For hosts, situation pricey, dicey

The worsening international financial mess is causing headaches for the next Olympic host cities: Vancouver (2010), London (2012), and Sochi (2014).

Hardest hit is London, where costs have tripled to around $14 billion and where private funding is drying up and venue construction companies are wobbling. The British government, which already is picking up nearly two-thirds of the tab, last week agreed to kick in another $43 million to reduce the shortfall for the nation's sporting teams.

"Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost certainly not," Olympic minister Tessa Jowell told an audience of leisure industry executives, later claiming that she'd been quoted out of context.

Things are better for Vancouver, since the Winter Games are only 14 months off and almost everything is built. Still, the city recently had to ante up $80 million to cover cost overruns on the Olympic village, and the company that controls the Whistler skiing venue is in the red.

And while Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin insists there will be no problem with cash for Sochi, the Black Sea resort has to build $12 billion worth of venues from the ground up while the government's oil revenues are falling through the floor.

If there were any chance a future host could match Beijing's magnificent $40 billion party, with sponsors lined up around the Great Wall, it has vanished.

"The Games are not any more in a growth mode," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge told European Olympic Committee members at their recent session. "They are in a conservation mode."

Belt-tightening has become the newest five-ringed sport. The IOC is losing a third of its 12 big sponsors from the last quadrennium (Kodak, Manulife, Johnson & Johnson, Lenovo) and the USOC is trimming its administrative costs by 10 percent.

"This is a global economic crisis," said new chairman Larry Probst, "and I think it's going to impact every company and every individual on this planet."

Alignment of stars

The women's field for April's London Marathon may be the best in history. Besides all three Olympic medalists - Romania's Constantina Dita-Tomescu, Kenya's Catherine Ndereba, and China's Zhou Chunxiu, there is three-time victor Paula Radcliffe plus Germany's Irina Mikitenko and Ethiopia's Gete Wami, the reigning and former World Marathon Majors titlists, and two-time Chicago winner Berhane Adere of Ethiopia. It will be a huge homecoming for Radcliffe, who set world records in 2002, '03, and '05 but has missed the last three races with injuries . . . After the five race directors had to determine this year's World Marathon Majors women's champion when Mikitenko and Wami ended with the same point total, there will be a formal tiebreaking procedure for the two-year cycle that begins in Boston next April: head-to-head results, points earned in fewest races, most qualifying races won, and fastest average time in scoring races. That's essentially the way the directors chose Mikitenko for the $500,000 prize. If the directors choose, they can declare cochampions and split the payout . . . Doug Logan, USA Track & Field's outspoken new CEO, thinks nothing if not big. His goal for the 2012 Games is "30 clean medals" (seven more than in Beijing) along with a nearly doubled $30 million budget and a 30 percent membership increase. "Unless we reach for the stars," said Logan, "we will not get off the ground." The only smaller thing in the USATF's future will be the board, chopped from 31 to 15 members at the USOC's urging. The federation's new president, and the first Olympian to hold the post, is former hurdler Stephanie Hightower.

Pool reporting

How close did Michael Phelps come to winning six instead of eight gold medals in Beijing? If Milorad Cavic had kept his face in the water at the finish of the 100-meter butterfly and French anchorman Alain Bernard not made a "stupid, and what would turn out to be colossal, mistake" in the 400 freestyle relay, Phelps says he would have had two fewer. "If his head is down, he wins, hands-down wins the race," Phelps conceded in his recent "60 Minutes" interview. By popping up just before the wall, Cavic cost himself precious millimeters and allowed Phelps to touch first with a final lunge and win by a hundredth of a second. And if Bernard had stayed in the middle of his lane after the turn, Phelps said, France would have beaten the Americans instead of losing by eight-hundredths. By drifting left, Bernard allowed Jason Lezak to tuck in behind him. "Bernard was doing the hard work," Phelps writes in "No Limits," his new book with NBC's Alan Abrahamson. "Jason was cruising, preparing to slingshot by Bernard." . . . Kristine Lilly, the world's most-capped soccer mom (340 and counting) will be back in uniform Saturday, more than a year after she last played for the US team. Lilly, who skipped a fourth Olympic appearance after giving birth to a daughter in June, will suit up against the Chinese for the final two friendly matches of the year. If the Americans win, they'll end the year at an all-time-best 33-1-2, the only loss to Norway in the Olympic prelims . . . Aksel Lund Svindal's two firsts (downhill and super G) and a third (giant slalom) in Beaver Creek vaulted him atop the World Cup skiing table as the circuit heads back to Europe for the holidays, with the men in France this week and the women in Spain. Bode Miller's crackup - two DNFs and a 14th - dropped the defending champ to 13th. Lindsey Vonn's downhill victory at Lake Louise kept the reigning queen atop the women's table ahead of Finland's Tanja Poutiainen.

Skates not sharp

Johnny Weir could be the sole US medalist at next weekend's Grand Prix figure skating final in South Korea. Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, who have made the podium three times in five years, only qualified sixth and no American woman or pair made it. That doesn't augur well for the March World Championships in Los Angeles, where the Olympic entries for 2010 will be determined . . . Germany's women's lugers came within an eyelash of losing their 11-year, 83-race World Cup winning streak last weekend in Latvia, as Tatjana Huefner edged Ukraine's Natalia Yakushenko by .02 seconds on the Sigulda track. "The relaxation is very big," said Huefner, whose fellow frauleins haven't lost since Austria's Andrea Tagwerker beat them in November 1987. If Yakushenko, who didn't turn up for the medal ceremony, hadn't placed fifth in the first run, she likely would have won. No medals yet for the Americans, whose men have been well up the track in the first two races. Best effort yet was a fourth by Erin Hamlin in the women's opener in Austria . . . Bad luck for US bobsledder Steve Holcomb, who lost a chance at a four-man victory in Germany last weekend when the race jury called off the second run with four starters to go after a Latvian sled crashed amid a nasty snow-and-sleet mess on the Altenberg track. So Germany's Karl Angerer, who won the first run, got the victory and Holcomb, who'd been second in the two-man race, ended up seventh. "It was hit-or-miss and it was equal for everyone," said unhappy US coach Brian Shimer, who said the conditions were miserable for both runs. "If one heat was unfair, then both heats were unfair." There was redemption for teammate Shauna Rohbock, who won a women's bronze with backup brakeman Elana Meyer on the same track where she crashed at last season's World Championships.

Skeleton crew

Understandably slow start for the US women on the World Cup skeleton circuit, where they've been off the podium in the first two races. Katie Uhlaender, the defending champion who has been fourth twice, is coming off summer knee surgery and former global champion Noelle Pikus-Pace is back from maternity leave after giving birth to a daughter last winter. Germany's Anja Huber, who is 2 for 2, leads the standings while countryman Florian Grassl is the surprise leader on the men's side, where British reigning champ Kristan Bromley has dropped to 10th . . . With the long-track speedskating season nearing the midway point, Shani Davis is the sole bright spot during what's been an undistinguished season for the Yanks. Davis, who's No. 1 in the 1,000 meters, is the only US male ranked in the top five in any event and there are no women in the top 10 . . . Nothing has changed in the short-track speedskating world. The South Koreans and Chinese, who won a combined 21 medals at last weekend's World Cup stop in Nagano, are dominating the circuit after four of the six events. China, led by Wang Meng, owns four of the top five places on the women's side, where Allison Baver is the top American in ninth. Korea's Lee Ho Suk and Sung Si Bak are 1-2 on the men's side, where defending champ Apolo Anton Ohno is sitting sixth.

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