By Xinhua
Wellington : New Zealand’s former discus world champion Beatrice Faumuina has secured the national discus title and her place at the Beijing Olympics, Radio New Zealand reported Sunday.
Faumuina threw 61.73 meters at the national athletics champs in Auckland Saturday night to secure not only the national discus title but also her ticket to the Beijing Olympics. She had already posted a 61-metre qualifying throw for the Games but it was a year ago and Athletics New Zealand high performance manager Kevin Ankrom said ahead of the event they wanted Faumuina to show she was still up to competing at the top level.
Faumuina’s next competition is in Japan in May while Beijing is set to be her fourth Olympics, to be held Aug 8-24.
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Australia name 42-member swimming squad
Canberra: Australian Swimming has nominated a 42-member team for the Beijing Olympics, with Grant Hackett being appointed captain. The Australian swimming team set eight world records at the selection trials in Sydney this week, according to the Australian Associated Press.
Hackett, Adam Pine, Ashley Callus and Leisel Jones have all been selected to make their third appearances at an Olympic Games. Brisbane schoolgirl Emily Seebohm is the youngest member of the team at 15, and Pine, at 32, is the oldest member. There are 26 rookies named in the team of 20 men and 22 women.
Squad: Men: Grant Brits, Leith Brodie, Ashley Callus, Nick D’Arcy, Ashley Delaney, Nicholas Ffrost, Grant Hackett, Andrew Lauterstein, Kenrick Monk, Patrick Murphy, Travis Nederpelt, Kirk Palmer, Adam Pine, Brenton Rickard, Christian Sprenger, Nic Sprenger, Craig Stevens, Hayden Stoeckel, Eamon Sullivan, Matt Targett.
Women: Angie Bainbridge, Bronte Barratt, Cate Campbell, Alicia Coutts, Lara Davenport, Sophie Edington, Sally Foster, Felicity Galvez, Samantha Hamill, Belinda Hocking, Leisel Jones, Linda MacKenzie, Alice Mills, Meagen Nay, Kylie Palmer, Shayne Reese, Stephanie Rice, Jessicah Schipper, Melanie Schlanger, Emily Seebohm, Libby Trickett, Tarnee White Enditem
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Mongolian president, PM to attend ceremonies
Ulan Bator: Mongolian Olympic Committee Chairman Demchigjav Zagdsuren has said that Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar and Prime Minister Sanj Bayar will attend the opening and closing ceremonies respectively of the Beijing Olympics.
Enkhbayar will watch some matches of the first eight days of the Games, while Bayar will watch some of the rest seven days, Zagdsuren said. Four Mongolian television stations will make live broadcast of the Beijing Olympics.
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Germany against boycott of Beijing Olympics
Brdo (Slovenia): German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said that his country is against any attempt to boycott the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. “A no to the Olympics… would help neither the people in China nor the sports organisations,” Steinmeier said on arrival here for an informal meeting with his counterparts from other European Union (EU) countries.
“At the moment I am against the kind of boycott debate that is going on in some European member states,” he said. As EU foreign ministers began a two-day meeting, they were scheduled to hold a discussion on the situation in Tibet, with some of them pushing for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.