Now Offbeat Sports Have Got Games Too

Moving the combat from board rooms and congressional hearings to the wrestling mat and boxing ring, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s new baby, the Titan Games, arrived with a howl.

As embattled USOC Chief Executive Lloyd Ward watched from the sidelines Friday in a warmup suit, shotputter John Godina rewarded a lively crowd on the San Jose State campus by becoming the first Titan Games champion. Throwing in a hastily set-up ring bordered by bleachers, he got off a winning put of 67 feet 3 1/2 inches.

“I know this is the first of, like, 50 of these,” Godina said. “I love it. I think it’s great to give people a chance to get up close and personal with the people they see on TV.”

The Titan Games are Ward’s brainchild, progeny of a union between the thrumming energy of the X Games and traditional Olympic sports. For the invited shotputters, fencers, weightlifters, taekwondo and judo athletes from the U.S., Mexico, Cuba and other countries, it’s a welcome moment in the sun. “This is what the Olympic movement is all about,” said 2000 Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist Rulon Gardner, who lost to Mijian Lopez of Cuba, 3-0, Friday night on the one-year anniversary of a snowmobile accident that cost him the middle toe on his right foot. “If you walk in here, you understand that.”

Gardner said he has followed the controversy surrounding Ward and the USOC -- Congress is considering dramatic changes in the organization -- “because you want to know what our future is. It’s a dual partnership. We’re their right hand and we work with them to build the movement.”

But for Gardner and Steven Lopez, a taekwondo welterweight gold medalist at the Sydney Games, the play’s the thing. And they’re happy to present their sports, which are largely ignored between Games.

“We’re the soldiers and they’re the generals. We follow them,” Lopez said of USOC executives. “As an athlete the only concern I have is sponsors. We’re not subsidized, like in a lot of countries. Being an athlete in a sport that’s not as mainstream as some others, I totally rely on the national governing body and the USOC. You just hope this all blows over....

“This is exposure for my sport. I’ve never been on ESPN before. Hopefully people will see us and come to watch us in 2004.”

U.S. athletes on Thursday won seven of eight judo matches, six of seven boxing matches and eight of 11 karate bouts, all against Mexican opponents.

On Friday, U.S. fencers beat a team of Pan Am all-stars, U.S. boxers won five of seven bouts against Puerto Rican boxers, and Cuba edged the U.S. in wrestling. Besides Gardner’s loss, freestyler Cael Sanderson, 159-0 at Iowa State, lost in sudden death to world champion Yoel Romero.

“It starts with the athletes,” said Ward, who envisions adopting this format with other sports. “We will continue to do things that help our athletes and advance [the Olympic ideal]. Things happen around us but we don’t control those events....

“All you hear about is governance. What you don’t hear is that in the boiler room we’re putting together new platforms and concepts that will be to our mutual benefit.”

Shotput runner-up Adam Nelson said of the Titan Games, “This is a fantastic idea.... I don’t really care what happens with the USOC as long as they provide me ample opportunities to compete.”

On the Mend

Angela Nikodinov of San Pedro, who pulled out of last month’s U.S. figure skating championships after the short program, underwent surgery on her injured right shoulder this week in Birmingham, Ala., and will be off the ice for three months.

Nikodinov was third at the 1999 and 2001 U.S. competitions but was fourth last year and didn’t make the Salt Lake City Olympic team.

Pair figure skaters Tiffany and Johnnie Stiegler of Manhattan Beach withdrew from the World Junior Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, because of unspecified injuries. Rena Inoue and John Baldwin Jr. of Santa Monica, third at the U.S. championships, withdrew from the Four Continents pairs competition after the short program because Inoue had the flu.

Here and There

Deena Drossin of Mammoth Lakes will compete for her sixth U.S. women’s eight-kilometer cross-country title this weekend in Houston, and Meb Keflezighi will vie for his third men’s 12-kilometer title. The event will determine the U.S. team for the world championships at Lausanne, Switzerland, March 29-30.

Promoters of an indoor track meet in Birmingham, England, rescinded an invitation to Tim Montgomery because he wouldn’t hold a news conference to discuss why he worked with, but later dropped, notorious coach Charlie Francis. Montgomery and Marion Jones said last week they had parted with Francis, who may never lose the taint of having supplied steroids to Ben Johnson before the 1988 Seoul Olympics.... USA Track and Field’s Golden Spike tour moves to Fayetteville, Ark., today. The featured event is a rematch between Maurice Greene and Terrence Trammell.