Notebook: Take our basketball medals, please

By Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece — In light of the Paul Hamm controversy, the U.S. Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee say they know of no precedent for an athlete giving back an Olympic medal he or she had legitimately earned.

But there is one stash of medals that were never claimed.

The 1972 U.S. men's basketball team didn't give its medals back, it never accepted them after a controversial 51-50 loss to the Soviet Union in the gold-medal game in Munich, Germany. It was the first defeat in the United States' 64-game Olympic history.

The U.S. team led 50-49 after Doug Collins' two free throws with three seconds left. The Soviets inbounded the ball and missed a shot, as the U.S. players began to celebrate. But an official had blown his whistle with one second left after noticing confusion at the scorer's table. Officials decided to put three seconds back on the clock after the Soviets claimed that they'd called a timeout between Collins' free throws.

The Soviets inbounded again, didn't get a shot off and, after the horn blew, the Americans celebrated again. But the teams were sent back to the court once more after officials ruled the clock had not been properly reset.

On their third try, the Soviets won the game. Aleksander Belov caught Ivan Edeshko's pass at the foul line between two defenders, turned and went up for the winning layup as time ran out. The United States filed an official protest, which was denied, and the stunned players voted unanimously not to accept their silver medals.

The medals remain locked away at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Stuck on pin trading

ATHENS, Greece — On a typical day at the Coca-Cola Pin Trading Centre, about 16,000 spectators descend on the Coke-bottle-shaped market to haggle and swap souvenir pins.

Most traders have small collections specializing in a particular niche, but 62-year-old Canadian Gary Winchaub is not your common collector. He's been coming to the Olympics since 1984 to build his collection. ``By now I probably have more than 30,000, but to be honest, I stopped counting a long time ago,'' he said.

Zoi Kalogirou, who sells rare stamps, coins and Olympic pins in her Athens shop, says she has a pin dating to 1896 that is valued at more than 500 euros ($605).

Paul Hassett, a pilot from the United States, said he abides by one rule of thumb in collecting: ``In reality, the joy of pin trading is not just about completing your collection, obtaining a rare pin or making some neat profit, but the interaction with people. It takes two, three Olympic Games to get the hang of pin trading, but the most important thing to remember is that you must have fun when trading.''

Attendance watch

ATHENS, Greece — The Athens Organizing Committee reported ticket sales of 194,129 for Thursday's events, 82 percent of available capacity.

Track and field, men's basketball quarterfinals, women's water polo finals, tae kwon do, rhythmic gymnastics, modern pentathlon, synchronized swimming and diving were reported as sellouts. The women's soccer medal games sold only 27 percent — 8,310 in a 30,604-seat venue.