The International Olympic Committee stripped gold medals Saturday from the US men's 1,600-meter relay team that competed at the 2000 Olympics in the aftermath of Antonio Pettigrew's admission that he was doping at the time. The IOC executive board disqualified the entire team, the fourth gold and sixth overall medal stripped from that US track contingent in the past eight months for doping. Three gold and two bronze were previously removed after Marion Jones confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs. Five of Pettigrew's teammates also lose their medals: Michael Johnson and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison ran in the final; Jerome Young and Angelo Taylor ran in the preliminaries. It was Johnson's fifth gold medal of his stellar career. Johnson still holds world records in the 200 and 400 meters. Three of the four runners from the relay final have been tainted by drugs. Alvin Harrison accepted a four-year ban in 2004 after admitting he used performance-enhancers. Calvin Harrison tested positive for a banned stimulant in 2003 and was suspended for two years. Young was banned for life for doping violations. The IOC is reluctant to hand Jones' 100 gold to silver medalist Katerina Thanou, a Greek sprinter at the center of a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games. She and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris missed drug tests on the eve of the opening ceremony and claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They were forced to pull out of the games and were later suspended for two years. Free to protest, but not at Games sites The president of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge on Saturday said athletes were free to criticize China but asked them not to do so in Games stadiums. “The athletes can criticize China freely in their country, in public places in China, in the mixed zones where you (reporters) meet them,” Rogge told reporters. “We ask them simply to not take part in propaganda or any political, religious, commercial or racial demonstration,” he said. Sunshine in Beijing Normally smog-plagued Beijing bathed in blue skies and sunshine on Saturday in just the sort of weather the Chinese pray will grace their Olympics and banish athletes' health fears six days before the big start. Greatest show The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics will get the Summer Games - billed as the greatest show on earth - off to an explosive start on Friday. Using a Chinese number symbolizing prosperity, the Beijing Games will open at eight minutes past eight o'clock in the evening on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008. “The ceremony will be astonishing and magnificent,” said Frenchman Yves Pepin, a multimedia events expert who has helped devise the show but is sworn to secrecy on content. “This will be a way for China to show the world what it is capable of.” It will also be the most expensive in Olympic history, with media speculating that as much as $100 million has been earmarked for the opening and closing ceremonies - more than twice that spent on the acclaimed 2004 Athens pageant. The Games signal China's ascent from poverty and isolation to a place at the summit of the global community. It now has the world's fourth
