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KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffUS women win 4×400 to give Felix 3rd Olympic gold

By EDDIE PELLSAP National Writer

LONDON (AP) – By the time Allyson Felix was done with her part, her third gold medal of the Olympics was all but hanging around her neck.

Staking the U.S. team to more than a 2-second lead at the halfway point Saturday night, then watching Sanya Richards-Ross bring home the blowout victory, Felix added the 4×400-meter relay gold to the titles she won earlier in the 4×100 relay and 200-meter sprint.

“By the time I got the stick,” Richards-Ross said, “it was basically a victory lap.”

The United States finished in 3 minutes, 16.87 seconds – good for a 3.36-second rout over Russia, the biggest margin in the final of the long relay at the Olympics since East Germany beat the U.S. by 3.58 seconds in 1976.

Jamaica took third in 3:20.95.

“I think we were all pumped before this race,” Felix said. “There was a lot of emotion. We just wanted to close it out.”

The U.S. extended its Olympic winning streak in this event to five straight, dating to 1996.

Felix became the first U.S. woman to win three golds in Olympic track since 1988, when Florence Griffith-Joyner won the 100, 200 and 4×100 relay in Seoul.

Felix's victories came nearly a quarter-century later and half a world away, though she's now in the same stratosphere with some of the U.S. greats.

“London is very special to me,” said Felix, who now has a total of six Olympic medals.

The one she really wanted, of course, was the gold for the 200-meter sprint that eluded her in Athens and Beijing. After that, everything else was gravy in Britain, though Felix was hardly going through the motions in her last race of the games.

Handed about a 10-meter lead by teammate DeeDee Trotter, Felix ran the second leg in 47.8 seconds – 1.8 seconds faster than Russia's Antonina Krivoshapka – to put a huge swath of track between her and the Russians before she handed off to Francena McCorory.

McCorory expanded the lead by another .49 seconds, then delivered it to Richards-Ross, who was basically running alone, loosely holding onto the baton as she breezed across the finish line.

All she had to do was pace herself and make sure she didn't fall.

“It is a bit challenging to run at the front because you don't want to run too fast and mess it up,” Richards-Ross said after earning her fifth career medal.

When it was over, Richards-Ross tucked the stick under her arm and started clapping. then, one-by-one, Felix, Trotter and McCorory came over and the whole group embraced, huddling with their arms around each others' shoulders. Also receiving gold will be Keshia Baker and Diamond Dixon, who ran in the preliminaries.

“It's unbelievable,” Felix said. “I think about how I ended in Beijing, just feeling discouraged there. Four years later to have all this happen, to really accomplish every goal that I set out, is such a blessing.”

It marked yet another success for a U.S. track team that had pegged 30 medals as the goal to reach at the London Olympics. After Felix and her teammates were finished, the men's 4×100 relay team and high jumper Brigetta Barrett both took silver to lift the U.S. team to 29. The marathon closes out the track schedule Sunday, with 2004 silver medalist Meb Keflezighi in the race.

“I think the pressure was on to go out and do what we are capable of doing,” Trotter said of the 30-medal goal. “I think we finally hit the mark this time. We hit the center of the target. We got it done.”

The track meet could have been an even more rousing success for the United States had the men won more than the one medal they took in the 100, 200 and 400 – events they dominated for decades, until Usain Bolt came around.

But that's not Felix's fault.

And she'll leave London having accomplished the same things Bolt did at these games: Three gold medals and one world record. Felix got hers (40.82 seconds) Friday night as part of the 4×100 relay team. Bolt got his in Saturday night's men's 4×100 (36.84).

Felix does, however, have one loss at these Olympics – her fifth-place finish in the 100 meters to open the track meet. That was the race she qualified for after finishing in a dead heat for third at Olympic trials, then earning the spot when her teammate, Jeneba Tarmoh, dropped out of a run-off.

Felix said she used the 100 for tuneup purposes. It turned out to be quite a good use of her time.

The 26-year-old has dabbled in the 100 and 400 over her career, which made her that rare runner who could help her team in both relays. A bit exhausting to run on back-to-back nights, but a chance to pick up more hardware, as well – and anyone who knows America's history in the 4×400 knows there's a very good chance the hardware can be of the golden variety. The U.S. has won the 4×400 at every Olympics and world championship since 2007.

“That's the Dream Team, all day,” said Trotter, who also took bronze in the 400 meters.

