LONDON — Triple Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt was in trouble with track officials again at the London Olympics Saturday when he tried to keep the baton from the 4x100 meters relay after the Jamaicans smashed the world record in the event. After the relay, 100 and 200 champion Bolt could be seen talking animatedly to an official on the track before handing over the baton as the crowd booed. “I got the baton back but at the start he was saying I couldn't keep it because it's the rule," a smiling Bolt told a news conference. “It was kind of weird because he actually told me that if I didn't give it back I would be disqualified so I just gave it back to him," he added to laughter. “I took a picture with the guys, and I am going to frame the picture and put the baton below it - just something to remind me of London." The 25-year-old had apparently fallen foul of the rules earlier in the week when a skipping rope was taken off him before the 100m final. Bolt told reporters he was going to smuggle it into the stadium but he was allowed to use the rope to warm up before the 200 semifinals. “He took the baton because he wanted all of us to sign it because of what we have done tonight and what Britain has seen tonight," teammate Yohan Blake told reporters. Running stateless Among the runners in Sunday's marathon was one without a country. Guor Marial fled a refugee camp in what is now South Sudan during a civil war more than a decade ago. He landed in the United States, seeking asylum. “I'm representing the whole world, basically," he says. Marial was competing under the banner of the International Olympic Committee. He had “I.O.A." printed on his new gray and black uniform for the race, just as he recently did on his new jacket: Independent Olympic Athlete. Marial has run only two marathons in his life, but finished both in Olympic times. His second was just two months ago. Quick wit Patrick Sandusky serves as the primary spokesman for the US Olympic Committee, meaning his job is to know exactly what to say. It's a skill he put on display Saturday. At a USOC news conference, a British journalist wanted to know why Americans feel comfortable calling their country the greatest in the world. He phrased the question like so: “For people from here, it's a bit of a strange thing to say. We don't really talk about our countries in the way you guys do. So do you genuinely think the USA is the best country in the world?" Sandusky immediately sprung into action, asking US chef de mission Teresa Edwards to answer the question. “Teresa, you can start answering the question from the gentleman who comes from the country with the word ‘Great' in the front of the title, Great Britain," Sandusky said to much laughter. Soccer attendances Attendance for the men's and women's soccer tournaments at the London Games set an Olympic record Saturday after 86,162 fans saw Mexico beat Brazil in the men's final at Wembley Stadium. That crowd took the cumulative total for the 32 men's and 26 women's matches to 2,186,930 - bettering the previous record set in Beijing four years ago when 2,137,462 watched the tournament. In all 1,525,134 watched the men's games compared to 1,397,448 in Beijing and 740,014 watched the women's matches there compared to 661,796 here. An Olympic and European record attendance of 80,203 for a women's match was set when the United States played Japan in the final at Wembley Thursday. No WiFi? Soon after leading Japan to a bronze medal in the women's volleyball competition nSaturday, coach Masayoshi Manabe called the London Games “the toughest environment I've had to coach in." Not because of opponents South Korea but because the Earls Court venue didn't provide the data-crunching coach with the WiFi network he needed to analyze real time data of his opponents. Manabe called the omission of an Internet connection on court a “huge surprise" that the competing teams had asked organizers to rectify early in the competition, to no avail. “We got the information we needed, with a delay," Manabe said. Fastest goal Mexico's early goal against Brazil in the men's gold medal soccer match has been officially recognized as the fastest in the competition since records began in 1976. FIFA, soccer's world governing body, said it still doesn't know if it's the fastest goal ever in the Olympics because it hasn't kept track of all tournaments. The fastest goal ever in a senior soccer competition was scored by Turkey's Hakan Sukur — 11 seconds into a match in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. Brazil's Fabinho was even quicker in the 2007 under-17 World Cup in South Korea, netting after just nine seconds. — Agencies
