North Korea’s gymnasts have been suspended from the world championships starting next week because one team member’s age had been falsified.

The International Gymnastics Federation said Thursday it provisionally suspended North Korea’s federation and gymnast Hong Su Jong for 30 days, ruling them out of the worlds – being held Oct. 16-24 in Rotterdam – and any other international or national event.

North Korea – which entered four women, including Hong, and two men to compete at the worlds – can appeal to the FIG within five days.

The FIG’s disciplinary commission met Wednesday and noted that Hong’s entry for the worlds had her birth date as March 9, 1989.

FIG documents show that she competed at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2006 worlds using a birth year of 1985, and won the silver medal on vault at the 2007 worlds using 1986.

If Hong was born in 1989, she would have been ineligible to compete in Athens. Gymnasts must turn at least 16 in the calendar year of an Olympics to be eligible.

Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, when the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to help protect still-developing athletes from serious injuries. The minimum age has been 16 since 1997.

It seems pretty dumb to me that the North Koreans thought they could slip a age change for Jong through without anyone noticing. All the publicity stemming from Chinese athletes at the 2008 Olympics have most likely made officials scrutunize age claims more seriously.

Was it fair to ban the whole team? I think so because it was North Korea’s responsibility to make sure of the age of its athletes. Jong’s prior history makes this look like a blatant effort at cheating.

Like with the Men’s tournament, I’ll take a shot at making some guesses predictions in the women’s also.

Tina Charles, Maya Moore and the latest Connecticut Huskies dynasty now have their own place in the record books.

Charles scored 16 points and Moore added 11 to help top-ranked Connecticut win an NCAA record 71st straight game — a 59-44 victory over Notre Dame (No. 7 ESPN/USA Today, No. 6 AP) on Monday night in the semifinals of the Big East tournament.

UConn surpassed its own mark set from Nov. 9, 2001, to March 11, 2003. Unlike that amazing run, which ended in a loss in the Big East conference tournament semifinals to Villanova, this Huskies team has thoroughly dominated its opponents in every game, winning all of them by double digits.

Connecticut (32-0) will face either West Virginia or Rutgers on Tuesday night with a chance to win its 16th Big East conference tournament championship.

Maybe the most spectacular aspect of UConn’s record is the fact they have seldom been behind in any of the 71 games. Has there ever been a more perfect sports team?

Montana State University’s women’s basketball program and the Bobcat Club are the beneficiaries of a $200,000 estate gift.

The MSU Athletics Department announced Friday that the gift was made by Ellen Kreighbaum, a pioneer in Bobcat women’s athletics.

The women’s basketball team will get $170,000, while the remaining $30,000 will go to the Bobcat Club for student-athlete scholarships.

Kreighbaum was instrumental in starting the MSU women’s basketball program in the late 1960s. She also helped establish the women’s athletic department at MSU.

Ellen Kreighbaum’s affiliation with Montana State began in the mid-1960′s. Prior to 1968 the school didn’t have a women’s athletic program.

The Florida High School I attended was bequeathed money to build its own swimming pool. It was still held up in probate at the time of my graduation.

The women’s basketball coach at an East Texas junior college and one of his players was released on bond Thursday after their arrests after a game.

Trinity Valley Community College coach Bill Damuth was freed from Washington County Jail on $1,500 bond Thursday, a day after Blinn College police arrested him on a charge of resisting arrest. Freed on $2,500 bond was Lesha Dunn, Trinity Valley’s 6-foot-4 freshman post player from Canada, who was charged with assault on a police officer.

According to Blinn spokeswoman Cathy Boeker, Damuth angrily charged game officials at the final buzzer of No. 4-ranked Trinity Valley’s 61-55 loss Wednesday night at Blinn, then struggled with a campus police officer who was trying to restrain him.

Boeker says Dunn came to her coach’s aid, grabbed the arm of the officer trying to restrain Damuth, then struggled from behind with a second officer who was trying to place Damuth in handcuffs.

Both spent the night in the Washington County Jail in Brenham before their arraignments Thursday morning.

