Government Bill: $227 Million for Games

The federal government is spending $227 million over five years to support the Atlanta Olympics, mostly for security and transportation, Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday.

In the administration’s most detailed accounting of Olympic spending to date, Gore said the figure is a conservative estimate that includes only expenditures that would not have been made if the Games were not being held in Atlanta.

The estimate, for example, does not include millions that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is spending to rehabilitate public housing in Atlanta in time for the Games this summer. Gore said that project would have been funded regardless of the Olympics.

The Atlanta Committee on the Olympic Games is spending an estimated $1.7 billion raised from private sources to stage the Games.

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, federal expenditures to support the Olympics include $104.9 million for transportation and $69.8 million for security.

Administration officials said more than 2,500 federal law enforcement agents and 8,500 military personnel are helping to provide security. The Atlanta Olympic committee is providing 12,000 to 13,000 private security agents, and 4,800 state and local law enforcement officers also will be on duty.

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Olympic officials say the 83,500-seat Olympic Stadium will be ready for this weekend’s Atlanta Grand Prix international track and field meet, although workers are racing against the clock to meet the deadline.

Seats are still being installed, construction dust is still prevalent throughout the facility and an iron worker, Henry Samuels, was slightly injured when he was struck on the head by a falling piece of metal tubing as reporters toured the facility Tuesday.

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The water park at Jonesboro, Ga., that will stage the Olympic beach volleyball has had its water cut off while officials investigate to determine if someone tampered with the septic tank system.

Tennis

Steffi Graf, still stunned by her poor play in Rome, bounced back to overpower Tami Whitlinger-Jones, 6-1, 6-2, in the first round of the German Open at Berlin. Martina Hingis, who upset Graf at the Italian Open, defeated Jolene Watanabe, 6-3, 6-0.

After taking a week off, Thomas Muster easily won his first-round match at the Italian Open, defeating fellow Austrian Herbert Wiltschnig, 6-3, 6-0, in just over an hour.

Vince Spadea needed only 62 minutes to defeat fifth-seeded Karim Alami, 6-3, 6-2, in a first-round match of America’s Red Clay Championship at Coral Springs, Fla. Francisco Montana defeated Mats Wilander, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Basketball

Guard Jami Bosley and forward Scott Gradney have been suspended by the Ohio State team pending an outcome of a university police investigation.

Chad Guelda and Mike Walker, two Central Michigan University players, were asked by coaches to bail teammate Thomas Kilgore out of jail last November, the Detroit News reported. Such action could pose a violation of NCAA rules involving extra benefits for athletes and the school might want to investigate, NCAA legislative assistant Shane Lyons said, but Coach Leonard Drake said no investigation was planned. Kilgore was facing a domestic violence charge, to which he has since pleaded guilty.

Miscellany

The U.S. men’s Olympic soccer team defeated the minor league Long Island Rough Riders, 1-0, at Uniondale, N.Y., on a goal by Hamisi Amani-Dove in the 77th minute.

Eleven syndicates from England, Hong Kong, France, Japan, Russia, Spain, the United States and the Virgin Islands will challenge Team New Zealand for the America’s Cup yachting trophy in 2000.

Several major America’s Cup players, such as American Dennis Conner and Australian John Bertrand, have not yet registered entries.

China’s women’s volleyball team completed a sweep of its four-match Southern California tour against Team USA, winning, 15-11, 5-15, 16-14, 15-6, in Chula Vista.

Boxing

Light-heavyweight James Toney improved to 51-2-2 with a fourth-round technical knockout of Earl Butler in Ledyard, Conn.

Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, 51, was hospitalized in serious condition in Philadelphia after cutting his toe with a lawn mower. His daughter said the injury was slight.

World Boxing Assn. junior-welterweight champion Juan Martin Coggi of Argentina has been scratched from Saturday’s title defense against Frankie Randall in Las Vegas because of a sinus infection.

Jurisprudence

At an arraignment in Federal Court in Detroit, former Tiger pitcher Denny McLain, 52, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, theft of pension-plan money, mail fraud and money laundering in the alleged theft of $3 million from a pension fund of a meat-packing company he and some partners formerly owned.

A jury in Orlando, Fla., is trying to determine whether boxer Tim Anderson shot his former promoter, Rick “Elvis” Parker eight times in self-defense or if he had plotted the April 1995 slaying to avenge alleged poisoning and threats by the promoter.

Names in the News

Marian Twining Barone, who won a bronze medal in gymnastics in the 1948 Olympics in London, died of cancer in Richmond, Va., at 72. . . . Harry Hyde, a legendary stock car racing mechanic, died in Charlotte, N.C., apparently of a heart attack, at 71.