U.S. Long Jumpers Upset About Slur

John Rocker revisited.

That’s the way U.S. Olympic long jumpers Melvin Lister and Savante Stringfellow reacted to racial remarks by Australian jumper Jai Taurima.

Australian newspapers on Wednesday quoted him as saying that because of the cool conditions expected for the Sydney Olympics, “You can pretty much knock out all the dark athletes.

“We jumped in Salamanca [Spain] a month ago, and those guys just couldn’t compete well in bad conditions,” said Taurima, who is half Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. “It was wet and cold.”

Taurima later apologized.

“I’m quite sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to attack them personally. It was not intended as a racial slur. I didn’t mean to upset them at all.”

The apology rang hollow to Lister and Stringfellow.

“We heard he apologized, but he hasn’t said anything to us,” Stringfellow said. “We haven’t heard it from him.”

“I don’t accept his apology,” Stringfellow said. “I can’t accept what he said. If he didn’t mean it, why did he say it?”

Lister, winner of the U.S. Olympic trials, and Stringfellow, the U.S. indoor champion and NCAA outdoor champion, both of whom are black, were seething earlier when told of Taurima’s statements.

“I would rank them the same as the John Rocker comments,” Stringfellow said, referring to the Atlanta Braves’ reliever who in December made disparaging remarks about foreigners, gays, women and New Yorkers. “That was very unprofessional on his part.”

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Neil Campbell has been removed from the British Olympic cycling team and suspended from the national cycling federation for the possible use of banned drugs.

Campbell, 26, is the first British athlete to be withdrawn after pre-Olympic testing.

It was not immediately clear what tests Campbell had taken and the British Cycling Federation declined to be specific.

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Olympics Minister Michael Knight said the Olympic soccer field in Canberra will be resodded after an inspection revealed huge patches of dead and browning grass.

Cycling

Lance Armstrong suffered only bruises after he and another cyclist were hit by a car in southern France in an accident that destroyed his bicycle and smashed his helmet into pieces.

The two-time Tour de France champion took the brunt of the impact with the car Tuesday, but X-rays proved negative.

Another member of Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team, Tyler Hamilton, scraped his knee and elbow.

Armstrong, Hamilton and another teammate, Frankie Andreu, were training on a country road outside Nice when a car coming in the opposite direction missed a turn and ran straight into them.

Spain’s Eladio Jimenez won the fifth stage of the Tour of Spain at Xorret del Cati, his first victory as a professional rider. Alex Zulle of Switzerland retained the overall lead.

Jurisprudence

Fred Lane’s wife told a 911 operator that her husband choked and hit her and said her baby wasn’t his child before she fatally shot the NFL running back in their home at Charlotte, N.C., according to a police recording.

The 11-minute tape of the July 6 telephone conversation between Deidra Lane and the operator was released by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police one week after murder charges were filed against her in her husband’s death.

Deidra Lane told an operator that she shot her husband twice, minutes after he walked through the door of their suburban Charlotte home, according to tapes released to the Charlotte Observer.

“I was standing here and he came in. I just had the baby seven days ago,” Lane says on the tape, screaming and sobbing. “And he came in and he started choking me. He was like, ‘That baby’s not mine.’ He started hitting me. He just got shot because he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

San Antonio Spur forward Samaki Walker was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, for driving a motorcycle more than 100 mph on a highway. Walker was charged with reckless operation, fleeing an officer and driving with an expired license. He posted bond after being taken to the Franklin County Jail.

Boxing

Lennox Lewis, who had hoped to defend his heavyweight titles against David Tua in Toronto, will instead meet the No. 1 challenger Nov. 11 in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Lewis will defend the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council versions of the title against Tua, who is 37-1.

Mike Tyson will next fight Andrew Golota on Oct. 20 in the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich., Showtime announced.

Miscellany

Left wing Jason Wiemer agreed to a contract extension with the Calgary Flames. Terms weren’t disclosed. . . . Clemson basketball forward Chucky Gilmore will sit out the 2000-01 season because of a torn knee ligament, the school said.

Se Ri Pak won 10 skins to win the Lorie Kane Island Challenge skins game with a two-day total of $117,500 at Oseneath, Canada. Annika Sorenstam earned $107,500, and Nancy Lopez and Kane, who organized the competition, were shut out. . . . Stephen Got Even, a 4-year-old colt who won five of 11 starts, was retired after injuring an ankle preparing for next month’s Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park.