Chinese Swimmer Planned to Sell Drugs, Not Use Them

The banned drugs found in the possession of a Chinese swimmer before the World Championships in Australia last month were not intended for use by the Chinese team as widely suspected, a top Olympic official said Sunday.

Jacques Rogge, a member of the International Olympic Committee medical commission, said the 13 vials of human growth hormone (HGH) seized by Australian customs were probably intended for Australian buyers.

“There is no point using HGH during a competition,” Rogge said. “You take it three or four weeks beforehand.”

The drugs were found in the luggage of female swimmer Yuan Yuan as she arrived in Perth, Australia, for the championships. The international swimming federation FINA suspended Yuan for four years. The coach who packed her bags, Zhou Zhewen, drew a 15-year ban.

In the latest bid to ensure a record number of female athletes at the Sydney Olympics, and save the modern pentathlon from extinction, the International Olympic Committee’s executive board has added women’s pentathlon to the Summer Games.

Modern pentathlon is one of the original Olympic sports, dating to the 1896 Games in Athens. It combines horseback riding, swimming, fencing, shooting and running.

Football

Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones expects to name a new head coach by Wednesday from four candidates.

“I’m not going to give his name tonight, but I am very close,” Jones said Sunday during a visit to Springfield, Mo., where he was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Jones said the list of contenders includes three whose names already have surfaced in news reports: Green Bay Packer offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis, former UCLA coach Terry Donahue and former San Francisco 49er coach George Seifert.

Football great Doak Walker remained in serious condition from skiing injuries that left him paralyzed.

A spokeswoman for Swedish Medical Center said there had been no change in Walker’s condition overnight.

Walker, 71, fell Friday while skiing an intermediate trail at Steamboat Springs, Colo. and was in a coma when he was airlifted to the center.

Seattle Seahawk backfield coach Clarence Shelmon verbally agreed to take the same position with the Dallas Cowboys and the Seahawks’ Ned James accepted a position as a defensive assistant with New Orleans.

Boxing

Oba Carr, hoping for a shot at Oscar De La Hoya’s WBC welterweight championship later this year, faces Jesus Gutierrez in a 10-round bout tonight in Anaheim.

Carr, 25, has a 43-2-1 record with 27 knockouts. Gutierrez, 24, has a 10-3-1 record with eight knockouts.

In a companion 10-rounder, highly ranked super-flyweight Joel Luna Zarate meets Victor Hernandez.

Miscellany

Reigning Indy Racing League champion Tony Stewart, driving in three races, and NASCAR Winston Cup star Kenny Schrader shattered records at the Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Speedway.

Stewart became the first driver in the race’s history to win two events in one day. He took the USAC National Midget Series and Silver Crown features as well as a second-place finish in his first-ever race in a super modified.

Schrader held off Rick Carelli to take NASCAR’s Southwest Tour main event--his record ninth victory at the track and record sixth in Copper World competition.

Jim Keeker, of Cicero, Ind., was in critical condition in a Phoenix hospital with a head injury suffered in a three-car crash on the 38th lap of the Silver Crown race.

A record-breaking number of 16 yacht clubs will compete in the challenge for the America’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2000.

Competing teams will be from the United States, Australia, China, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and England.

Goalkeeper Matt Reis, who led UCLA to the 1997 NCAA championship with two shutouts in the Final Four, was selected by the Galaxy in the third round of the Major League Soccer draft, which concluded Sunday.

The Galaxy chose SMU midfielder Daniel Hernandez in the second round and Washington defender Joe Franchino with its second third-round pick.

Three-time U.S. 1,500-meter track champion Terrance Herrington won the 1,500 at the Steve Scott Festival of Races at Santee, Calif, setting a course record of 3:57.

Anna May Hutchison, a pitcher in the 1940s with the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls’ Baseball League who appeared in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” has died at Racine, Wis. She was 72.

Randy Harvey is on assignment.