ESPN Olympic Sports

USA Hockey on Monday released the names of the 28 players who were invited to next month's U.S. women's national team training camp.

The camp, which will take place March 25-31 at the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, N.Y., will help determine the final U.S. roster for the IIHF Women's World Championship (April 2-9 in Ottawa).

Here is complete training camp roster, which includes 12 Olympians:

Forwards

Kelly Babstock
Alex Carpenter
Julie Chu
Kendall Coyne
Brianna Decker
Meghan Duggan
Sarah Erickson
Lyndsey Fry
Amanda Kessel
Hilary Knight
Jocelyne Lamoureux
Monique Lamoureux
Jen Schoullis
Haley Skarupa
Kelley Steadman

Defensemen

Kacey Bellamy
Megan Bozek
Caitlin Cahow
Lisa Chesson
Jincy Dunne
Alyssa Gagliardi
Gigi Marvin
Michelle Picard
Anne Schleper
Lee Stecklein

Goaltenders

Brianne McLaughlin
Alex Rigsby
Jessie Vetter

Vonetta Flowers became the first African-American bobsledder from any country to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics when she and Jill Bakken topped the podium at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. And the current U.S. women's bobsled team diversity reflects her legacy.

"It's pretty cool we're talking about how diverse the team is," 2010 Olympic bronze medalist Elana Meyers said recently while training at the test event for the 2014 Games outside Sochi. "We all started from Flowers. That's when most women started hearing about it, from Vonetta, with all the hype centered around her incredible accomplishment. Starting out there and following in her footsteps is pretty cool."

The 2012-13 World Cup team has seven black athletes: drivers Meyers and Jazmine Fenlator, plus brakemen Tianna Madison Bartoletta (a London 2012 gold medalist in the 4x100), Lolo Jones (a two-time Olympic hurdler), Aja Evans, Cherrelle Garrett and Maureen Ajoku. Driver Jamie Greubel and brakemen Katie Eberling and Emily Azevedo are white. (There are also two African-Americans on the men's bobsled team.)

"It really was just a matter of looking for the best athletes," Meyers said. "It wasn't something we really even thought about until the media started asking about us about it. As a driver, I'm just trying to get the fastest pusher possible because I know that's going to put me in the best possible position to get a medal.

"It doesn't matter where you come from; there's no concern whether we're diverse or not -- we're just going for the fastest pushers possible."

Meyers played a big part in the recruiting process. She suggested that Jones give bobsled a try several years ago and said she recruited others by sending out Facebook messages to as many athletes as she could find on the National Strength and Conditioning Association's list of All-Americans.

One of those who responded to the Facebook message was Eberling, a former volleyball player who was student-teaching. "It was an unusual way to get into a sport," Eberling said. "The first time I read it, I thought, 'This has got to be a joke.' Then I called my mom and read it to her and we laughed about it, but the more I read through it, and then actually talked to Elana, that's when I took it more seriously and realized this was a huge opportunity."

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UFC light heavyweight and former Olympic wrestler Dan Henderson talks about the impact the loss of Olympic wrestling will have on MMA, and beyond.

I am still wrestling with the IOC's shocking and inexplicable decision to drop wrestling from the Summer Olympics while preserving the modern pentathlon (which was expected to get the boot). Wrestling is a sport that is popular worldwide. It goes all the way back to the ancient Games and is even mentioned in the book of Genesis (Jacob wrestles all night with the angel of the Lord).

The modern pentathlon, meanwhile, consists of five events that most people could not name even if Regis gave them a lifeline and a smartphone.

Dropping an inexpensive, global sport that has always been in the Olympics is more of an inexcusable travesty than the London mascots. Here are five obscure/ridiculous sports the IOC should drop instead to get wrestling back on the Olympic roster:

Equestrian: This is an elite sport that requires the backing of such enormous private wealth that I don't think they can afford it even at "Downton Abbey." Despite the presence of Bruce Springsteen's daughter, this is truly the sport of kings. And queens (Queen Elizabeth's granddaughter Zara Phillips competed in London and won a silver medal). Maybe equestrian might hold some appeal to the 99 percenters if we could bet a $2 trifecta on the medal winners, but, until then, I would much rather see the likes of Rulon Gardner and Alexander Karelin battling it out on the mats.

Synchronized swimming: Look, I respect synchronized swimmers. I've even tried the sport. It's hard. It's athletic. But I'm sorry, no one can take this sport seriously after this "Saturday Night Live" parody. It has been 25 years since that spoof aired and it's still the first thing people think of when they hear the words "synchronized swimming."

