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Show ll~~ NAT'L SPORTS Broncos parade draws huge crowds welcome home rally Monday, following their victory over the Green Bay Packers in Sunday's By THE ASSOC IATED PRESS championship game. Adults t0ok the day off work and kids missed Thousands gather for Broncos parade school to flock to Mile High Stadium, where a Hundreds of thousands of fans cheered and waved buoyant crowd of at least 25,000 roared and threw banners as the Super Bowl champion Denver confetti when the team finally arrived a welcomeBroncos - led by owner Pat Bowlen an d coach home rally just before Mike Shanahan atop fire trucks paraded through downtown today. 7p.m. Fans started lining up at "We're the best .... I }ove the noon outside the stadium, Broncos. It gives me dulls," said which opened at 3 p.m. "I Melinda O'Shea, who had come feel like five hours was 25 miles from her home to share nothing compared to the 38 in the excitement. years we waited," said Fans, ecstatic over a longRobert Bluhm, 47, of awaited Super Bowl win, began Denver. "It was well worth gathering in Civic Center Park it." before 8 a.m. to ensure a good Jared Jones skipped his viewing spot for the parade and classes at Colorado rally. The crowd, estimated by University, arriving at 2:45 city officials at 400,000, crammed p.m. to celebrate the team's sidewalks, watched from windows first Super Bowl in high rises, climbed trees and championship in five tr.ies. light poles and stood on roofs to ~ " I've waited my whole life get a glimpse of their team. g; to win," said Jones, 21. " I Bowlen, riding the lead foe ~ can wait a fcw more hours truck, hoisted the Vince Lombardi to see them in person." Trophy which goes to the Super Chanting "El-way," "ElBowl w inner. way,'' fans shook orange The players piled into six buses ~ pompoms and waved decorated orange and blue with "" banners as quarterback "Super Bowl XXXIl Champions" Terrell Davis (30), Super Bowl XXXII John Elway - a veteran of written across the sides of one. MVP, and t eammate Maa Tanuvasa four of the Broncos' Super Players leaned out w indows (98) ride on a fire truck during a Super Bowl berths - crossed the grabbing fans' hands and Bowl victory parade in downtown field to the stage. videotaping the excitement. Denver yesterday. The players and coaches City crews barricaded off a deserved to win, he said, number of streets along the parade "but for 38 years, you guys have been there and you route, and urged fans to use mass transit and carpool into the do\\.°ntov.n area, where parking spaces deserve it more than anybody." " l wasn't sure we were ever going to get to do .ire at a premium on typical workdays. this, but isn't it fun to stick that one finger in the At least two Denver-area school districts allowed air and say we are the best?" srndents with notes from parents to leave school So hoarse his voice was nearly a whisper, for the activities. Shanahan said to wild applause, " We've got the The parade was set after the Broncos attended a i Nagano to use high-tech drug tests By THE AS SOCIATED PRESS Banned performance-enhancing drugs aren't used only by runners, swimmers, cyclists, weightlifters and other summer sports athletes. Doping is also prevalent in winter sports such as cross-country skiing, speedskating, biathlon and bobsledding. For that reason, new high-tech equipment will be used to try to catch drug cheats at the Winter Olympics in N agano, Japan. There have been only four positive tests ever recorded at the Winter Olympics - two at Innsbruck in 1976, one in Sarajevo in 1984 and one in Calgary in 1988. The last two winter games, 1992 Albertvi lle and 1994 Lillehammer, passed without any drug cases. That doesn' t necessarily mean all athletes were clean. ln the continwng game of cat and mouse between testers and cheaters, competitors have found ways to beat the system by ti ming their dosages to avoid testing positive, usrng masking agents and taking drugs that can' t be detected. But getting away with 1t could be more difficult in Nagano, where some 800 athletes - including all medal winners -will undergo doping controls during the Feb. 7-22 games. For the first rime at a winter games, the doping lab will be equipped with high resolution mass spectrometers. Experts say these $500,000, state-ofthe-art machines can detect minuscule amounts of drugs in the system, including substances taken months earlier. Spectrometers were first used during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. The machines recorded five positive tests, only for the results to be thrown out for technical re~sons. Olympic officials say the spectrometers will be fully operational this time. And for the first time