Cathine

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- After awakening to news of bombings in this ancient city, the U.S. Olympic basketball team decided to play on.

And by the time the Americans finished an 80-68 victory over Turkey in front of a jeering and whistling crowd, they pronounced themselves ready for Athens.

The team learned early in the morning that bombs had exploded at two tourist hotels and a fuel depot a few miles from their hotel, but team and U.S. government officials reassured them it would be safe to go ahead with the game.

"I don't know that everybody is absolutely confident and secure with everything, but they said everything would be fine, so you have to keep going on," Tim Duncan said.

And so they did. After failing to shake Turkey for three quarters, the U.S. team hit its stride in the fourth quarter -- but not before the crowd gave them an earful.

The play that turned the fans against them came when LeBron James swiped at the ball and hit Turkey guard Ibrahim Kutluay in the eye. Kutluay, who scored 26 points, lay writhing on the floor before walking off. He eventually returned.

Devers to run in 100

Gail Devers, the 37-year-old five-time Olympian, will replace Torri Edwards in the 100 meters in the Athens Games after the world governing body of track and field recommended that Edwards be suspended for two years for taking a prohibited stimulant. Devers was already scheduled to compete in the 100-meter hurdles.

Devers, who won gold medals in the 100-meter dash in 1992 and 1996, finished fourth in the U.S. Olympic trials, behind the three Olympic qualifiers, LaTasha Colander, Edwards and Lauryn Williams.

If Devers had turned down the offer to replace Edwards, the next person in line for the 100 would have been Marion Jones, the defending Olympic champion, who finished fifth in the trials and has been under a cloud for the past few months because of the BALCO drug scandal.

Capriati bows out of Games

ATHENS, Greece -- Jennifer Capriati was forced to pull out of the Athens Games with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Lisa Raymond, a team spokesman told The Associated Press.

Capriati won a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games, but she missed the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. She told coach Zina Garrison on Sunday she couldn't play in the Olympics because of the injury.

Raymond, who was to play doubles with Martina Navratilova, was picked for the singles spot vacated by Capriati, spokesman Randy Walker said.

Kenyan boxer fails drug test

ATHENS, Greece -- In the first doping case of the Athens Olympics, a Kenyan boxer was barred from the Games after failing an out-of- competition drug test in the athletes' village.

Bantamweight David Munyasia, 24, tested positive for the banned stimulant cathine, the International Olympic Committee said.

The boxer was disqualified from the Athens Games, which open Friday.

During the games, which end Aug. 29, the IOC plans to conduct about 2,600 urine tests and 400 checks for the blood-boosting hormone EPO -- a 25 percent increase over the number of tests in Sydney four years ago.

Appeal likely on strippingU.S. relay medals

POLITIA, Greece -- U.S. sports

authorities will try to prevent world track officials from stripping the gold medals of Michael Johnson and other members of the 1,600-meter relay team from the Sydney Olympics, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee said.

USOC chief executive Jim Scherr said it is not yet clear whether the USOC or USA Track & Field will file the appeal, which must be turned in to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport by Sept. 18.

The squad could lose its medals because of a doping violation by team member Jerome Young a year before the 2000 Olympics.

Young already has been stripped of his medal, and the International Association of Athletics Federations recommended last month that the entire team be penalized because Young should have been ineligible.

Oldest U.S. Olympic medalist dies

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- James Stillman Rockefeller, the oldest-known U.S. Olympic medal winner and the former head of the bank that became Citigroup, died Tuesday. He was 102.

Rockefeller suffered a stroke on Thursday, said his grandson, Stillman.

Rockefeller was the captain of Yale University's eight-man rowing team with coxswain that won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Another member of the crew was Dr. Benjamin Spock, a renowned pediatrician who wrote a best-selling book about raising children.

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