A chance to root for the home team
Updated: Friday August 20, 2004 11:38AM 
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Partisan Party
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Marco Galiazzo won Italy's first archery gold medal.
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Screaming Italians everywhere. Vai! Bravissimo. Campione. You can hear the cheers from the offices of Corriere Della Sera because our workspace is separated from the Milan-based daily newspaper by a partition with the soundproofing qualities of fettuccini. The screams were for Italian archer Marco Galiazzo, who became Italy's first ever archery gold medalist yesterday when he defeated Hiroshi Yamamoto of Japan. The 21-year-old was the second-ranked Italian archer heading into the competition and finished 49th at the last World Championships. It was a sweet shocker and the roar for Galiazzo is by far the loudest roar I've ever heard for an archer, as well as the first. It offers an interesting contrast between American and foreign journalists. The "no-cheering-in-the-press box" maxim is a long-standing tradition among most U.S. sportswriters and it is a law to be followed and respected. But the Olympics are a different animal and while American journalists may not root, root, root in public for the home team, the coverage is undeniably parochial and U.S-centric. Check out USA Today's Olympic coverage yesterday, at least the one we get in Athens. The top stories include the U.S. women's 4 x 200 free relay gold medal, U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm's win in the all-around, U.S. softballer Jennie Finch and her undefeated teammates, the frustration of U.S. breaststroker Brendan Hansen, the spiraling fortunes of beach volleyball's Dean Blanton and Jeff Nygaard, and the stunning elimination of U.S. tennis stars Andy Roddick and Venus Williams. The story on the lead page of the Olympics bonus section highlighted the shot put competition taking place at Ancient Olympia Stadium but it centered around Adam Nelson's silver medal run (Bravo, though, to the full page graphic explaining the restoration of the temple of Athena). You can't blame USA Today (call me a populist but if I was stranded on a desert island and could choose one newspaper, I'm sending my money to McLean, Va.) for its editorial judgement. After all, it is called USA Today. And it's not as if my magazine hasn't put Michael Phelps on the cover for the second time in three weeks. The Olympics are a local story for every locale in the U.S. But there's certainly a tinge of call it what you want -- advocacy, cheerleading, patriotism -- during the Olympics and you wonder sometimes if the Europeans don't have it right by removing the veneer of objectivity during the moment of the actual competition and acting like Italians first and impartial observers second. I went over to talk to the newspaper staff late last night and encountered a clove of garlic on a closed door, presumably to ward off Olympic bloggers who have run out of fresh ideas when the paper is on deadline. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) has rented the office on the opposite side from Corriere Della Sera. They never make any noise but they do have cool Olympic posters ... SI writer Kelli Anderson and I made a post-midnight journey last night to the Athens main port of Piraeus to check out the Silver Wind liner, which is housing some VIPs including SI's always hospitable business-side folks. Next to Silver Wind is the Queen Mary 2, the world's largest luxury line which can accommodate 2,600 passengers and the country of Costa Rica. The security to enter the port was the most impressive of the Games: three sets of checkpoints, elite commandos, barbed-wire fences, surveillance cameras, and because we were guests on a night pass, we had to be escorted onto the ship. My guidebook says Piraeus has been Athens' port since 493 when Themistokles concocted a plan to create a naval base for the growing Athenian fleet. Wonder what Themistokles would think of the U.S. men's basketball team being housed on the QM2 during these Games. They haven't defended anybody since arriving in Athens.
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Don't Miss
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• Track: Men's 10,000 Final, OAKA Olympic Stadium
No runner has ever won win three straight gold medals in an individual track event which makes this race potentially extraordinary. Ethiopia's distance dynamo Haile Gebrselassie, who is nursing an Achilles' tendon injury, goes for the three-peat. NBC will air the race live at 2:35PM EST. Don't miss it.
• Swimming: Men's 50 Freestyle Final, OAKA Aquatic Centre
Defending champion Gary Hall swam the sixth-fastest time in the semifinals. That won't come close to beating South African Ronald Mark Schoeman or fellow American Jason Lesak in today's final.
• Swimming: Men's 100 Butterfly OAKA Aquatic Centre
Michael Phelps goes for his fifth gold medal but teammate Ian Crocker, the world-record holder and the Trials winner, won't be a pushover.
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Americans To Watch
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The U.S. women's soccer team faces Japan in a quarterfinal match ... Laura Wilkinson begins her defense of her Olympic platform diving title ... the U.S. women's basketball team takes on Spain.
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Greek Tragedies
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Finally, we promise, the last word on the Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou saga from a razor-sharp editorial in the country's top-selling daily newspaper, Ta Nea: "The future of sport in the country lies in the hotbeds of new athletes in sports which they serve out of love, dedication and willpower, rather than the excessive [material] benefits, reminiscent of totalitarian regimes, that only create comet-champions."
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Faster, Higher, Stronger
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After losing to the U.S. team 77-71 on Tuesday, Greece coach Panayiotus Yiannakis didn't hold back when asked about his team's next opponent. "Compared to the U.S., said Yiannakis, Lithuania are excellent at shooting." The personal ad of the day comes from Athens Daily: "Greek presentable, slim lady, 37, wishes to meet a gentleman up to 70. Now that's range, people.
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