Jolly good show, but not like Beijing

London plans to emphasize its history and not construct any elaborate Olympic venues such as the Bird's Nest in Beijing. (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)

How does London plan to top Beijing's impeccably (and lavishly) orchestrated Games in 2012? It won't even try.

"You are unlikely to see Games of this stature ever again," concedes organizing committee chairman Sebastian Coe, who promises that the English capital still will "deliver a spectacular Games" while spending less than half of what Beijing did. London, in becoming the first three-time host, will emphasize history and legacy.

"London will be the city of the country that has invented modern sport, has invented the rules of sport, and has brought in the values of fair play," says International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. "I think it's that identity that has to be built."

While London won't be building whimsical venues like the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, it will use several famous landmarks: Hyde Park for triathlon, Horse Guards Parade for beach volleyball, Lord's Cricket Ground for archery, and Greenwich Park for the equestrian events. Wimbledon will stage the tennis, and soccer matches will be held in storied stadia like Wembley, Old Trafford in Manchester, and Hampden Park in Glasgow.

Game on?

With only two spots open, baseball and softball will have to compete with five other sports - golf, seven-a-side rugby, karate, squash, and roller skating - to return to the Olympic program for 2016 when the IOC votes at next year's meeting in Copenhagen. While the two are linked in the minds of some members because the same federation represents them in many countries, baseball and softball won't be voted on together. Baseball has the tougher road because of its drug issues and because the best players don't participate in the Games. One sport that could be dropped is equestrian, which has been on the program since 1912 but has struggled with doping issues, with half a dozen horses testing positive in Beijing in the wake of problems in Athens. "There seems to be something wrong in the equestrian movement and they just have to get their act together," IOC member Patrick Hickey told the Irish Times . . . After overseas protests marred this year's torch relay, it's likely that the 2012 version will be restricted to Greece (where the flame is kindled) and the United Kingdom. That was the original tradition as conceived by Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels for the Berlin Games in 1936, and it's what London prefers. "The high risk and low reward of the international leg is now obvious," Canadian member Dick Pound told his IOC colleagues at their session in China, saying the Beijing experience had been "close to a disaster."

Tracking the problem

Even though the US track and field team easily topped the Olympic table with its best performance (23 medals) since 1996, new chief executive officer Doug Logan wasn't satisfied. "I have come to the conclusion that our performance, as an organization, is seriously deficient if judged by the mandate of our own charter," he wrote in his "Shin Splints" blog. Medals aside, Logan points out that only 18 of 131 individual performances were the Americans' best of the year and that the two blown 4 x 100 relays marked the fourth time in four global meets since 2003 that they hadn't finished a final. So Logan has called for a panel that would include former Olympic athletes and coaches to do a "top-to-bottom operating audit" of the federation's high-performance programs. "This is not a knee-jerk reaction or a witch hunt or an attempt to castigate anyone," said Logan, who acknowledges that "this will probably be an uncomfortable exercise." . . . Romania's Constantina Tomescu-Dita, the Olympic women's marathon champion, will be the featured name in Chicago next month, with Kate O'Neill and Colleen De Reuck her top domestic challengers. William Kipsang and seven Kenyan countrymen, including former Boston victor Timothy Cherigat, will bump elbows on the men's side. Meanwhile Kara Goucher, the Queens native who ran the 5,000 and 10,000 in Beijing, will make her 26-mile debut in New York in November, where coach Alberto Salazar, Meb Keflezighi, Deena Kastor, and Marla Runyan also broke in. "I feel like this is the right step," says the 30-year-old Goucher. "Beijing was kind of a turning point where I started to realize that maybe there's something different for me."

Counter punching

After its worst-ever Olympic performance in Beijing (a sole bronze from heavyweight Deontay Wilder) and the resignation of head coach Dan Campbell, USA Boxing may well scrap its residency program and get more involvement from personal coaches. This year's fighters, who chafed at being isolated in Colorado Springs for nearly a year, largely tuned out Campbell at the Games and sought guidance from their own mentors. That may have been why so many of them appeared tactically bewildered at the Games. The personal coaches, though, will have to become more savvy about the amateur game, which is decidedly different from the professional style . . . The Americans weren't the only boxers complaining about biased judging in Beijing. The Cubans, who didn't win a gold medal for the first time since 1968, claimed that they were robbed at least twice. "They were condemned beforehand," charged Fidel Castro, after his countrymen lost all four of their finals. Even though the Russians won two golds, they still griped to the international federation about a "terrible bias" against their fighters.

Let their people go

After wrangling with several European clubs to let star players compete in Beijing - and losing an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport - the international soccer federation hopes to sidestep the issue for 2012 by putting the Games on its coordinated calendar, which would require the clubs to release those athletes who are eager to compete at Olympus. "They go to the Games for zero dollars," observed Rogge. "They go to the Games for the passion of the Games." Though Barcelona, Werder Bremen, and Schalke 04 eventually did let stars Lionel Messi, Diego, and Rafinha play for their countries, the IOC would prefer to avoid last-minute wrangling in London . . . Why did Canadian world champion Jeffrey Buttle retire from figure skating less than a year and a half before the Vancouver Games? "It just wasn't in my heart," said the 26-year-old Buttle, who said he couldn't get motivated for another season even after his summer training. Buttle, who earned Olympic bronze in Turin, was the first Canadian to win the men's global title since Elvis Stojko in 1997. Still, the lure of competing on home ice wasn't enough to keep him going until 2010. "The city that the Olympics is in shouldn't be the motivating factor," said Buttle, who still has to finish up his chemical engineering studies at the University of Toronto. "I have to feel it inside."

Wipeouts on ice

That mind-blowing 82-0 loss to Slovakia by Bulgaria's women's ice hockey team at the European Olympic pre-qualifier capped off a brutal tournament during which the Bulgarians were outscored, 192-1, in four games, including 41-0, 39-0, and 30-1 bashings by Italy, Latvia, and Croatia, and were outshot, 405-7. At least there were only a handful of witnesses - a total of 242. The 82-0 flogging, in which Bulgaria was outshot, 139-0, and trailed, 19-0, after 10 minutes, still wasn't the most lopsided score in women's history. South Korea beat Thailand, 92-0, in the under-18 Asia-Oceania championships in 1998 . . . Will Martha Karolyi be back for another quadrennium as US women's gymnastics team coordinator? "It will depend what the coaches want," says the 66-year-old Karolyi, who has had the job since 2001 and has been involved with the team since 1984. "If coaches want my help, I am ready to do it. I really enjoy my work. It is a great satisfaction." Under Karolyi's direction, the Americans have won one team gold and two silvers at the last four Games, plus the last two all-around titles . . . The US Olympic women's soccer team is kicking off its 10-match "Achieve Your Gold" victory tour with a trio against Ireland. The gold medalists, who beat the Irish, 2-0, in Philadelphia Saturday, will meet them again in the Meadowlands tomorrow and in Bridgeview, Ill., Saturday. All of the players will be in action except for collegians Amy Rodriguez, Tobin Heath, and Lauren Cheney, who are back on campus.

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