Priority is being clean, not cleaning up

With the Beijing Games two years away, the US Olympic Committee is downplaying medal predictions while it focuses on keeping dopers off the team.

``It's not how many medals we win, it's how we win those medals," says chief executive Jim Scherr .

With the year's two most glorious moments in Olympic sports -- Justin Gatlin's world record in the 100 meters and Floyd Landis's victory in the Tour de France -- tainted by drug positives and Marion Jones reportedly facing a ban for using blood-boosting erythropoietin in June's national championships, the USOC rightly is concerned that the cheaters are winning again, which is why the committee has issued a national ``Call to Action" to fight performance-enhancing drugs.

``If we stand still," says chairman Peter Ueberroth, ``we run the risk of losing a generation of participants and fans."

If the price of a clean team is losing the medal count to the Chinese, the USOC says it can live with that.

``If it means we win zero medals," says Scherr, ``that's fine."

The question is whether China, which has had its own doping scandals in the past but badly wants to top the table as first-time host, will pay the same price. The USOC, which signed a historic cooperation agreement with the Chinese two months ago, is convinced they will.

``They would not embarrass themselves," says Ueberroth. ``I think they'll bring a clean team."

By beating the Puerto Ricans and Chinese in its first two games at the World Championships in Japan, the US men's basketball team all but clinched a place in the final 16. The objective, though, is to beat Olympic runner-up Italy tomorrow, win the six-team group, and avoid a quarterfinal matchup with Spain. Only three men are back from the Athens bronze-medal squad -- benchwarmers Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade -- and they're tricaptains. ``It's like a fresh start, a second chance," says Anthony. It's a second chance, too, for Elton Brand, who is the only holdover from the infamous 2002 team that finished sixth in Indianapolis . . . No surprise that the Americans, who sent the full varsity, dunked everybody at last weekend's Pan Pacific swimming championships in British Columbia, grabbing 43 medals, with Japan (24) and Australia (16) well behind. The Aussies, though, left most of their aces home, including world champs Grant Hackett, Jodie Henry, Libby Lenton, and Leisel Jones. Michael Phelps won five gold medals and set three world records (one on a relay) and Natalie Coughlin and Katie Hoff won 11 medals between them. Overshadowed was a stunning victory by Cullen Jones, who set a meet record by beating South African world champion Roland Schoeman in the 50-meter freestyle. (``Cullen who?" Schoeman wondered after the prelims.) Eric Vendt took the silver in the 1,500 to cap a strong summer after sitting out the post-Olympic year, and Elizabeth Beisel, the 13-year-old from North Kingstown, R.I., made a splash by placing fifth in the 200 backstroke.

The Boston Athletic Association made it official yesterday. Next April's marathon will begin two hours earlier, with the first 10,000 runners leaving Hopkinton at 10 a.m. and the second wave of 12,500 at 10:30. The elite women and wheelchair competitors will precede the mass start. Registration will begin Sept. 6 . . . Catherine Ndereba's decision to run the New York City Marathon sets up a delicious duel with London victor Deena Kastor and defending champion Jelena Prokopcuka . ``It would add another feather in my cap," says Ndereba, who finished second in 1999 and 2003. As a warmup, Ndereba will join world champ Constantina Tomescu-Dita , former world medalist Benita Johnson, and four-time Olympian Colleen De Reuck Sunday in The Apple's inaugural half-marathon, which will be held between Central Park and the Battery. Olympic marathon runner-up Meb Keflezighi and fellow US aces Alan Culpepper and Abdi Abdirahman are the top names on the men's side . . . The new gymnastics scoring system had a rocky debut at the US nationals, where defending all-around champ Nastia Liukin held off Natasha Kelley by half a point after apparently being overmarked for a shaky beam routine. The real competition for the team for the October World Championships in Denmark will come at the traditional Texas boot camp, which will include world champ Chellsie Memmel and Winchester's Alicia Sacramone , the global floor queen. Alexander Artemev , rebounding from a devastating shoulder injury last year, won the men's title and heads a world team that includes returnees Justin Spring and Kevin Tan.

The US rowers, who won three medals in Olympic events at last year's World Championships, figure to do at least that well at this week's event in England. Returning are Head of the Charles champion Michelle Guerette , the lightweight double of Julie Nichols and Renee Hykel, and five members of the men's gold-medal eight. All three of those entries are already through to the semis, and the women's eight, which didn't medal last year, has made the final . . . After destroying the field by an aggregate 45-3 at last month's World Cup, the US women's softball team is odds-on to win its sixth straight title at the quadrennial World Championships, which begin next week in Beijing. Eleven members of the Olympic gold-medal team, including Cat Osterman , Jennie Finch, Laura Berg, and Crystl Bustos, are on the roster. The top four teams (five if China makes the semis) will qualify for the final five-ringed tournament in 2008 . . . USA Baseball tapped a couple of former major leaguers -- Mike Kinkade and Chad Allen -- for this week's Olympic regional qualifier in Havana. Kinkade won a gold medal in Sydney in 2000 and Allen a bronze in 1996. The rest of the squad is composed of minor leaguers, including Worcester's Bryan LaHair (Seattle) and Matt Tupman of Concord, N.H. (Kansas City). If the US wins its preliminary group, it gets a ticket to Beijing.

Material from Olympic committees, sports federations, interviews, and wire services was used in this report.