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DALLAS -- The United States women's basketball team has won the gold medal in the past four Olympics and six of the past seven. So what would be a bigger shock, for the women or the men to come home without a gold medal from London?

"I'm hoping that enough people are watching what we're doing that if we don't win, they'll be absolutely shocked," U.S. women's coach Geno Auriemma said. "Because you know the majority of the entire world will be watching our men. And I would also venture to say that the majority of the world hopes our men lose. They won't be shocked, they'll be happy. For us, I think the perception is there is no way we can lose and they'll be very, very surprised if we don't win the gold medal."

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AP Photo/Elaine ThompsonGeno Auriemma and the U.S. women's team will gather again on July 14 to resume training for the London Games.

"I can't necessarily speak for the world," U.S. and former Connecticut forward Maya Moore said, "but I will be shocked if anything less than the gold comes back."

Auriemma said Baylor star Brittney Griner had a good chance of being selected for the final spot on the Olympic squad before she took herself out of the running. Griner announced in a press release that she could not play due to an unspecified family illness and issues with her summer school schedule.

"It is unusual," Auriemma said. "It's hard to put yourself in their shoes, but people have to make a decision based on what is best for them at that point in time. Maybe they come to regret that decision, maybe not. Maybe they get another two, three or four opportunities down the road, maybe not. But for some of these players, this is once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"For the non-basketball players -- they don't get selected, they have to earn their opportunity. They have to win sprints or win swim meets -- it's not like being a basketball player where you get a phone call, 'Would you like to be on the Olympic team?' You have to commit your whole life and it comes down to one-tenth of a second. Where you've been preparing your whole life for that one moment and it's gone. I think basketball players take it for granted that, 'Oh yeah, as long as I keep playing well, I'll always have a chance to play in the Olympics.' And that's not always the case."

Auriemma will have a very familiar roster given that exactly half of the 12-player roster played for him at UConn: Moore, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Asjha Jones, Swin Cash and Tina Charles.

"With the limited amount of time that we have to prepare, there is a familiarity that has carried over throughout the years," Auriemma said. "More importantly, having 10 of the 12 players from the 2010 world championship team come back and play in the Olympics is more significant than having the six UConn players. Obviously, I have a connection and relationship with the six players from UConn, but getting those 10 players to come back, that's what gives us the edge over some of the other teams."

Auriemma said the top challengers to the U.S. for gold are Australia (which has won the past three silver medals) and Russia, but neither team medaled at the 2010 world championships and Auriemma said that's evidence of how the women's game has grown worldwide. Not that everyone necessarily buys that. One reporter asked Auriemma if the women's game would grow faster if the U.S. wasn't so dominant.

"I get asked that question all the time at UConn," Auriemma said. "I get it a million times. 'Wouldn't it be better if someone other than UConn won the national championship?' Well, we've tried to accommodate that the last few years. We're doing our part to grow the game.

"But when you set a certain standard for excellence and how the game should be played, you are growing the game. You are challenging people to reach that standard, that level. If someone does come along and beats the U.S. in the gold-medal game or any Olympic game, then we will have had a big part in why that happened, in growing the game to that level. That's why we have to get better."

Auriemma stressed that the world is changing rapidly and the days of one country dominating in one sport are either over or close to over. "But we're going to hang on as long as we can, right Maya?"

DALLAS -- Submitted for your approval: a couple of pieces of evidence that the world has changed, just a little, in the past 40 years, on a stage in a hotel ballroom in Dallas.

In the middle of the afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama championed the cause of a broad-based national fitness initiative in front of a multi-hued contingent of male and female athletes, including Paralympians. That sentence alone says quite a bit about change.

An hour or so later, the coach of the U.S. women's basketball team and a star player compared notes on what the world was like at the inception of Title IX, and how it is now.

Maya Moore, who plays a sport that wasn't in the Olympics 40 years ago and in a professional league that wasn't conceivable back then, dutifully and honestly paid tribute to the law.

"I can't really imagine growing up in a world where someone said, 'No, you can't play basketball because you're female,'" said Moore, the Connecticut alum who followed up her WNBA title season with Minnesota by winning the Spanish and European championships this spring with Ros Casares Valencia.

But coach Geno Auriemma, the much-decorated UConn coach, painted the best picture of progress looks like, or rather, what it sounds like. When Title IX was first implemented, he said, "I was a senior in high school, and my idea of women actually being athletes, female athletes -- that wasn't a word you'd have used back then."

His boys basketball team had to share court time with girls at his suburban Philly Catholic school. "We were just horrified that we had to give up the gym to those girls," he said. "The prevailing thought back then was, 'They're wearing skirts. They're wearing these little pennies,' you know? They're not even athletes. They had their fingernails polished in all different colors, and the idea that people would even think of them as athletes was so foreign, it's incredible."

Now?

"Fast forward to Maya Moore, and the idea that you would think of Maya Moore as anything other than a great athlete is just absurd," he said.

Auriemma offered his son Michael as an example. "Today, my son's 23 and just finished playing in college. If you ever told him that women didn't play basketball and weren't great athletes, as many practices as he went to growing up, he'd say, 'What world do you live in?'"

