Inside the rings: Wallabies keen on Olympic glory

They've won everything the game has to offer: now the Wallabies want to add Olympic gold to their World Cup, Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations titles.

"It would be very special," Australian rugby union captain John Eales said yesterday.

Rugby was played at four Olympics before being discontinued in 1924, with Australia winning gold in London in 1908.

Call for silence


After several days of distracting cellphone rings, security officers at the weightlifting are threatening to eject spectators who fail to turn their phones off.

Weightlifters prefer to perform in relative quiet, much like golfers, and a ringing phone just at the moment they are about to lift can be disruptive. As Rudik Petrosyan, of Armenia, was stepping to the bar during competition on Wednesday, a cellphone went off. He backed off for a moment, then, just as he was about to try again, another phone went off.

Finally, just as Petrosyan was about to pull up the bar, he ran out of time on the 30-second clock and his attempt was negated, prompting boos from spectators who felt he should be given another chance.

The head of the weightlifting jury then made a personal plea that the phones be silenced.

Seconds after the announcer requested yet again that cellphones be turned off, an embarrassed statistician sitting near the lifting platform hastily flipped off his ringing phone.

Cocaine ban final


The Canadian Olympic Association declined to reinstate troubled showjumper Eric Lamaze, who had been banned for testing positive for cocaine.

The ruling on Wednesday meant Lamaze missed out on another Olympics, even though his mount Millcreek Raphael was already in Sydney. Lamaze's first ban for cocaine use kept him home for the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Lamaze, 32, had hoped to return to the Olympic team after an adjudicator lifted his lifetime ban for cocaine use.

He argued that cocaine was not a performance-enhancing drug. The national association refused to take him back.

Cash for bronze


India's first woman to win an Olympic medal, 69kg division weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, has been given a 2.5 million rupee ($NZ121,174) reward by her home state in the hope that her achievement will inspire others.

Malleswari won a bronze medal on Tuesday. Her family says she could have won gold or silver if she had not been upset by Australian news reports that she was out of shape and living the high life in Sydney.

A news conference with reporters was marked by her concern over accusations that she had been consuming beer and cheese.

- PETER CALDER and AGENCIES