OUT-OF-COMPETITION DRUG TESTS DON'T ACCOUNT FOR MARIJUANA

Last week in this space, it flippantly was suggested that given the alleged
widespread use of marijuana by NBA players, the U.S. Olympic basketball
team might have to abandon the "Dream Team" concept in the future because
of random, out-of-competition drug testing required by the U.S. Olympic
Committee.

Turns out that was a case of premature speculation. Happens all the time.

What the USOC is concerned with in out-of-competition testing are anabolic
steroids and related masking agents. Marijuana (as well as cocaine,
ephedrine and pickled bats' wings) does not fall under the purview of
out-of-competition testing. However, at the Olympic Games themselves,
athletes are subjected to the whole laundry list of substances banned by
the International Olympic Committee.

Because the deadline for countries to declare the first eight players on
their hockey rosters for the 2002 Winter Olympics is March 25, the USOC is
meeting today with representatives of the NHL, USA Hockey and the U.S.
Anti- Doping Agency in Salt Lake City.

"Our meeting is the first chance to sit down (with the NHL) but ultimately
the players will have to agree to this if they want to be on the (Olympic)
team," said Mike Moran, assistant executive director of the USOC. "It's
random, so it doesn't mean everybody will be tested."

For now, the NBA can wait. The next Summer Olympics are 2004 in Athens.
There's plenty of time for NBA players desiring the Olympic experience to
put away their bongs long enough to bash Angola on the way to the gold medal.

"We're hopeful we'll all end up on the same page," Moran said. "This is not
a proposal. It's a policy. The testing is only for anabolic agents and the
agents that would mask their use. Sanctions would only apply in the Olympic
world, not in the NBA or the NHL. There's no testing for cocaine or marijuana."

No out-of-competition testing, that is.

"It's irrelevant for this (purpose)," Moran said. "At the Games, marijuana
is tested for."

The USOC's new policy on out-of-competition testing caught the NHL and NBA
by surprise. At today's meeting in Salt Lake City, NHL officials will be
assured that any sanctions under the USOC's out-of-competition testing will
not carry over to their league.

DECATHLETE BOWS OUT: Chris Huffins, the 1993 Cal graduate who won bronze
medals in the decathlon at the 1999 World Championships and 2000 Olympic Games,

has retired from the 10-event discipline. His best score was 8,694 points
in 1998. The world record is 8,994 by Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic.

"I don't want to besmirch my multievent legacy," Huffins said. "I'm pretty
happy with the way things finished. I don't plan on doing any (more)
multievents."

That doesn't mean the 30-year-old Huffins, now an assistant track coach at
Georgia Tech, is through. He plans to compete in the 100 and long jump this
season.

JUST SIT RIGHT BACK: And you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip -- by
IOC inspectors to Osaka, the second-largest city in Japan desirous of
hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics. There, the IOC inspection team toured the
man-made island of Maishima in Osaka's harbor.

Billing their bid as "the first Olympics at sea," Osaka organizers, should
they win the '08 Games, would hold the Opening and Closing Ceremonies on
the fake island, along with track and field, soccer and swimming. The
Athletes Village would be located on an adjacent island, also man-made.

No word if athletes have to swim from one island to the other for competition.

It's tempting to draw parallels between Maishima and another fake island
where intrepid souls waged a daily battle for survival armed only with
bamboo poles and coconut shells and the sheer force of their wills. That's
right, it's time to sing the theme song to "Gilligan's Island."

Wonder if the show is in syndication in Japan?

THE WORLD AT LARGE: Frank Carroll, coach of figure skaters Michelle Kwan
and Timothy Goebel, had this to say about their recent performances at the
Grand Prix Final in Tokyo: "They were horrible." Relatively speaking, that
is. Kwan was second to Russia's Irina Slutskaya in the women's event and
Goebel was fifth in the men's.