The charge of resisting arrest is abused by law enforcement officials all the time. Without further facts, I won’t comment on the criminal charges. As for being angry at officials, Coach Damuth needs more self control.

Rutgers suspended Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer on Tuesday for one game for misusing practice players.

Duncan Williams/Icon SMIC. Vivian Stringer was found to have violated an NCAA bylaw that bars managers from participating as practice players. Rutgers has only nine players on its roster.

Stringer will miss the Scarlet Knights’ game against Seton Hall on Wednesday. She is third among women’s coaches on the all-time victories list with 838 wins and was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last September.

Stringer violated an NCAA bylaw which states that managers may not participate as practice players with the institution’s team if they are not eligible student-athletes.

“Accountability is a vital element of the Rutgers athletics family,” the school’s athletic director, Tim Pernetti, said in a statement. “We will always follow what is in accordance with athletic department and NCAA policy.”

Associate head coach Carlene Mitchell will be the acting head coach against Seton Hall.

Rutgers is down to nine players due to one player transferring away from the school. In my opinion a one-game suspension or a warning is enough punishment for this particular rules violation.

1 Cleveland beats the LA Lakers for the NBA Championship
2 Indianapolis defeats Arizona in the Super Bowl
3 San Jose defeats Washington for the Stanley Cup
4 St. Louis beats the Los Angeles Angels in the World Series
5 Tiger Woods returns to golf, wins at least one tournament but no major championships. That is a risky prediction in light of the fact that Tiger has won majors on 3 of this year’s host courses.(Augusta National, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews)
6 Phil Mickelson wins the US Open
7 Michelle Wie wins at least two tournaments, one of which is a major championship
8 Ji Yai Shin is LPGA player of the year
9 A non-Korean golfer will be LPGA rookie of the year
10 Yu-Na Kim wins figure skating gold at the 2010 Olympics
11 The Miami Dolphins don’t make this year’s playoffs but have a winning 2010 season
12 The Miami Heat make the playoffs but lose in the 1st round
13 The Florida Marlins have a winning record but don’t make the playoffs
14 Urban Meyer doesn’t return as coach of the Florida Gators
15 Joe Paterno announces his retirement after the 2010 Penn State season is complete
16 The Florida Panthers don’t make the playoffs
17 The Florida Panthers trade Goalie Tomas Vokoun
18 Manny Pacquiao loses to Floyd Mayweather
19 Kansas defeats Purdue for the NCAA Basketball Championship
20 Texas defeats Alabama in the BCS Championship game
21 Army has a winning football season and gets a bowl invitation
22 Washington Redskins fire Coach Jim Zorn
23 Serena Williams wins at Wimbledon
24 Versus and Directv finally settle their dispute
25 A North American horse racing track closes its doors.
26 Sebastian Vettel wins the Formula World Drivers Championship
27 New York Rangers fire Coach John Tortorella
28 The New Jersey Nets don’t finish with the worst record in NBA history
29 Connecticut defeats Tennessee for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship
30 At least half these predictions are wrong

We’ll come back on December 31st 2010 and see how I did.

Jackie Moore, a 28-year-old assistant women’s basketball coach at Eastern Illinois, has died.

Moore was in her third season at the school. She graduated from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., in 2005 and was from Windsor, Ontario.

Mike McLaughlin is the new women’s basketball coach at the University of Pennsylvania, joining the Ivy League school after winning more than 400 games at Division II Holy Family University.

Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky announced the hiring Friday. McLaughlin replaces Patrick Knapp, who was fired last month after going 48-90 overall and 28-42 in the Ivy in five seasons with the Quakers.

McLaughlin went 407-61 in 14 seasons at Holy Family and won his 400th game faster than any women’s coach in NCAA history. He reached the milestone in 459 games, beating former Louisiana Tech coach Leon Barmore, who needed 463.

That’s an incredible record. That said, it will take more than few miracles for McLaughlin to do the same at Penn.

SARASOTA — Cristina Noble, the first woman to cross the finish line at Sunday’s Sarasota Marathon, has been disqualified.