Some track touts, knowing that Jamaica's Novlene Williams-Mills had handed Richards-Ross her only loss in the 400 this year, predicted Jamaica – or maybe Russia – might give the United States a run in this race.

Sounded good in theory.

“On paper, it seemed like it was going to be a great race,” Richards-Ross said. “But by the time I got the stick, we had already dominated the race.”

It's a great moment for the 27-year-old Jamaican native, as well.

Richards-Ross has dual citizenship and her parents moved to the U.S. when she was 12, in part because there were better training opportunities available in the States.

These days, she's married to Jacksonville Jaguars defensive back Aaron Ross, who has two Super Bowl rings at home that will now share space with a few more gold medals. Richards-Ross has fought on and off the last five or six years with a hard-to-diagnose illness that causes fatigue and skin lesions. She fought with her own emotions after a disappointing bronze medal in the 400 in 2008.

No real stress this time, though, and the U.S. women hardly looked winded as they danced and circled the track with American flags held high behind their heads.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffUS women win 4×400 to give Felix 3rd Olympic gold

KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffQuestion after floods: Did China build too fast?

By ALEXA OLESENAssociated Press

BEIJING (AP) – Recent heavy rains across much of China have left nearly 100 people dead, state media said Tuesday. more than a third of the fatalities were in the flood-ravaged capital, where some residents questioned whether the city's rapid push for modernization came at the expense of basic infrastructure such as drainage networks.

Authorities in Beijing were still trying to pump water from sections of flooded highway after Saturday night's torrential downpour, the city's heaviest rain in six decades.

The city government said 37 people died: 25 drowned, six were killed when houses collapsed, one was hit by lightning and five were electrocuted by fallen power lines.

Beijing residents shared photos online of submerged cars stranded on flooded streets, city buses with water up to commuters' knees and cascades of water rushing down the steps of overpasses.

Nearly 57,000 people were evacuated from their homes and damage from the storm reached at least 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), according to a report by the Beijing Daily newspaper on the Beijing government website.

Heavy rain also proved deadly elsewhere in the country. The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday that 95 people had died and 45 were still missing across 17 Chinese provinces and municipalities, including Beijing. It cited the Civil Affairs Bureau.

Although Beijing's worst-hit areas were in rural hilly outskirts of the city, the scale of the disaster was a major embarrassment for China's showcase capital, where such things are not supposed to happen.

The city has seen tens of billions of dollars poured into its modernization, including iconic venues for the 2008 Olympics, the world's second-largest airport, new subway lines and dazzling skyscrapers. But the floods raised questions about whether basics like drainage were neglected.

“If so much chaos can be triggered in Beijing, the capital of the nation, problems in urban infrastructure of many other places can only be worse,” said a commentary in Monday's state-run Global Times newspaper. “In terms of drainage technology, China is decades behind developed societies.”

The criticism mirrors some of that seen after a high-speed train crash that killed 40 people in Wenzhou in southeastern China a year ago Monday. That turned into a public-relations nightmare for the government and led many to question the quality of infrastructure in the country and the government's transparency on disasters.

Some pointed out that Saturday's deluge was historic in nature, with the Global Times noting it was the heaviest rainstorm in the capital in 61 years. The worst-hit area of the city received 460 millimeters (18.4 inches) of rain on Saturday.

“In just one day, it rained as much as it normally rains in six months in Beijing,” said Zhang Junfeng, a senior engineer from the Ministry of Transport who runs weekend tours of Beijing reservoirs and gives lectures on water conservancy. “No drainage system can withstand rains this big.”

In Qinglonghu, a village about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from downtown Beijing where many migrant workers from surrounding provinces have settled, at least two dozen brick homes were flooded. Local residents said Monday they were terrified to go back into their homes for fear they would collapse. They said they were sleeping outside, had no drinking water or food and had yet to get any assistance from local officials.

At least three people from the village were believed killed, residents said, including a man crushed by a falling power line and a woman and her 8-month-old baby who were washed away.

“No one wants something like this to happen,” said Cao Fuxiang, the woman's cousin. “Life is so difficult. we left our town to make some money and now she has disappeared.”

Piles of dirt from a large construction site in Qinglonghu appeared to have formed a dam that kept the downpour from draining into a river, worsening the rain's damage.