Trampoline: I've covered 10 Olympics on four continents. I've written on just about every medal event there is. And this is still easily the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen at the Games, with the possible exception of letting George Michael sing two songs at the 2012 London closing ceremonies. When I saw trampoline for the first time, I kept expecting to see an angry father rush in and yell at the kids to stop jumping up and down or they'll break the mattress. Which, frankly, would have improved this event considerably.

Pingpong: Yeah, I know it's called table tennis. But anything you play in your parents' basement can hardly be considered a sport more worthy of the Olympics than wrestling.

Modern pentathlon: The only reason this event exists is that Olympic founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin created it. For the record, the events in the modern pentathlon are laser-pistol shooting, fencing, show-jumping, a 3-kilometer cross country run and a 200-meter swim. In other words, it combines arcade games, very expensive horse riding, a run too short to adequately test endurance and a swimming event that does not include Michael Phelps. Not only does no one want to watch this, but no one wants to compete in it, either. I mean, have you ever met a modern pentathlete? Have you ever gone to a modern pentathlon? Does your high school or college offer modern pentathlon? Of course not. Which is why the modern pentathlon should be dropped and wrestling reinstated.

This whole matter could be solved to everyone's satisfaction by simply replacing the modern pentathlon with the ancient pentathlon that was in the original Olympics B.C. That's because the ancient pentathlon consisted of the long jump, javelin, discus, a foot race and, yes, wrestling.

While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in the mountains), one thing we can say for sure: The venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be there.

Here's a look at some of the locales you'll see next year:

Shayba Arena

The Shayba Arena will host ice hockey games and is in close proximity to other ice skating venues. Capacity: 7,000.

Fisht Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and most medal ceremonies. Capacity: 40,000.

'Ice Cube' Curling Center

You guessed it -- curling competitions will be held here. The venue is in the center of the "Coastal Cluster," where all of the ice-based venues are located. Capacity: 3,000.

Bolshoy Ice Dome

The ice hockey venue is said to be modeled after a "frozen water drop," but spectators may think it resembles a disco dance floor when they see the roof light up in multiple colors at night. Capacity: 12,000.

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Lindsey Vonn made her first comments today since suffering a season-ending knee injury Tuesday at the World Championships:

"First off, I want to say thank you to the amazing medical staff that cared for me," Vonn said in a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Ski Team. "I plan on returning to Vail as soon as I can to have the necessary surgeries. I am also grateful to my fans for the outpouring of support, which has really helped me stay positive. I can assure you that I will work as hard as humanly possible to be ready to represent my country next year in Sochi."

Vonn was also released today from the hospital in Schladming, Austria, where she was treated and evaluated immediately after Tuesday's crash.

ESPN's Stephania Bell discusses Vonn's knee injury and her chances of recovering in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics here:

Gold medalist Dan O'Brien is competing in the decathlon again.

Well, not the decathlon. He won Olympic gold in that event at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and at age 46, he is now a little past his prime. But he will compete in a decathlon. To be specific, he's competing in this summer's RBC Decathlon, the annual charity competition among Wall Street employees that benefits the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

So how does an Olympic gold medalist feel about competing against stock advisors, hedge fund managers and other Wall Street employees?

"I'm sure that once I get close to the competition, I'll feel nervous because you're pushing yourself," O'Brien said. "That's what I like about the event. It's the challenge. It gives everyone a long-term goal. When you train for the Olympics, that's all you can do. You can't go to work, you can't have a part-time job. But these guys are doing it on the side. ...

"I don't take anything lightly. If I'm going to compete, I'm going to take it seriously. As an athlete, you don't want to underperform."

Donations are raised through CharityBets, a performance-based fundraising program developed by RBC Decathlon organizers Dave Maloney and Marc Hodulich. The concept is simple. You can either make a simple set donation or make a sliding donation based on the performance of the competitor on whom you bet. The good thing is, regardless of how your bets goes, charity always wins.

"I've been known to gamble a bit from time to time," O'Brien said of the event's appeal. "The program he's developed makes sense to me. It's a good fit for these guys. They are guys with disposable income, they're mature and well-muscled. They're doing it for the fun of it, but they're also doing it for the charity. I'm honored that Dave would want me to be the face of the decathlon."

"Dan's participation opens up a world of charity-betting possibilities and will dramatically increase spectators who take a keen interest in his performance," Maloney said. "He's also still a role model to much of the financial services community, so Dan's presence will certainly stoke the competitive spirit among participants."

The Olympic decathlon takes place over two days, while the RBC Decathlon is a one-day competition at Wien Field on the Columbia University campus July 27. The RBC Decathlon is a combination of an actual decathlon and a football combine. The 10 events are the 400-meter run, football throw, dips, 40-yard dash, 500-meter stationary row, five-cone drill, pull-ups, vertical jump, bench press and 800-meter run.