Race officials say she missed electronic checkpoints at mile 17 and 18 of the Sarasota race. Course monitors confirmed that she did not run a mile of the marathon on Ken Thompson Parkway.

The official women’s winner of the 2008 ABC-7 Sarasota Marathon is now Madeleine Zolfo, 43, of Treasure Island. She learned the news Monday night.

Madeleine Zolfo finished three minutes behind Sunday’s winner, but was named the winner Monday.

“It’s kind of a bittersweet phone call to get,” Zolfo said. “You know, to win because someone else got disqualified.”

Zolfo said the course was clearly marked on City Island, but she doesn’t know what happened with Noble.

Race officials didn’t elaborate. Noble is supposed to be a gifted runner with a similar time in last year’s Detroit marathon. Without her side of the story we can only guess what happened in Sarasota.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – The IOC formally stripped Marion Jones of her five Olympic medals Wednesday, wiping her name from the record books following her admission that she was a drug cheat.

The International Olympic Committee also banned the disgraced American athlete from attending next year’s Beijing Olympics in any capacity and said it could bar her from all future games.

Jones had already handed back the three gold medals and two bronze she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones’ results dating to September 2000, but it was up to the IOC to formally disqualify her and erase her Olympic medals.

The decision was announced by IOC president Jacques Rogge at the end of a three-day executive board meeting.

Jones won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600-meter relay in Sydney, and bronze in the long jump and 100-meter relay. She was the first female track and field athlete to win five medals at a single Olympics.

*****

The IOC postponed a decision on redistributing her medals, including whether to strip her American relay teammates and whether to upgrade doping-tainted Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou to gold in the 100.

The IOC’s move comes as no surprise. One thing I find intersiting is Jones not being to be at any future Olympics. Can she still attend the games as a spectator or does it just forbid her from associating with athletes?

Also the IOC postponed any decision to take away Jones’ relay teammates medals. I don’t see how they can take Jones while not taking the others. This sounds unfair to the gold medalists, but the IOC can’t just go half way in my opinion.

Before the LPGA’s new South Florida stop could have its formal unveiling, the event has landed in court.

Organizers of an annual 10-day Passover vacation retreat at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle have sued the resort for breach of contract, alleging they are being kicked out to make room for the LPGA.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, asks the court to uphold the contract. Some 500 Orthodox Jews from around the world are expected in Aventura for the retreat.

*****

According to court papers, the Fairmont Turnberry Isle is in the final year of a three-year agreement to hold the Presidential Holidays package. Next year’s retreat is set for April 17-27.

The 2008 LPGA schedule features an April 24-27 stop in South Florida. Although details have been kept under wraps, Turnberry Isle’s role is central to the lawsuit.

*****

The Fairmont Turnberry Isle recently completed a $100 million transformation, including a $30 million redesign of its two championship courses. The resort held the ADT Skills Challenge earlier this month.

According to sources with knowledge of the negotiations, the LPGA event will be a celebrity pro-am in the mold of Pebble Beach.

Resort officials had no response to the lawsuit. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts manages the property for owners FHR TB LLC.

If Turnberry Isle has a contract with the Jewish group, I don’t see any way for the resort to get out of committment. That doesn’t mean the LPGA couldn’t still play in South Florida next April. It would just have to take place at a different golf course.

I do hope the tournament takes place. Like with the ADT Championship, I was hoping to cover it again as a credentialed member of the media.

BERLIN: German pole-vaulter Yvonne Buschbaum announced her retirement Wednesday, saying she had long felt as if she were “in the wrong body” and planned hormone treatment.

Buschbaum, 27, finished third at the European Championships in 1998 and 2002.

“I feel as if I am a man and have to live my life in the body of a woman,” Buschbaum said in a statement on her Web site announcing her retirement. “I am aware of the fact that transsexuality is a fringe issue, and I do not want to be responsible for it remaining on the fringe.”

Buschbaum asked for respect for her decision and urged observers “not to draw false conclusions.”

