Olympic highlights

Stormont eyes Beijing

Overpowered judoka Rochelle Stormonthas vowed her Olympic experience will extend past 30 seconds. The South Auckland 22-year-old is determined the clock will resume at Beijing in 2008 after her Athens campaign was cut short by Ioana Maria Aluas. Her hopes of securing a repechage in the 52kg class evaporated when the Romanian was narrowly beaten by French world No 2 Annabelle Euranie. The Aucklander submitted to an ippon after 30 seconds and readily acknowledged there was a gulf in class.

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Swimmer hurt

British team officials are to protest to the IOC after swimmer Sarah Price gashed her legs before the start of her 100m backstroke semifinal yesterday. Price, with cuts on both shins, finished last in her event, having jumped on to what British team officials said they thought was an underwater camera while warming up in the main pool 35 minutes before her race. The British team appealed unsuccessfully to the Athens orgainsers to have the schedule changed to give Price time to recover.

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Humans 'at limit'

Human athletes may have reached their physical limits in some events, says one of New Zealand's most famous Olympians, Peter Snell. Snell, exercise physiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas, told the Dallas Morning News that he was not sure scientists were breaking new ground. Snell said that in some events, humans might have already reached the limits of what they could do without performance-enhancing drugs. "I think we're close to the limits for physiological reasons," he said of the 800m and 1500m.

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Iraq through

Iraq became the first team to reach the soccer quarter-finals after a comfortable 2-0 victory over Costa Rica yesterday. Second-half goals from Hawar Mohammed and substitute Mahdi Karim gave war-weary Iraq a perfect six points from two games in group D of the men's competition. Iraq's under-23 side, who have endured extreme hardship to qualify for the Games, stunned Portugal 4-2 in their opening game. They reached the Asian Cup quarter-finals last month.

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Israeli rebuffed

Iran's world judo champion, Arash Miresmaeili, refused to compete against an Israeli on Sunday. The International Judo Federation failed to agree on how to deal with the politically explosive issue at an emergency meeting and said it would hold further talks today. Meanwhile, the home nation's two top athletes said they would miss an appeal hearing today that may bar the sprinters for missing drugs tests.

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Rower finishes

Kenya's first Olympic rower finished more than a minute behind the field in his sculls heat. The crowd appreciated Ibrahim Githaiga's efforts, though, rising to their feet to roar him on to the finish line.

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Pownceby press

Other views: The British press reports our reaction to the inglorious weekend defeat of controversial boxer Soulan Pownceby.

"A convicted child killer whose inclusion in the New Zealand boxing squad caused uproar at home took a beating in the ring. The defeat of Soulan Pownceby, who was found guilty nine years ago of causing the death of his five-month-old daughter, went unlamented by most Kiwis."

- The Daily Telegraph

"The national mood yesterday was one of bemusement that a period of such anguished introspection could climax with six minutes of undistinguished boxing."

- The Guardian

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Brain the culprit

Olympic athletes often do not realise they are fatiguing key muscles before crucial events, says a university researcher in Melbourne. Professor Uwe Proske, of Monash University, said it was believed fatigued muscles were responsible for clumsiness and a loss of limb control. But researchers had now found this occurs in the brain. Proske said experiments showed the position of hands, arms, legs and feet was more closely connected with the effort required to move them against the forces of gravity. Before exercise, most people could align their arms to within one to two degrees but afterwards, they were not aligned even though the people insisted that they were.