Dispatches

Post-Olympic pomp and partying haven't slowed Ian Thorpe. On Monday at the Australian championships in Hobart, his first major meet since winning five medals in Sydney, the Aussie swim star won the 800-meter freestyle in 7:41.59, cutting 4.41 off Kieren Perkins's world record....

The Canadian women's hockey team, which has beaten the U.S. in the final of all six world championships contested, may be without star forward Hayley Wickenheiser when this year's worlds begin in Minnesota on April 2. Canada's alltime leading scorer suffered a torn ligament in her right knee at her country's nationals on March 11....

New Zealand rower Rob Waddell, the 2000 Olympic single sculls champ, plans to compete at Athens in 2004 but not before a stint as a winch grinder for the Kiwi sailors defending the America's Cup in 2003....

In the latest blow to Athens's preparations for the 2004 Games, a reported half ton of potentially carcinogenic PCBs spilled near the proposed site for Olympic rowing close to an abandoned U.S. Naval base in Schinias, Greece. Organizers have not said whether they are considering an alternative site for rowing....

U.S. Olympic beach volleyball doubles teammates Jenny Johnson Jordan and Annett Davis will miss the 2001 season because of pregnancies. Davis, the wife of swimmer Byron Davis, is due in June; Johnson Jordan, the daughter of Olympic decathlon great Rafer Johnson, is due in October.