Notebook: Last hurrah for Mia Hamm

By DAVE LUMIA

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - Three-time Olympic medalist Mia Hamm was elected by her 2004 Olympic Team peers to be the U.S. flag bearer for Sunday night's Closing Ceremonies. Hamm is the first soccer player to carry the flag at an Olympic Games.

Basketball player Dawn Staley had the honor in the Opening Ceremonies, and as fate would have it, Hamm was watching Staley and the U.S. women's basketball team win gold on Saturday when she received notification.

``This is emotional and I'm truly speechless,'' said Hamm, who is soon to retire from international competition in a career that dates to 1987, when she first played for the U.S. national team at age 15. She and her soccer teammates earned gold in Athens, to go with another Olympic gold in 1996 and silver in 2000.

``I was expecting to be a follower tomorrow night, just to go wherever I was pointed and now I'm carrying the flag,'' she said. ``It's a tremendous honor, and I thank my fellow Olympians for thinking of me.''

Bring on the boos

ATHENS, Greece - For whatever reason, American light-heavyweight Andre Ward of Oakland, Calif., has raised the hackles of the Greek boxing crowd.

He's been booed throughout the Olympic tournament, and expects more of it in Sunday's gold-medal bout against Magomed Aripgadjiev of Belarus. All the better, he says.

"Yeah, I like it," said Ward, trying to become the first U.S. boxing gold medalist since 1996. "Boo me, motivate me. I feel like these people aren't showing my country much respect. I take that personally."

Long jumper's next leap

ATHENS, Greece - Long jump gold medalist Dwight Phillips of Mesa, Ariz., plans to defend his championship in Beijing in 2008 but has other ambitions in mind, as well. Phillips has begun dabbling in the 100 meters and was good enough to make the Olympic Trials, but not to contend for an Olympic berth.

``I'm still not done with 100 meters,'' he said. ``I still want to figure it out and give it another try next year.''

Attendance watch

ATHENS, Greece - Ticket-sales figures for Friday's events were 224,541 - 77 percent of capacity. That brought the total sales to 3,568,174 heading into the final weekend.

Track and field, men's basketball semifinals, canoe-kayak finals, team handball semifinals, equestrian finals, water polo semifinals, taekwondo preliminaries, modern pentathlon finals, rhythmic gymnastics qualifications and diving preliminaries were all reported as sellouts. The women's basketball semifinals were only 33 percent sold - 5,217 of 15,980 available tickets. Greece's consolation bracket game, in contrast, sold 8,186 tickets.