at any Olympics, drugtesters in Nagano will have carbon-isotope machines to detect artificially administered testosterone, a hormone which has the properties of anabolic steroids. "This is a completely new technology," International Olympic Committee medical commission chairman Prince Alexandre de Merode said. "It can prove if you have natural testosterone in your body or if you have some from an external source." But there still are no tests for detecting human growth hormone and EPO, or erythropoietin. These naturally occurring substances, which can be used in synthetic form to boost performance, are among the designer drugs of choice in sports today. The IOC and the European Union are jointly financing research to develop tests for EPO and human growth hormone. While some progress has been made, the tests are not expected to be ready until the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney. The use of human growth hormone by athletes came into the open this month when 13 vials of the substance were found in the luggage of a Chinese swimmer entering Australia for the world championships. The swimmer was sent home and banned for four years, while her coach was banned for 15 years. DIGEST SPREWELL'S HEARING ON CARLESIMO ATTACK BEGINS: Behind a curtain of secrecy, an arbitrator began hearing testimony yesterday on whether the NBA and the Golden State Warriors excessively punished LatreU Sprewell for choking and threatening to kill coach P.J. Carlesimo. "I'm happy to be here," Sprewell said as he arrived at Latrell the downtown office building for the Sprewell start of the hearibg. " Hopefully, this will - - -- get over with." SprewelJ was thrown out of the league for a year, the longest non drug suspension in NBA history, and the remaining three years of his contract with Golden State, valued at $25 million, were terminated. Billy Hunter, the head of the NBA players' union, expressed optintism that the punishment will be reduced. "There will be some modification, I' m convinced," he said before goin.g into the hearing. " ... The best outcome would be Sprewell's return, and let us sort of end things whei;e they arc." UTAH STATE RUNNING BACK CONVICTED OF ASSAULT: Utah State University running back Demario Brown has been convicted of ntisdemcanor assault for hitting another student during an argument. First District Court Judge Burton Harris convicted Brown af tcr an hour of testimony on Monday. Harris acknowledged that Brown's blows were defensive, but said rhe player overreacted. A spokesman for the USU athl etic department said he did not know what disciplinary action would be taken against Brown. Brown was arrested after his trial by Cache County deputies because he failed to appear in court Dec. 9 in a separate debt-collection case. Brown and his former roommate and former Aggie wide receiver Aaron Frazier are being sued by Credit Services of Logan lnc., a debt collection company working for RVA Service Corp. RVA alleges the two men failed to pay more than $4,000 in rent for a 1995-1996 rental contract and also owe over $2,000 in interest, attorney and collection fees. PROVO AGREEMENT COMPLETES SALT LAKE OLYMPIC SPORTS PACKAGE: An agreement was signed yesterday L'l1aking the Provo Ice Sheet the 10th and final piece of the Olympic sports venue puzzle, completing the package organizers will submit to the lntemational Olympic Committee. Provo Mayor Lewis K. Billings, Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Frank Joklik and Max Rabner of Seven Peaks Management Co., which will operate the facility, inked the agreement in a ceremony formalizing the partnership. "This is an exciting day for Provo and Utah County. We feel like we've just played and won the Super Bowl," said Billings. David Johnson, SLOC senior vice president, said thelacility will be used for hockey, bur it's not decided whether it will be for women's hockey alone or men's hockey as well. PENGUINS' JAGR AGREES TO $48 MILLION CONTRACT: Jaromir Jagr always wanted to play like Mario Lemieux. Now, he'll be paid like him. Jagr, the Pittsburgh Penguins' brightest star now that Lemieux has retired, agreed yesterday to a four-year contract extension worth $38 million that will at least temporarily make him /aromir lagr the NHL's highest-paid player. The total value of what now becomes a six-year contract is S48 million. Jagr will make $5.1 million this season and $4. 75 million next under his old contract before his salary climbs to $9.5 million in the 1999-2000 season. The NHL scoring leader would become the league's first $10 million a-year player when he makes $10.4 million in 2003-04, though another player probably will have long since eclipsed that Ugure by then. =~.'---..-'--' |