Auriemma's point is that, for most people under 30, acceptance of Title IX comes as naturally as breathing.

"My perspective on Title IX is, hopefully soon, there comes a time when you stop talking about it," he said. "Because it's ancient history now. We shouldn't forget that history, but we've moved so far. I'm sure there are still fights that have to be fought, but it's time to celebrate the achievements these women make as athletes, not as female athletes. We play basketball, we don't play women's basketball. That's my proudest contribution, I think."

NEW YORK -- When USA Track and Field sprinters Walter Dix and Carmelita Jeter line up in the starting blocks in London this summer, they'll do so wearing recycled plastic bottles. Marathoner Abdi Abdirahman will wear running shoes that look like they were crocheted by grandma. That, of course, is a simplistic way of describing some of the most high-tech, sustainable, performance apparel and footwear Nike has developed to date.

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Courtesy Alyssa RoenigkA look at the new Nike track shoe, which weighs only 5.6 ounces.

On Day 1 of a two-day Olympics innovation summit held at Basketball City in New York City, Nike revealed innovations in basketball and running, including the uniforms that will be worn by the U.S. men's and women's basketball teams and track athletes in all events. (See photos below.)

The most attention-grabbing piece in Tuesday's collection was the Pro TurboSpeed track suit, dubbed the fastest track uniform Nike has ever built. According to Nike, the suit is reportedly .023 seconds faster over 100 meters than the company's previous uniform, according to wind tunnel data. It comes in a one-piece, full-body suit, a two-piece option and shorter styles for athletes in longer distances.

"When designing these uniforms, we always start with the athletes," said Martin Lotti, Nike's Olympics innovation director. "They are always looking for a competitive advantage and we gave them just that in a suit that is faster than skin. How much faster is astonishing. It's not just the difference between first and second, but the difference in even making the podium."

Of course, when talking about suits that are astonishingly "faster than skin," questions arise as to the legality of such suits and the debate over what constitutes performance enhancement begins.

"We are following all the rules and guidelines, so it is a legal suit," Lotti said. "The U.S. federation, U.S. Track and Field goes through the approval process with [the International Association of Athletics Federations], not us, and it is approved."

Lotti said it is his job to enhance athlete performance.

"It's no different than giving athletes a lighter shoe," he said. "That has been the endeavor of Nike since the beginning. We are here to enhance the athlete's performance. And at the end of the day, we give them this tiny advantage to win, but the heavy work comes from the athlete."

The suits are made with 82-percent recycled polyester fabric, which is made from recycled plastic bottles. The bottles are reduced to fine pellets, which are then made into a yarn that is spun into material. It takes an average of 13 bottles to create enough yarn for one uniform. The basketball uniforms are made from an average of 22 bottles and are 41-percent lighter than the uniforms worn at the 2008 Beijing Games.

The distance-running shoes are constructed using Nike Flyknit technology, which is exactly what it sounds like. The shape and structure of the shoe's upper is knitted by machine using a variety of yarns and fabric threads. There is zero waste and the shoe weighs only 5.6 ounces. It is also 19-percent lighter than the shoe worn by the gold, silver and bronze medalists in the men's marathon at the 2011 World Championships.

"I have to look down at my feet to know if I'm still wearing shoes," Abdirahman told a group of more than 300 international journalists Tuesday morning. "It feels like I'm wearing socks."

Nike, IncA first look at the Olympic uniforms that will be worn by the U.S. men's and women's basketball teams.

Nike, Inc.Allyson Felix, who is tentatively planning to attempt the 200-400 double in London, models Nike's new track suit.

Olympic rower Jason Read was selected as the flag bearer for Team USA for the opening ceremony for the Pan Am Games, set to begin Friday in Guadalajara, Mexico.

"I've been fortunate as an athlete to achieve a great deal, but this is something entirely different," Read said in a statement released by the USOC on Wednesday. "To lead our team into the stadium, carrying the flag of the United States of America, is humbling, to say the least. I'm thrilled by this honor and grateful to my teammates for selecting me."

Teresa Edwards, a five-time Olympian in basketball, will also be one of eight athletes to carry the Pan American Sports Organization flag into the opening ceremony.

On This Day in Sports History, Sept. 21, 1991, the United States announced its the Dream Team for the 1992 Olympics. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan headlined the amazing men's basketball squad:

With exactly one year until the start of the London Olympics, construction has been completed on the six main venues in the Olympic Park: the Olympic Stadium, Velodrome, Handball Arena, Basketball Arena, Aquatics Centre and the International Broadcast Centre.

"To have all six permanent venues complete with a year still to go to the Games is a great achievement, and a firm sign that we are well on track to deliver a truly spectacular show in 2012," London Mayor Boris Johnson said in a statement released by the Olympic Delivery Authority.

Equivalent to the size of Hyde Park, the Olympic Park will have five new permanent venues, 30 new bridges and 4,000 new trees and will be served by 10 rail lines.

Anthony Charlton/Getty ImagesMore than 40,000 people have worked on the Olympic Park since April 2008.

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