US athletics team aims to 'stay on top of medals table'

(BEIJING, June 12) -- Members of the 130-strong American athletics team competing at the Olympic Games will start arriving in Beijing, in various groups, in early August, giving them enough time to get acclimatized. But before that, the team members have to be selected to represent their country by first competing at the Olympic Trials. These will be held in Eugene, Oregon, between June 27 and July 6. The athletes chosen to represent the US will then be formally named on July 13.

Jill Geer, the director of Communications of the US Track and Field, asked by one of this website's writers in a telephone interview, how many gold medals the US was expecting to win at the Olympic Games, said that there was no specific number planned. "The team's hopes are always for us to be the world's number one."

Was the US hoping its athletes to achieve better performances in Beijing than they did at the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan, last August-September? "As I have already stated," said Geer, "our goal is to stay on top of the medals table. We hope to continue winning medals in our traditional strong events, such as the sprints and hurdles. But we also hope to come up with some surprises as well."

Asked about the expected weather conditions prevailing at the time of the athletics program between August 15 and 24, Geer said that the weather was not really an issue. "It's the competition that matters," she added. The temperature in Beijing in August is normally around the 36 Celsius mark.