Czechs

Jaromir Jagr scored a hat trick, leading the defending champion Czech Republic to a 4-0 win over the United States in the quarterfinals of the hockey world championship at Bratislava, Slovakia. The Czechs will meet Sweden in the semifinals Friday. Martin Thornberg had two goals to help the Swedes beat Germany, 5-2. "It's disappointing," U.S. captain Mark Stuart said. "We had a good team and I think if we played our best game we could beat anybody in this tournament. " Jagr beat goalie Ty Conklin on a breakaway to put the Czechs ahead, 1-0, with 1:15 remaining in the opening period.

WEST, Texas - Most every small town in America has a local eatery that embodies its heart and soul - not to mention its stomach - a place where workers know the first names and the orders of customers by heart. In this tiny community of 2,800, devastated by an explosion at a fertilizer factory that left scores injured and a yet-untold number dead, the Czech Stop is the place where locals and passers-through stop for the meat and fruit kolaches, (pronounced koh-law-chee,) a taste of the town's Central European roots.

Sweden today ordered five Czechoslovaks, including four diplomats, out of the country for alleged spying activities. A Foreign Ministry statement gave no indication of the activities of the Czechs, but the Stockholm newspaper Expressen said they had been involved in military spying and industrial espionage directed against military and high-technology targets. The ministry said there had been no damage to national security.

An Orange County doctor who often saw patients at Starbucks coffeehouses has agreed to serve at least eight years in federal prison for illegally selling prescriptions for powerful painkillers and other drugs, according to court records. Alvin Ming-Czech Yee, 44, of Mission Viejo routinely wrote prescriptions for highly abused medications to patients with no legitimate need for them, authorities have alleged in court papers. Yee and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

He's a hapless genius, a self-taught gynecologist, an explorer, a mathematician, inventor of the "notorious triple hammer." He seems maddeningly real, but he is imagined, flitting like an elusive moth through stories and plays that have made him the people's choice for the greatest Czech of all time. Meet Jara Cimrman. A gray-bearded man in tweed, or so they say, he has the intellect of Albert Einstein and the haphazard charm of Mr. Magoo.

The street-side entrance to Jaroslava Martinkova's apartment building is difficult to miss. The foggy glass doors keep passersby from gazing inside, but her name appears plainly on the doorbell panel, second from the bottom in a column of 10. Yet when New York attorney Lawrence Molnar came searching for Martinkova shortly after the fall of communism, he walked by the six-story building--blackened by years of chimneys spewing soot into the wintry Prague sky--three times before ringing the bell.

The Czech capital is cluttered with churches, from humble parish chapels to the Gothic grandeur of St. Vitus Cathedral. But the temples that symbolize the wonderment of faith are mostly empty; the only wonder to most Czechs is why anyone bothers to go. Czechs are among Europe's most secular people. According to a European Union survey published last year, 19% of Czechs said they believed in God; most of the rest said they were atheists. Only the former Soviet republic of Estonia had a lower percentage of believers.

In light of all the terrorist activity in the Middle East this past month, although some will disagree, I believe many of your readers will agree with the following solution: I propose that the Palestinians be given nation status. Then they can legalize military conscription. With Arab oil money they will be able to purchase aircraft from the United States, buy tanks from the Soviet Union, get guns from the French and the Czechs and obtain Uzis from the Israelis. Then they can sign the Geneva Accords and make war like the rest of the world's civilized nations.

Though they may walk into the Valley of Death. . . . Having had their eyes opened in their opening World Cup game, a 5-1 loss to Czechoslovakia, most of the U.S. soccer players have no illusions about their chances Thursday against the tournament favorite, Italy, before an anticipated sellout crowd of 72,303 at Rome's Olympic Stadium. They can hardly take issue with the predictions in the Italian press of a goleada.

Growing up amid the deterioration of Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, artist Iva Hladis sought out the beauty and craftsmanship of the aged burgher houses along Nerudova Street and the sublime architectural stew of Prague Castle. When she settled in Los Angeles in the 1980s after a daring escape to freedom over the Alps, she felt surrounded by mini-malls, glitzy high-rises and faux palaces - architecture she found to be "very mundane, boring, almost ugly. " In her meanderings through the city, however, she gradually located buildings of character, charm and, yes, beauty, if not the antiquity of Czech castles.