“I do not dope,” she said, adding that her “upcoming hormone treatment” contributed to her decision to quit, as did a persistent injury.

Anyone else note the irony in Buschbaum being a ‘pole’ vaulter.

Good luck to Yvonne or whatever name she takes in the future.

I was present when Christina slammed her club in the bag after her tee shot found the drink at that dangerous par 3. Golfers are people too, they rather forget their failures.

*- The Sarah Lee double mystery is solved. I spoke to Sarah’s father after the round.

Sarah who was born in London England and lived there for the first three and a half years of her life and is really named Sarah. That’s her official/legal name.

Today was a rough day for Sarah. She can burn up a course like few others on the LPGA Tour. Sarah will find the winner’s circle one day.

*- Scoring varied widely in the ADT’s final round. To have players spread out 16 shots from top to bottom is hardly unusual for a professional golf event. Except when there were so few players to start with. Who would have expected Karrie Webb to shoot a final round 84?

*- Several small tweaks to the ADT’s format may occur before next year’s event. $50,000 to the golfer who shoots the low round every day and an automatic invite back to the winner.

Good ideas though I seriously doubt Lorena will need the invite.

*- Natalie Gulbis is the ADT’s good luck charm. In 2006, she played with Julieta Granada in the final round, this year with Ochoa.

Expect a tug of war over who gets Natalie for a playing partner if she qualifies to the final eight again in 2008.

Only days after her 26th birthday, Lorena Ochoa got a million dollar birthday present. Taking the ADT Championship with a final round 68 to win by two shots . Natalie Gulbis finished a solo second with a round of 70. Paula Creamer finished third after shooting an even par round of 70.

Out of her million dollar winnings, Lorena will give $100,000 for flood relief in the State of Tabasco.

Lorena will make other donations.

“I don’t have a number, but whatever we(her foundation) need. Sí, just we’ll see. I want to make sure—we have plans to buy land and to start construction at the high school, so I want to find good things to do with the money.”

Lorena got things going early on Sunday morning. On the second hole, Super Mex hit a 50 degree wedge from 85 yards to fifteen feet. Lorena made the putt to go one under for the day.

A wedge to ten feet on the third, and a 7-wood to six feet on the fifth also resulted in birdies. After another birdie on six, Lorena was four under par for the tournament and four shots up.

Noone would get closer than three before hole 17. The seventh hole jumping up and grabbing several of Lorena’s closest pursuers. The par 3 hole playing an average of 4.75 strokes for the day.

Lorena seemed to be on cruise control till the 17th hole. Her 8-iron tee shot of 155 yards going over the green but without finding water. It took four more shots for Lorena to find the bottom of the hole.

By the time she walked off the 17th green, Lorena’s lead was down to one. Natalie Gulbis, playing in the same group as Lorena, had made birdie after hitting her tee shot to fifteen feet on 17.

Lorena admitted to being mad when she got to the 18th tee box. Then her tee shot cut it dangerously close to the water on the right side, landing in the rough. Natalie after a good drive, hitting her 3 rescue second shot to some fifteen feet from the hole.

Considering Lorena still faced a tough shot to a difficult hole, some may have thought Gulbis was thinking of a win but Natalie wasn’t.

“Playoff did. Lorena can make par from anywhere. But I thought I just wanted a chance to be able to make that putt to push it to a playoff. That’s what I was hoping for. I didn’t even consider that I would be able to win it outright.”

Lorena then smoothly hit her 6-iron approach shot to two feet from the cup. Effectively sealing her eigth win of the year.

Eight wins, almost five million and earnings, a major championship and player of the year. What did Lorena have to say afterwards when asked what’s next.

“No, there is always room to improve. I want to get much better in my short game, especially 100 yards, 110, 100, 90, 80. I hit them just okay, maybe 10 feet. But at the same time with a 9 iron, 8 iron, 7 iron, I need to improve on my short distances.”

An improved Lorena Ochoa is a scary proposition. A deserving winner for a wonderful tournament. Now we have to wait three months till the LPGA 2008 begins. I can hardly wait.