready in time to compete in Beijing," the 25-year-old Hamm said. "But right now, I have made the decision to step aside."

Hamm suffered a broken fourth metacarpal in his right hand during the Visa Championships on May 22. He did not compete at the U.S. Olympic trials in June but successfully petitioned to the Olympic team and demonstrated readiness to the men's selection committee last week in Colorado Springs, Colo.

But he described the last several days as a "disaster."

He returned to Columbus, Ohio, to continue training but his hand was not healed to the point where he could do complete routines. Pain flared in his left rotator cuff.

"I'm dealing with a beat-up body right now," the 2003 world champion said. "My hand was improving up until the training camp and things were starting to feel OK but not to the point where I was feeling comfortable with any of the apparatus. Throw on top of that another injury and it's more than enough for me to feel completely out of my element."

Raj Bhavsar of Houston will replace Hamm on the team, pending approval by the United States Olympic Committee. The team is scheduled to leave for China on Wednesday and the men's team competition begins Aug. 9.

"We admire Paul for making this difficult decision," said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. "Enough cannot be said about the effort Paul has made over the last few months and the contribution he has already made to our program. It's a shame that this is happening right now, in that one of the world's best gymnasts won't be able to compete in Beijing."

Hamm said he was not sure whether he would accompany the team to China to cheer on his twin brother, Morgan.

The announcement probably means the end of Paul Hamm's international career. He and Morgan took nearly three years off after the 2004 Athens Games but still made their third Olympic team together. Paul had said he planned to retire after the Beijing Games regardless of the result "and that's what I intend to do."



His decision to resign from the team is a blow to the Americans' chances to win a team medal. This year, Hamm won the all-around title at the Winter Cup Challenge, Tyson American Cup and Pacific Rim Championships before suffering the broken bone in his hand.

He was expected to challenge rival Yang Wei of China for the individual all-around title.

"It was a big goal of mine to see if I could contend in the all-around again and defend my gold medal," Hamm said. "If I'd had another month, I might have been able to do it."

After breaking his hand on the parallel bars at the Visa Championships, Hamm underwent surgery in which hand specialist Lawrence Lubbers of Columbus, Ohio, inserted a pin and nine screws.

Even in proving readiness to the selection committee on July 22, he left out skills he would have needed in Beijing.

"I was giving myself the chance to see how this past week went, to see if I could turn a corner at any point. That just never happened," Hamm said. "If you would ever see me before any competition and how my preparation was and compare it to how it is right now, it was laughable.

"When you go into the Olympic Games you're supposed to be in the best shape of your life, not the worst shape."

Notes

• Loaded with NBA star power but wary of complacency, the U.S. men's basketball team arrived in Macau, China, with a word of caution from coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.

"We haven't accomplished anything yet," he said.

Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James joined the team's first practice in Macau with his right ankle taped. He sat out the U.S. team's 120-65 exhibition victory over Canada on Friday with a sprain.

• The U.S. women's team is gathering for four days of practice in Stanford, Calif.

U.S. coach Anne Donovan, a former Storm coach, said, "I'm like a kid in a candy store with all this talent."

• The International Olympic Committee will keep all of the drug-testing samples taken from Beijing Olympic athletes for eight years, IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau told USA Today. Previously, the IOC stored samples that tested positive for 90 days and samples that tested negative for 30 days, Moreau said.

• Senior Iraqi government officials will meet with the IOC today to try to salvage the country's participation in the Beijing Games.

A delegation led by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh will discuss reinstating the National Olympic Committee, which was dissolved by the Baghdad government in May, and led to the IOC suspending Iraq from the Olympics for political interference.

• Two dead birds were discovered at an Olympic equestrian venue in Hong Kong, and authorities were testing whether they were infected with the bird-flu virus.

• Despite China's removing 1.5 million cars from the roads, shutting down hundreds of factories and construction sites and bringing much of the city's economic life to a standstill, Beijing's air pollution remains at stubbornly high levels, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Eleven days before the Games start, the city was shrouded in haze, leaving officials scrambling for explanations that ranged from statistical anomalies to the 90-degree-plus heat.
 
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