Swedish wrestler upset with bronze

Abrahamian throws medal to floor after losing controversial match

Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian says he will quit the sport after he walked out of a presentation ceremony in Beijing and threw his medal to the floor.

Abrahamian, 33, discarded the bronze medal he won in the 84kg Greco-Roman competition in protest at his semifinal loss to eventual gold medalist Andrea Minguzzi of Italy.

Abrahamian, the silver medallist at Athens 2004, announced he was quitting the sport after his bronze medal bout.

"This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure," he said.

The Swedish team was furious with the judges' decision to award victory to Minguzzi but had to restrain Abrahamian as he confronted officials.

Fans booed loudly as the judges filed out of the Chinese Agricultural University Gym, and the defeated gold-medal hope whacked an aluminum barricade with a fist as he left the arena.

It was only after friends had pleaded with him to continue that he took part in the bronze medal bout.

"I decided that I had come this far and didn't want to let them down, so I wrestled," Abrahamian said.

However, during the ceremony, Abrahamian took the medal from around his neck, stepped from podium and dropped it in the middle of the mat before storming off.

IOC officials promised a disciplinary hearing, and Minguzzi said his celebration had been spoiled.

"Certainly one can always question decisions made in the course of refereeing, but in sports it is appropriate to show sportsmanship and accept the results," he said.

PHELPS TRADING CARD VALUE RISES: Chalk up another remarkable feat for Michael Phelps: somehow making swimming trading cards popular.

An autographed 2004 trading card of the record-shattering Olympian was trading for as much as $500 on Thursday, just two weeks after industry experts say the collectible could be easily had for $25.

The market value could rise to $750 to $1,000 if Phelps breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics this weekend, said Tracy Hackler, an associate publisher with Beckett Media LLP, a Dallas-based memorabilia company.

"It's unlike anything we've seen in the trading card category," said Hackler, whose company is an industry leader in collectibles pricing.

TWO PEOPLE DIE IN WRECK: Two people involved in a crash near the Olympic rowing venue have died, the Beijing Olympic organizing committee said Thursday.

A bus from the athletes' village collided with a van Wednesday on the way to the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park.

Committee spokesman Wang Wei said two of the four van passengers died in a hospital. BOCOG said the other two passengers, one seriously injured, were still hospitalized.

CHINESE REPORTED GYMNAST'S AGE: Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, www.hb.xinhuanet.com.