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"Zo" returns as US NBA stars face Russia
SYDNEY, Sept 27 (AFP) - Alonzo Mourning's odyssey is over. Now he and the United States Olympic basketball "Dream Team" can worry about getting even with Russia. The 30-year-old center flew nearly halfway around the world to attend the birth of his daughter and arrived with only 17 minutes to spare, but was in Miami when his wife Tracy gave birth to 3.5 kg Myka Sydney on Friday evening. "There wasn't any doubt at all," Mourning said. "I promised her I would be back for the birth." Mourning missed two preliminary round games. But had USA Basketball not made the trip possible, they might have lost their only true center in the absence of NBA Most Valuable Player Shaquille O'Neal. "I pretty much left it in my wife's hands whether she wanted me to come to the Olympics or not," Mourning said. "She didn't want me to pass up this opportunity." It might have been the National Basketball Association star's best move of the Games. Mourning flew 9,330 miles from Sydney to Los Angeles, then rode the Miami Heat team charter jet to Miami and rushed to the hospital just in time. "God was right there for him," said US guard Tim Hardaway, also an NBA teammate of Mourning. "He made it there right on time. He wanted to get back and the weather, the plane and the scheduling and everything else permitted so that he could get back. I'm just happy that he made it back in time." Mourning then flew back across North America and the Pacific Ocean, arriving in Sydney late Monday so he could have two days of practice before the US group of NBA stars faces Russia here Thursday in a quarter-final. The Russians are the only team since the advent of NBA talent to defeat a US team, taking a 66-64 victory in the semi-finals of the 1998 World Championships in Greece over a semi-pro replacement team because NBA players were in a labor dispute with league owners. Mourning might have been a little jet-lagged for his first practice back. US President Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea visited the workout and was given an autographed team jersey. But "Zo" said she had to sink a basket to get it. In skirt and high heels, the US "First Daughter" dutifully sank a shot for the man who had just welcomed his first daughter into the world and Clinton left the practice Wednesday wearing her new jersey. The US-Russia winner will face the winner between Yugoslavia and Lithuania on Friday in the semi-finals. The other quarter-final pairings send Canada against France and Italy against Australia. There is a deeper US-Russia history. The only US Olympic defeats came at the hands of the former Soviet Union team, when US collegiate teams were beaten in the 1988 Seoul semi-finals and the 1972 Munich final when the Soviets were given three chances for a last-second winning shot and got one.
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