Let the games begin!
By Jordan Pearce, sports editor

     Quite a few changes come along with this year’s Olympic games in Sydney, Australia, Sept. 15-Oct. 1.
     This year, the men’s gymnastic team contains our first-ever set of twins.
     The 17-year-old Hamm brothers, Morgan and Paul, from Wisconsin made a surprising performance to clench the spot to compete in Sydney.
     Will the female Magnificent Seven be so magnificent if the team is incomplete?
One of the biggest surprises is that only two of the Magnificent Seven, Amy Chow and Dominique Dawes, made this year’s women’s gymnastics team.
     Dawes barely got in. She didn’t make the scores to be in the top seven, but judges hold the right to put whomever they wish on the team.
     Dominique Moceanu and Shannon Miller both dropped out of finals due to knee injuries.
     New team members include Elise Ray, who claimed the National Champion title and finished first in trials; Kristen Maloney finished third; Morgan White finished fourth, and Jamie Dantzscher finished fifth. Alyssa Beckerman will go as alternate by finishing eighth.
     Kelli Hill, who coaches Ray and Dawes, will be the head coach. Mary Lee Tracy, White and Beckerman’s coach, will be renamed assistant coach, as she was in the ’96 games.
     A previously injured knee isn’t going to keep Dallas hero Michael Johnson out of the track 400m competition even though he doesn’t feel qualified to run in the 200m race. He’s trained hard, being donned “Wired Athlete” because he let doctors put monitors on him to show exactly what the fastest man in the world’s body does.
     Johnson and Maurice Greene had a dispute at the trials earlier in the month, but their coach, John Chaplin, insists that the two athletes are good friends. He claims the whole dispute was outside hype and agents.
     They both pulled up injured in the trials for the 200m race and will not compete against each other, but they both still claim to be the “World’s Fastest Man.”
     Amy Van Dyken, the U.S. swimming champion, plans to retire after this year’s Olympic Games. She’s had two shoulder operations and feels that her body just won’t hold up anymore.
     She’s had a tremendous comeback and has had to battle hard to compete.
She’ll be defending her title in the 50m freestyle and also has a spot on the 400m relay team.
     After seven years, Dara Torres is making a comeback by qualifying in four events to attempt to become the oldest U.S. swimmer to win a medal.
At age 33, she wants to give the Olympics another try. She will compete in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 4 X 100 freestyle relay.
     In men’s swimming, Lenny Krayzelburg should claim three gold medals in backstroke events, competing in 100m, 200m and relay.
     He holds world records and hopes to sweep the Olympics although this will be his first.
     Soccer heroines Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain hope to tear it up again this year in women’s soccer. China will be a tough competitor this year, but with some new faces, as well as old, they will try to give all of their hard practice a meaning and defend their championship title.
     The U.S. women’s basketball team is expected to walk away with another gold medal this year, especially since the WNBA has kept the team members at their top performance peak.
     The most decorated Olympic basketball player in the world—man or woman—Teresa Edwards is expected to retire after this, her fifth, trip to the Olympics.
     At the age of 36, she will be among only 16 U.S. athletes ever to compete in five Olympics.
     The never-ending saga that has become the USA men’s basketball team, dubbed the Dream Team 3 and made up of the “best” players in the NBA, will bring back the Gold medal without much effort.
     Many players have been replaced on the team due to injuries, but crowd favorite Vince Carter, who scored 29 points against Canada, will add a certain Jordan-like leadership to the team.
     Although Kobe Bryant and Shaquile O’Neal passed on the games, the team is young compared with the ages of the original Dream Team.
     Only four players on the squad are over the age of 30, as opposed to 9 of 12 members over the age of 29 in ’92.
     The U.S. Olympics team has one member who has won 98 medals and ranked fourth in the world in her sport.
     Jennifer Parilla, 19, has made her trampolining skills pay for a ticket down under as the lone representative for the United States in the new event.
    The idea behind this event consists of jumping off a 7 by 14-foot trampoline and performing two 30-second, 10-jump routines judged on precision and elegance.
     Makes you wish you had tried out, doesn’t it?