Associated Press writer Isolda Morillo and researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffQuestion after floods: Did China build too fast?

Ohio.com – Cast keeps Holmgren from stepping on toes

Cast keeps Holmgren from stepping on toes

by Stephanie Storm Beacon Journal sports writer

POSTED: 06:36 p.m. EDT, Aug 14, 2010

BEREA: this is not the way Mike Holmgren prefers to spend training camp — his burly, 6-foot-6 frame stuffed in a tiny golf cart with his right leg propped up, heavy with a fitted walking boot after foot surgery.

But it is the way the new Browns team president chooses to spend the beginning of his regime in Cleveland — and probably for good reason.

Holmgren, the man whom everyone still refers to as ”Coach,” knew himself well enough to realize the urge he’d have to jump in and fix things the way he always has — inadvertently stepping on the toes of second-year coach Eric Mangini along the way.

So he made sure that wouldn’t happen. with the urging of his wife, Kathy, Holmgren had surgery on his foot to correct a painful condition that he said had been bothering him for a few years.

But in addition to keeping him in his place during camp, the recovery kept him off the sidelines of Saturday night’s preseason opener at the Green Bay Packers.

”I was really looking forward to going,” Holmgren said. ”I want to be there for our team, and I had plans to catch up with old friends in Green Bay. but this thing is so cumbersome, travel was going to be very difficult and I didn’t want to have to have somebody drive me around in a golf cart the whole time.”

Holmgren is forced to stay on the fringe for now, but he’s gone out of his way to play ambassador with the fans who continue to line the stands during the sweltering days of camp.

”Visiting with the fans is important for the team,” he said. ”If they can feel good about me or anybody positively associated with the team, it reflects good on the organization. No one knows better than a coach how important the fans are, especially here in football country in the Midwest.

”These folks here are amazing. I sense their frustration, but they’re still here, and I appreciate their willingness to come out and support us, to trust we’re headed in the right direction.”

Holmgren, 62, was an NFL head coach for 17 seasons with the Packers and Seattle Seahawks before joining the Browns in December as president. He led the Packers and Seahawks to three Super Bowl appearances, winning a championship with the Packers in 1997.

Holmgren, who originally sported a bright orange cast on his foot and lower leg but is now wearing a heavy plastic gray walking boot, is not shy about counting down the time left in his self-imposed sideline exile.

”I’m getting close,” said Holmgren, whose easygoing communication style gives him the ability to command a room without being overbearing. ”About three weeks if all goes well.”

The excitement surrounding Browns training camp is palpable, despite the fact the team is coming off a 5-11 season. A big reason for the huge sense of relief that things are headed in the right direction can be attributed to Holmgren, who took a year away from football before looking to succeed as an executive.

Holmgren learned from his failed experiment in Seattle of trying to combine the coaching and general manager jobs. but just in case the urge arises to jump in and try to help Mangini on the sidelines, the surgery has given him a legitimate physical barrier to doing so.

”I know this about myself,” Holmgren told USA Today in July, ”I am going to have to find a way to funnel my energy. even in our mini-camps, my tendency was to [want to] run out there, grab [rookie quarterback] Colt McCoy and say, ‘Now, look!’ ”

Holmgren’s recovering foot literally keeps him from doing that, as he holds up his end of the bargain that allows Mangini the space to coach without interference but always with nearby support.

Stephanie Storm can be reached at sstorm@thebeaconjournal.com.

Ohio.com – Cast keeps Holmgren from stepping on toes

Nalbandian upsets Cilic to reach Washington final

David Nalbandian of Argentina reached his first final in 1 1/2years by overwhelming 13th-ranked Marin Cilic of Croatia 6-2, 6-2at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic on Saturday night.

The 117th-ranked Nalbandian lost his serve in the semifinal’sfirst game. But he immediately broke back to start a stretch inwhich he won 9 of 10 games, including seven in a row, whiledominating from the baseline.

This week’s run represents quite a comeback for Nalbandian, the2002 Wimbledon runner-up who once was ranked No. 3. he hadn’tentered an ATP tournament since April because of a left hamstringinjury and missed nine months, starting in May 2009, because of hipsurgery.

In Sunday’s final, Nalbandian faces Marcos Baghdatis, who beatXavier Malisse 6-2, 7-6 (4).

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for furtherinformation. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Marcos Baghdatis crumpled to the court andclutched at his suddenly painful left ankle, worrying he might haveto quit his semifinal match at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.

