Some names in the Beijing Games

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Alan Thompson, Australia’s head swim team coach, tells Reuters that Michael Phelps is the kind of swimmer who could rise to the occasion as he tries to win eight Olympic golds.

Thompson, speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur, where his team is practicing, described Phelps as a ‘sensational swimmer. ... He thrives on the more events and the more success he has. It’ll be tough to do, a tough program. But he’s a very capable young man.’

Mountain bike rider Klaus Nielsen on Tuesday was selected to replace banned cyclist Peter Riis Andersen on Denmark’s Olympic squad. Riis Andersen was barred from the Beijing Games after admitting that he’d taken a banned blood booster. The 28-year-old Nielsen finished second to Riis Andersen in the Danish mountain bike championships July 20.

Former Italian pole vault world champion Giuseppe Gibilisco is threatening to pull out of the Beijing Games because Coach Vitaly Petrov is spending too much time with women’s world and Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva.

‘At this moment I’m behind in my preparation,’ Gibilisco told an Italian newspaper. ‘I don’t want to go to Beijing just to make up the numbers.’

-- Greg Johnson