China Athletics

A member of China's national swimming team who fled from Hong Kong on Oct. 4 said he plans to remain in the United States until his country "settles down." Yang Yang, 20, told a news conference here Thursday that he has no immediate plans to seek asylum in the United States although he supports the pro-democracy movement. He said his main wish "is to return home once the country settles down and there is freedom and democracy."

China's Yu Xiaoling finished first in the women's one-meter team event Thursday, and teammate Tan Liangde edged American Kent Ferguson in the men's three-meter team competion of the FINA World Cup. Yu was just ahead of teammate Gao Min, the Olympic springboard gold medalist, scoring 481.98 points for her 10 dives at the Indiana University Natatorium. Gao, who said through an interpreter that she spends little time on the one-meter board, had 468.24 points. Tan, second to Greg Louganis on the three-meter board in both the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, scored 640.98 points to lead the men's field of 27 hoping to score high enough to move into the individual competition.

Distance running long has had a god in Finland's Paavo Nurmi, who set 35 world records in the 1920s and '30s. Now it might have its goddess in China's Wang Junxia. When she won the 3,000 meters Monday in 8 minutes 6.11 seconds during China's National Games at Beijing, it was the fourth time in six days over three distances that she has run faster than the previous world record.

As a cluster of unusual profiles came across the screens in a Tokyo drug-testing laboratory examining urine from Asian Games athletes last October, it was evident something was wrong. Indeed, these were the first signs athletes were using the potent anabolic steroid dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Ten Chinese athletes were caught with the banned male hormone before and during the Asian Games, and two more Chinese female weightlifters were caught a month later at the World Championships.

The Women's World Cup soccer final between the United States and China is sold out and more than 85,000 people are expected Saturday at the Rose Bowl. The crowd would be a record for a women's sporting event. The record is 78,972 for the World Cup opening ceremonies and the U.S.-Denmark and Brazil-Mexico games at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on June 19.