“I was scared,” Baghdatis would say later.

He looked up and saw his opponent, Xavier Malisse, trottingover, toting a plastic bag filled with ice. Soon enough, Baghdatisgot that twisted ankle taped by a trainer, then resumed hitting bigserves and tracking down most of Malisse’s shots.

Recovering quickly after tweaking his ankle, the No. 8-seededBaghdatis finished with 11 aces, was broken only once, and beatMalisse 6-2, 7-6 (4) on Saturday to reach his second ATP final of2010, his sixth overall _ and first in the United States.

“That’s typical sportsmanship from Xavier,” Baghdatis said aboutthe offer of ice. “I would do the same thing, and I think it’snice. But some guys don’t. … it doesn’t happen every day.”

He said the injury was “a bit of a strain, but I hope it will befine” for Sunday’s championship match.

No. 4-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia was to meet unseeded DavidNalbandian of Argentina in the other semifinal Saturday night.

With early losses by No. 2-seeded Andy Roddick, No. 5-seededJohn Isner and the six other Americans entered, this is the firsttime in the 42-year history of the Washington tournament that noU.S. player reached the quarterfinals.

Instead, this event turned into a showcase for players whobriefly had success in the past, were waylaid by injuries, and noware working their way back _ a description that applies to bothCyprus’ Baghdatis and Belgium’s Malisse.

Baghdatis has been ranked in the top 10 and played in theAustralian Open final and Wimbledon semifinals in 2006, but astress fracture in his right wrist two years later led him to fallout of the top 100. he entered low-tier Challenger tournaments tolift his ranking; indeed, his only two previous matches againstMalisse were victories in finals on that circuit in 2009.

“That’s what you have to do, especially when you’re a guy fromCyprus,” said Baghdatis, who doesn’t have a sponsor and wears hiscountry’s flag on the chest of his shirts. “You don’t have a lot ofwild cards, a lot of tournaments at home. It’s not easy.”

Things are going well lately, though. Saturday’s victory wasBaghdatis’ 23rd on a hard court this year, the third-most on tour.He’s seeking his second title of 2010, after winning at Sydney inJanuary.

The 25-year-old Baghdatis reunited last month with coachGuillaume Peyre. they first began working together when Baghdatiswas a teen, and he credits Peyre with helping him stay focused. Oneexample: Baghdatis is 4-1 in tiebreakers this week.

Malisse, a 30-year-old player who lives in Sarasota, Fla., upsetNo. 1-seeded Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals, Isner in the thirdround, and No. 12-seeded Julien Benneteau in the second. But unlikeBaghdatis, he didn’t have a first-round bye, and both men knewMalisse would be more tired in Saturday’s 90-degree heat.

Still, it appeared Baghdatis might be the one in trouble. Facinga break point while already trailing 4-3 in the second set,Baghdatis turned his ankle when he tried to change directions for aball that wound up landing out.

A doctor and trainer came on court, and Baghdatis eventuallyrose and limped to the sideline, where he took a medical timeout.When action resumed after a five-minute delay, the score was deuce,and Baghdatis held to 4-all by taking the next two points onmiscues by Malisse. instead of testing Baghdatis’ ankle byattempting a drop shot, say, Malisse was content to settle in forlong rallies from the baseline. The first was a 22-stroke exchangethat ended with Malisse sailing a forehand long. The second lasted12 strokes, capped by Malisse pushing a forehand wide.

“You always think, ‘Well, is he OK? Is he going to stop?’ But… I hit a backhand down the line, and he ran to it, so I thought,’He will be fine,’” said Malisse, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2002,when he reached the top 20.

His ranking dropped below 350th, though, as recently as 2008,when he had a right wrist injury, and he is currently 62nd.

Malisse plays more of a high-risk game than Baghdatis, and thatstrategy didn’t pay off Saturday.

“He’s always there,” Malisse said, “and he makes you hit thatone extra shot.”

After dropping the opening point of the tiebreaker, Baghdatisresponded with a pair of aces at 118 and 124 mph en route to a 6-1lead. after wasting three match points, Baghdatis converted thefourth when Malisse closed a 26-stroke point by putting a runningbackhand into the net.

Baghdatis again dropped to the court, this time because of joy,not pain.

Nalbandian upsets Cilic to reach Washington final