World records, convicts on the run at Games

Sydney: The Sydney Games action was fast and dangerous -- from Dutch swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband shattering another world record to four Olympic officials escaping a dramatic carjacking by two convicts on the run.

While van den Hoogenband had another headline-making day in the Olympic Homebush Bay pool on Tuesday, arch-rival Ian Thorpe scooped his third Olympic gold as he and his Australian teammates provided the evening's climax with a stunning world record of their own.

The race result took the tally of world records set in the pool, after just four days of the eight-day swimming programme, to 10 broken and one equalled.

Van den Hoogenband, who took Thorpe's world record on Sunday and equalled it on Monday when he beat the prodigy in the 200 metres freestyle final, produced another sensational swim to shatter the 100 metres freestyle mark.

The Dutchman sprinted out of reach of his rivals to clock 47.84 seconds in the semi-finals and beat the 48.18 mark of Australia's Michael Klim, who had set it only three days before.

"I expected him to swim fast but I expected him to do that tomorrow (in the final)," coach Jacco Verhaeren said. "He's swimming so easy at the moment, it's hard for him to swim slow."

Thorpe and Klim led Australia to victory in the 4x200 metres freestyle relay, leaving their American arch-rivals floundering five and a half seconds and a quarter of a pool's length behind.

It was the first time Australia had won the event since the nation last staged the Olympics, in Melbourne in 1956.

Thorpe failed in his bid to reclaim the individual 200 freestyle record from van den Hoogenband as lead-off swimmer.

Carjacking drama

The carjacking drama occurred when two convicts on the run commandeered a van being used by a South Korean team official and three Olympic volunteers from Australia's Korean community.

Police said the two men and two women, one of whom is pregnant, managed to get away unharmed while a prison guard grappled with the fleeing inmates when they hijacked the van at traffic lights near Sydney's Olympic Park.

The two convicts had scaled the fence surrounding the minimum security section of Silverwater prison, Australia's biggest jail, with guards in pursuit. The jail is within sight of Olympic Park.

They later abandoned the vehicle and were last seen heading for a railway station, police said.

The excitement in the pool eclipsed all the other sporting action but the unstoppable Chinese women's weightlifting team took two Olympic golds. One of their lifters, Chen Xiaomin, smashed two world records in the 63 kg category.

Women's weightlifting is making its first appearance at the Olympics.

Scourge of drugs

The scourge of drugs, which Olympic chiefs are anxious to erase from the Games, continued to make an unwelcome appearance.

Officials said two African track athletes would miss the Olympics after testing positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in random tests.

International Amateur Athletic Federation spokesman Giorgio Reineri identified them as Kenyan runner Simon Kemboi and Nigerian woman Dupe Osime, also a runner.

The IAAF also decided to send the drugs case of Ukrainian shot putter Aleksandr Bagach, the 1996 Atlanta bronze medallist, to arbitration, effectively preventing his participation in the Games.

The IAAF said German former Olympic 5,000 metres champion Dieter Baumann had no right to take his doping case to another arbitration panel in an attempt to be reinstated at the Games. Baumann was banned for two years on Monday after officials rejected his defence that his toothpaste had been spiked with nandrolone.

Shamed Romanian weightlifter Traian Ciharean went missing after being kicked out of the Olympics for failing a drugs test.

Team spokesman Alex Epuran said Ciharean had refused to return home on a flight booked by his country's Olympic committee. One Australian newspaper said he was seen defiantly shopping in Sydney.

All-conquering Venus Williams closed the opening day at the Olympic tennis tournament with a sparkling display that lit up the night at Olympic Park.

Williams extended a winning streak that has included the Wimbledon and US Open championships to 27 matches with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Henrieta Nagyova of Slovakia.

The United States reached the last eight of the Olympic men's soccer tournament for the first time since the 1956 Melbourne Games when they beat all-amateur Kuwait 3-1 to win their opening-round group.

President Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea is having such a great time in Sydney that she has delayed returning home so she can cheer on the Americans at the Olympics, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Chelsea, who arrived last Thursday, had been due to fly back to the United States on Tuesday.

Australian newspapers have splashed pictures of an all-smiles Chelsea at Olympic events including swimming, beach volleyball, basketball and gymnastics.

"She's had a fabulous time," Melissa Skolfield, spokeswoman for the US delegation accompanying Chelsea, was quoted as saying by the 'Daily Telegraph'.



(c) Reuters Limited.