WIMBLEDON, England – The meeting of Olympics against the pristine lawns of Wimbledon would not go smoothly Saturday afternoon. As soon as matches were done for the day, several fans surrounded volunteers working the press areas at Centre Court and shouted complaints about noise.

"You can't even hear the ball hit the racquet," one woman screamed.

They said this was because of the media sections specially built for the Olympics.

During the regular Wimbledon tournament in early summer, the media is kept in a quiet area and radio reporters are not permitted to broadcast updates to their stations unless they are doing it in a soundproof press room. The Olympics don't have such restrictions. This runs counter to the almost monk-like silence of Wimbledon crowds, long a trademark of the tournament that values tradition more than almost anything else.

[ Related: Olympics at Wimbledon a new experience for Serena Williams ]

Because of the large crush of media covering the

Read More »from Wimbledon press row racket drowns out racquets to the dismay of fans used to silence

WIMBLEDON, England – The request was made a few days before, and did Serena Williams really have to think? Michelle Obama wanted to sit in Serena's box for the tennis player's first London Olympic match. Would Williams mind?

Mind? Williams most certainly did not mind.

"I mean, I love Michelle," she said.

So much that she calls the first lady by her first name.

"Am I being rude?" Serena asked, hand clasped over her mouth, after she defeated Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-1 in her first-round Olympic match. She smiled sheepishly. 

"Mrs. Obama?"

"She's so cool," Williams continued. "I met her several times. I feel comfortable with saying 'Michelle.' And I think she wants the people to feel that way as well. That's what was so great about that whole thing. You can feel comfortable. [The Obamas will] go to a basketball game or to the tennis. It's just unheard of for me."

[ Photos: Serena and Venus Williams at the Olympics ]

Williams has always been comfortable here. She has won

Read More »from Olympics at Wimbledon new experience for Serena Williams

Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi LONDON – Her baby kicked inside her – arms stretching, legs flailing – so Nur Suryani Mohammed Taibi clutched her rifle and cooed what any pregnant woman should say while standing in the Olympics with gun in hand.

"Mommy is going to shoot here."

And if that isn't the best story of these Olympics, what possibly is?

Not only is Taibi one of the few pregnant women in Olympic history, but she is also the most pregnant woman in Olympic history. Sometime in the next five weeks the shooter from Malaysia is going to give birth to a girl. The girl already has a name: Dayana Widyan. And Dayana Widyan has grown so large inside her mother that Taibi's coach Natalia Zhukova worried her student might have her baby before the Olympics even began.

But Taibi is headstrong. She reveals this matter-of-factly, in a tiny voice with a mild accent. And when she learned months ago that she was going to have a baby just weeks after the Olympics were

Read More »from Pregnant shooter's Olympics end after 34th-place finish in qualifying

LONDON – She is a fighter. See? American boxer Queen Underwood peels off a warm-up jacket and clenches her fists revealing an Olympics tattoo and arms chiseled from the gym.

She is a fighter. Hear? Her hands smack a punching mitt, making a popping sound that rattles like cannon blasts through the sweltering sports center the U.S. is using to train.

"Queen is really aggressive," says her Olympic teammate, Marlen Esparza. "She's the kind of person who can turn a fight around in a second. She just goes and goes and goes."

Standing later on the side of the gym, Underwood's eyes turn dark.

"I know people are going to feel this power when I get in the ring," she says. Her words are cold. She is serious.

The temptation has been to make her something weak. A few months ago, Underwood did an interview with the New York Times in which she revealed her father Azzad sexually abused her for years. She described how Azzad would creep into her room as a child and touch her, often taking

Read More »from Abused as a child, U.S. women's boxer Queen Underwood refuses to be counted out at Olympics

LONDON – The problem with the Olympics is that we all become instant experts on sports we know nothing about. And so we define success or failure by what we perceive them to be. Which is how a gold and silver medalist shooter named Matt Emmons came to be a bumbling Olympic punch line.

Elmer Fudd with the shotgun.

Remember the guy shooting for the gold in Athens who hit the wrong target? You know, the same guy who was a shot away from a gold in Beijing only to have his rifle misfire?

Never mind that Emmons did win a gold in Athens for the United States. Or that he won a silver in Beijing. Ignore that he's still one of the best shooters in the world or that he is a five-time World Cup Final gold medalist. Pay no attention to the fact he survived cancer. It's much more fun to chuckle.

[ Related: Michael Phelps in danger of video game addiction ]

He shot the wrong target? Who's dumb enough to shoot the wrong target?

And this bothers Emmons. Not the fact he shot the

Read More »from U.S. shooter Matt Emmons doesn't think of himself as a choker despite mishaps in Athens, Beijing

LONDON – The Olympics haven’t even started yet and the concern that trickled out of the gymnastics arena on Wednesday might wind up not being a concern at all.

But the tumbles and stumbles and falls from the American, Japanese and Chinese teams in men’s podium training might actually mean a lot when it comes to winning medals.

One of China’s top male gymnasts, Teng Haibin, who won a gold medal in the pommel horse in 2004, fell several times during Wednesday’s routine and had to withdraw from the Games. Haiban reportedly came to London already injured but may have reinjured himself.

This came on a day when several American and Japanese gymnasts also looked sloppy during events they usually dominate. Inside Gymnastics Magazine, one of the few media outlets allowed in the podium training, tweeted about the stumbles and reported that a few American gymnasts looked back at the vault with confused looks on their faces.

Their reactions

Read More »from Top Chinese gymnast injured, withdraws as equipment is called into question

BALTIMORE – In the front corner of another new clubhouse of another new team, Jim Thome slowly buttons a strange new jersey. He does this carefully, with gigantic hands that have helped him hit 609 career home runs, because he knows time is running out. Soon there won't be another team to give him a new jersey and he wants to hold onto all that he has for as long as he can.

Jim Thome is batting .257 in nine games with the Orioles. (Getty Images)Next month he will turn 42, and the massive home runs don't come nearly as frequently. Back injuries kept him from playing first base much for what was supposed to be a triumphant return to the Philadelphia Phillies this year, so just before the All-Star break the Phillies traded him to the Baltimore Orioles where he can be a designated hitter. In a way it's a last great hope for both player and team. The Orioles, overachieving so far this year but fading from a pennant race of late, need Thome to help keep them alive, and Thome needs to keep playing baseball.

The game is everything. He can't give it up.

Read More »from Jim Thome, he of 600 home runs, loves baseball so much it's infectious to his Orioles teammates

WASHINGTON – The man who oversees baseball's best pitching staff does not care for the position's most glamorous statistic. In fact the thought of it makes Steve McCatty recoil. He crosses his arms. His head shakes. A sour expression crosses his face.

"Strikeouts are bull[bleep]," he says.

Steve McCatty doesn't want his pitchers trying to strike out every batter. (AP)He scoffs. Such a waste, he implies.

 It is late in the morning on the last day before the All-Star break and his Washington Nationals pitchers are grabbing their gloves in the clubhouse, heading to the field. He watches as they walk by – Stephen Strasburg with the sizzling fastball, Gio Gonzalez with the swooping curve, Tyler Clippard, who is the current closer – strikeout specialists all should they want to be, and McCatty says the empty swings aren't always worth the effort. He'd rather have a nice, quick ground ball to shortstop.

That seems so much more efficient.

"If you try to strike out every hitter you're going to burn up pitches," says McCatty, the Nationals pitching coach.

Read More »from Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty believes fewer K's equals more W's, and so far so good