News for July 8


Atlanta Selections

- GERMANY: Rolf Aldag, Olaf Ludwig, Uwe Peschel, Michael Rich, Erik Zabel.
Time trial: Uwe Peschel, Michael Rich.

- BELGIUM: Johan  Bruyneel, Johan Museeuw, Wilfried Peeters, Tom Steels,
Franck Vandenbroucke. Time trial: Johan Bruyneel.

- DENMARK: Brian Holm, Lars Michaelsen, Bjarne Riis, Jesper Skibby, Rolf
Sorensen. Time trial: Bjarne Riis, Rolf Sorensen.

- ITALY: Fabio Baldato, Michele Bartoli, Francesco Casagrande, Mario
Cipollini, Maurizio Fondriest. Time trial: Francesco Casagrande, Maurizio
Fondriest.

- NETHERLANDS: Jeroen Blijlevens, Erik Breukink, Danny Nelissen, Jelle
Nijdam, Leon van Bon, Max van Heeswijk.

SWITZERLAND

ROAD RACE: Rolf Jaermann, Pascal Richard, Tony Rominger, Beat Zberg, Alex 
Zulle.
ITT: Tony Rominger, Alex Zulle.
TRACK: Bruno Risi (Points race)
MOUNTAIN BIKE: Thomas Frischknecht, Beat Wabel.


Women

ROAD: Barbara Heb, Dana Rast, Yvonne Schnorf.
MOUNTAIN BIKE: Silvia Furst, Daniela Gassmann.

Seiko Hashimoto Story

Japanese cyclist Seiko Hashimoto has to contend with criticism from all sides as she goes for her seventh Olympics taking time out from her duties in the country's senate. As if juggling her sporting and political engagements, which leave little time over even for sleeping, was not hard enough, 31-year-old Hashimoto has also had to justify her switch from skating, in which she picked up a speed skating bronze medal in 1992.

Since becoming a senator, the veteran of two Summer and four Winter Games has further had to face a trial by media over whether she should not be directing her energies at politics rather than hurtling around a race track thousands of miles from home.

"If she can find time to ride a bike, she should use it to educate herself as a politician," the popular tabloid Nikkan Gendai noted recently, adding: "Her trip to Atlanta is a waste of taxpayers' time and money."

A Japanese Olympian gets a state subsidy of some 3,200 dollars. A fellow MP sneered in a television news show that "she may go to Atlanta if she can win a gold medal."

Hashimoto says: "I have mixed feelings about the way people around me react."

But her Olympian efforts received full backing from Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and his conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which counted on her fame in senate elections a year ago. Hashimoto, whose finished third in the 1,500-metre speed skating event in Albertville, has nothing to show from the Summer Games having bowed out in the sprint preliminaries in Seoul and the 3,000-metre individual pursuit preliminaries in Barcelona.

Entered in both events in Atlanta, her personal best is some 10 seconds slower than the world mark for the 3,000-metres.

'Miss Olympics' is determined to prove her detractors wrong, however. "I have no choice but to believe that I will make it. I just keep on doing my best," she says.

She rises at dawn and rides near her Tokyo home before rushing to party headquarters for breakfast and brain-storming before attending parliament. Her evening is devoted to workouts at home or a nearby gym.

"I've reached the age at which I rely on the quality but not the quantity of training," she says.

Hashimoto, whose first name is a pun on "Seika" or the Olympic flame, is already looking for a place in the record book as the longest-surviving female Olympian after seven Games. She currently shares the longevity record with a Swedish fencer. "I want to involve myself in sport for a long while yet. I'm not thinking of retiring," she insists.