Joanna Hayes

Rulon Gardner hit the Olympic wrestling mat Tuesday, beginning defense of his 2000 gold medal, and the earth shook. You could look it up: Gardner participated in three pool matches in the Greco-Roman wrestling super-heavyweight class, won them all, and the Athens Geodynamic Institute reported a tremor with a preliminary magnitude of 4.5. Mere coincidence? The quake was a relatively small one.

Going into Kentucky Derby Week, an inescapable story is Barbaro, last year's Derby winner who broke a leg in the Preakness and then battled for his life before being euthanized Jan. 29. Last fall, Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports, decided to tell the story in a documentary. He also realized he might face competition. So Greenburg made a deal with the horse's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson.

Gail Devers was frustrated yet again in her quest for a gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles. Devers, 37, fell to the track in pain before the first hurdle in her first heat Sunday, brought down by a severely strained left calf muscle. She sustained the injury seven days ago while training near her Atlanta home but tried to fight through it to end a jinx that saw her fall in the hurdles final in 1992, finish fourth in the event in 1996 and pull up lame in the semifinal in 2000.

Summer is a great time for teen-agers to learn in a way that is refreshingly different from sitting in a classroom: volunteering. No matter a student's favorite subject or career interest, there are opportunities to volunteer in that field this summer. Volunteering can help students improve in related school subjects and make career decisions. It also looks good on a college application or job resume.

Greg Norman had five birdies on the back nine for a 66, five under par, and a share of the first-round lead Thursday with Nick Price in the Kemper Open golf tournament at Potomac, Md. Price, also playing a late-afternoon round after the sun had dried the course from weekend rains, also had five birdies on the back nine in his bogey-free round. Jeff Sluman, Paul Stankowski and Kelly Gibson were a stroke behind at 67, and Tom Lehman and Ben Crenshaw topped a six-player group at 68.

Win your qualifying heat while expending as little energy as possible and then start looking forward to the final. That's what Marquis Jones of Cal State Northridge was thinking Saturday on the first day of the California-Nevada state track and field championships at CSUN. Jones, a senior from Hawthorne High, posted the fastest qualifying time in the 110-meter high hurdles when he won the second of three heats in a time of 14.11 seconds. The time was shy of the 13.

In one weekend, Justin Gatlin overcame more obstacles than a squad of hurdlers. The 23-year-old sprinter sank to emotional depths Friday when he thought he'd false-started out of the 100-meter preliminaries, but soared to new heights Sunday when he became the first man to win the 100- and 200-meter titles at the U.S. championships since Kirk Baptiste in 1985.

The U.S. track and field trials begin today. USA Network and NBC share the television coverage this year, beginning Saturday. But don't look for it Tuesday and Wednesday, because that's when the trials take a break. Here are the key events, and athletes to watch. Today Women's 100-meter qualifying and quarterfinals: A remarkably deep field led by Allyson Felix, Marshevet Hooker, Torri Edwards, Carmelita Jeter and Muna Lee.

For Olympian Michelle Perry, the initial results of her addition-by-subtraction approach are encouraging. With time and energy being precious, Perry, who finished 14th in the heptathlon at the 2004 Athens Games, is forgoing the event to concentrate on the 100-meter hurdles. "I started running really well and we decided to go with it," said Perry, 26, who will run the hurdles today at the USA Track and Field Championships at the Home Depot Center.

Beijing Ask Dawn Harper where she's from and she will say East St. Louis, Ill., a city notorious for its hopeless poverty and tragic blight. She actually grew up in nearby Belleville, in a secure home with caring parents. But it was in East St. Louis that she came to know the person who taught her she could negotiate any hurdle, not only those laid out on a 100-meter course. Harper was a youngster when she met Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who had emerged from East St. Louis to be crowned Olympic champion three times and medalist six times but returned to open a community center for children.