SPORTS EDGE

Sports
Beijing 2008
Tearful exit for Beard
Afp, Beijing
Amanda Beard, who won hearts as a teddy-bear toting 14-year-old at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, won't get the chance to defend her 200m breaststroke gold in the final at the Beijing Games.Now a svelte 26, the sometime model was essentially away from swimming from 2005 through 2007, and said she only got "real serious" about her Beijing training two months before the US trials.The seven-time Olympic medallist managed to book her ticket to Beijing, but up against the likes of world record-holder Leisel Jones and younger teammate Rebecca Soni, she failed to advance to the semi-finals of the 200m breaststroke, posting the 18th fastest time in the heats in what might well be her last Games."What can you do?" Soni said. "We swam together a little bit and I got to know her. She is a great girl."US swimming head coach Mark Schubert said that despite failing to advance, Beard had made a key contribution to the US squad in her role as a team captain."She's done everything, and making this Olympics was spectacular and a number of a teammates said that she's been an unbelievable captain," Schubert said."She's been at every session getting the kids fired up. She's been a good inspiration. The young swimmers have learned a lot for her. I'm disappointed for her that it didn't turn out better, but she's done everything and she'll always be an Olympic champion."Beard had made headlines in Beijing even before the Games started, when she used the Athletes' Village as a backdrop to unveil a nude photo of herself in a poster backing an anti-animal cruelty cause.In the advertisement, a naked Beard is kneeling in water, her left hand covering her right breast and her right hand on her right hip as she stares into the camera with a huge American flag filling the entire background."I've done Playboy. I'm comfortable with my body," Beard said of her willingness to shed her clothes for a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals anti-fur campaign. "I go to the office in a swimsuit."
One of several CNG filling stations between Kanchpur Bridge and Jatrabari of the capital which BNP big shots built on the Kutubkhali canal, drastically reducing Dhaka's drainage capability. PHOTO: STAR
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