Sailors Brace for Bertha’s Approach

Olympic sailors got in a last few hours practice before tying down their boats at Savannah, Ga., in anticipation of gale force winds from Hurricane Bertha.

However, the sailors probably will escape Bertha’s wallop, with the storm headed for North Carolina.

About 275 yachts were at the venue practicing. The larger yachts, 20 to 27 feet, were taken up the Wilmington River. The rest were being tied down on the floating dock.

“Precautions were taken. Some boats were secured, but no one is concerned,” said Basil Hamblin, a spokesman for the Olympic organizers.

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An alleged million-dollar housing scam has left some of the nation’s largest media organizations, including The Los Angeles Times, scrambling for accommodations at the Olympics with the Games to begin in less than two weeks.

While police were still sorting out the matter, journalists from Latin America were trying to make housing arrangements with local residents.

The Times and the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service were among the U.S. media groups facing last-minute snags.

Meggen Mills was arrested Monday on seven counts of theft by deception. At least seven news and broadcast agencies said they gave her $1 million for apartments, rental cars and cellular phones only to arrive in Atlanta to some or none of what they needed.

Mills is a representative of Corporate Key Companies. Her attorney, Bruce Morris, said she was still trying to find apartments until she was jailed Tuesday on $100,000 bond. She was released on bail Wednesday.

Bill Dwyre, Times sports editor, said he researched Mills before making accommodations.

“She had a very good reputation,” Dwyre said. “She did a lot of work with the World Cup. It all checked out. I was fooled.”

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Some members of the International Olympic Committee “deal in outright bribery and fraud” when voting for an Olympic host city, says a journalist in a television program to be shown next week.

Andrew Jennings, a British author who has spent years chronicling IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, charges that some of the 106 IOC voters are “at best along for a joy ride, at worst, criminal.”

“The only thing they do, every two years, they have all their presents, all their gifts, all their jetting around the world, having their feet kissed by all the supplicant cities for the Games, they cast their votes about where they’d like to spend their summer holidays,” Jennings said. “It’s a job-creation scheme.”

The interview, conducted by Frank Deford, is part of the show “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” which will be broadcast by HBO on Monday.

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Deryk Snelling, who helped coach Canadian swimmers to 19 Olympics medals, is leaving to coach in Britain.

Snelling, a 62-year-old native of England, has been coach of Swimming Canada’s national sport center in Calgary since 1994.

Swimming Canada said his new post, starting in October, will be as national performance director with the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain.

Snelling will be with Swimming Canada through the Olympics.

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Daniel Santiago, a 7-foot-1 backup center at New Mexico, has been named to Puerto Rico’s 12-member basketball squad, a team official confirmed.

Santiago, 20, will be the youngest but tallest player on the Puerto Rican squad and will back up Jose Ortiz, who formerly played with the NBA’s Utah Jazz, said Hector Reyes, president of the Puerto Rico Basketball Federation in Puerto Rico.