Tomas Berdych giggled after he hit good shots on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night. Sometimes it almost felt as if a situation comedy were being filmed. The sixth-seeded Berdych, who had shocked Roger Federer at the Wimbledon quarterfinals two years ago, tickled and teased the top-seeded Federer with whipping forehands and timely volleys until he upset him again with a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open on Wednesday night. And then Berdych couldn't stop smiling.

LONDON -- Modern pentathlon has been in the Olympics since 1912, when Baron Pierre de Coubertin thought soldiers and cavalrymen needed their own event. He came up with the modern version (there had been pentathlon in the ancient Greek Olympics) that included fencing, swimming, shooting, horseback riding and running over the course of five days. De Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, probably didn't envision a Mexican food stand at the riding grounds hawking burritos and chips and salsa, but, hey, times change.

LONDON -- The United States has locked down at least one medal in women's beach volleyball, the color or colors to be determined, after two quarterfinal wins Sunday. Defending Olympic champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings quickly defeated Italians Greta Cicolari and Marta Menegatti in two sets, and Jennifer Kessy and April Ross beat the Czech Republic's Marketa Slukova and Kristyna Kolocova to advance to the semifinal round. The victories mean the American teams can finish no lower than third and fourth, ensuring the U.S. at least a bronze medal in the tournament at Horse Guards Parade.

LONDON — The amazing Olympic run of the Williams sisters continued Sunday when they teamed to win the gold medal in women's doubles. Venus and Serena Williams defeated Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-4, in the final. The sisters' victory came a day after Serena had won the singles title, completing her career Golden Slam and, in the minds of many, separating herself from all other tennis players. No one else in the sport's history has won all four major championships and Olympic gold in both singles and doubles.

LONDON — Let's play a game of "What If?," since after the Czech Republic's sizzling first quarter, the U.S. women's team didn't have much of a basketball game Friday night. If the U.S., which improved to 4-0 in pool play with its 88-61 cakewalk at Basketball Arena, could play and practice together for more than the seven weeks they have had, how good could they be? "Oh, man," U.S. forward Maya Moore said. "That'd be scary. " PHOTOS: London Olympics, Day 7 Added teammate Candace Parker: "I'd like to think we'd be amazing.

Karch Kiraly, a Santa Barbara native and a UCLA biochemistry graduate, is arguably the world's best volleyball player. He was on the U.S. gold-medal team in the '84 Olympics, was most valuable player of the '85 World Cup in Japan and is a finalist for the Amateur Athletics Union's Sullivan Award, honoring the year's top amateur athlete. The winner will be announced Monday night. Q: What are your chances of winning the Sullivan Award?

John Balzar's "God Have Mercy, War Has Come Home" (Commentary, Sept. 12) observed, "Sixty years ago, America tried to draw a curtain around itself. Sixty years later, it wanted to build a shield." Very observant. "Star Wars" increasingly looks like another Maginot Line, France's shield against Germany before World War II. Germany's counterpart was the Siegfried Line. The Czechs also had such a line. Neville Chamberlain rendered the Czech line irrelevant when he won "peace in our time."

WIMBLEDON, England -- The match began under the blue sky of a humid English late afternoon. It ended in the Twilight Zone. A kid from the Czech Republic who never even had qualified for Wimbledon before now, a kid who is ranked 100th, stunned the tennis world by defeating one of the game's all-time greats, Rafael Nadal. All that Lukas Rosol had in common with Nadal was his age, 26. But Rosol, hitting every shot, serve, forehand, backhand, as if he were intent on smashing the ball halfway to France, upset Spain's Nadal, 6-7 (9)

Petr Jiracek scored a second-half winner to give the Czech Republic a 1-0 victory over Poland and a place in the quarterfinals of the European Championship on Saturday at Wroclaw, Poland. Poland, the tournament co-host, was knocked out with its defeat in the team's final Group A game. The Czechs finished top of the group and will now play the runners-up in Group B. Pushing forward in the 72nd minute, Jiracek collected a pass from Milan Baros in the box, cut right to clear past Poland's Marcin Wasilewski and slotted the ball inside the far post.