O'Brien said he is confident he can hold his own in the pull-up and vertical jump competitions, but he expressed concern about the 400 and 800 runs. One, some back pain issues have restricted his running in recent years, and two, everyone hates the 400- and 800-meter lengths.

"Even as a former athlete, those are two events you don't want to do," he said. "Put me in a 5K or let me run a 40, but don't put me in the middle-distance races. To run a good 400 or a good 800, you have to train."

Not that O'Brien ever minds that; in fact, he said he preferred training to competing.

"Ultimately, what it came down to was that I loved my job," he said. "I liked getting up every day and working toward my goal."

For more information about the RBC Decathlon and this year's inaugural Wall Street mile run, go to thedecathlon.org.

The organizers for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games unveiled their Olympic torch on Monday, with a futuristic feel.

"The Olympic torch is one of the key symbols of the Games," 2014 Sochi Olympics Organizing Committee president and chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko said at a news conference. "In our case, it symbolizes the beauty and diversity of Russia."

Last week, the committee released the torch relay, which is said to be the longest in the history of the Winter Games. The flame will be held by some 14,000 torchbearers over four months and travel through 2,900 towns and settlements, starting Oct. 7, 2013.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in July that the relay planned to take a trip to the International Space Station, but no details were announced Sunday.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Two-time track cycling Olympian Bobby Lea of Topton, Pa., recommitted to a third bid in his mind before he even got home from the London Games, where he finished 12th in the demanding two-day, six-event omnium. The 29-year-old trains with Philadelphia-based coach Brian Walton, a 1996 Olympic track cycling silver medalist for Canada. Lea looked ahead in a recent chat with ESPN.com:

Question from Ford: What was the biggest contrast between your experiences in London and Beijing [in 2008]?

Answer from Lea: The single biggest thing was just knowing what I was in for. I knew the details would be different, but the bigger picture was the same, and I was much more prepared to handle it. In the run-up to the actual event, it was much more calm and quiet and easier to focus on the task at hand than it was for Beijing. As far as the performance was concerned, I really wanted to get inside that top 10. But when I take a step back and look at the event as it unfolded, five of the six events were the best I'd ever done, so it was hard to argue with that. Two-tenths of a second in one event [the kilo, or 1-kilometer time trial] would have made the difference.

That's bike racing, that's track racing. I went to London thinking if I turned in a performance I was satisfied with, I could walk away from track racing in the Olympics and say it's been a good run and made up for a performance I wasn't really happy with in Beijing [Editor's note: He finished 16th in the Madison]. But by the time I touched down in Newark, I was already thinking about Rio [in 2016]. I wasn't anticipating that, but that's kind of how it unfolded. The placing was nothing to write home about, but the finer details showed a pretty significant jump in performance from where I was in the two years leading up to the Olympics. My takeaway from that is if I can do that in three months, if I can take the next four years and really dial in my support structure and work even harder, then I can go to Rio and actually be a contender instead of someone just shooting for a top 10.

Q: If you were king and had control over the Olympic program, what would you create?

A: I've made my peace with the omnium. I certainly struggle to deal with all the different elements, learning how to prepare and how to handle myself in the midst of the event. But if the omnium remains unchanged in Rio and that's the event, I know what I'm dealing with and I know how to work for it. I'm not too fussed about what the event's going to be. If I can make it four more years and I can set up that support structure, then I'm ready to take a run for Rio. Part of the question I've been dealing with since I got home is, what does that mean? It's easy to answer that question if you're part of a big national federation that has an endless budget, but as basically a privateer trying to put together a program, it's an entirely different question. I've got a year or two to sort that out.

Q: How does this affect your road racing aspirations? That was at the top of your future agenda when we last talked.

A: At this point, I'm still treating the rest of my career like an open book and it's day to day, month to month, year to year. I've got a job riding with SmartStop-Mountain Khakis next year on the road, so between that and a couple of winter sixes (six-day races) with my Madison partner [Jackie Simes], we'll see what happens. We're hoping to get a start in Rotterdam in January. It's been a long time since there were Americans racing on the six-day circuit. That would be a really neat thing to do that doesn't conflict with road racing.

My team for next year is really supportive of my extracurricular activities on the track. It's a good place for me to race the road and have a lot of fun and get back into domestic road racing and [Simes] is going to be joining me on that team. Where it goes, who knows, but I'm not writing anything off. 2010 was my last full season on the road. I'm ready to jump back in, I miss it.

Q: Do you feel like you're in a situation where you can compete clean at the Continental level in this country?

A: Absolutely. It's not something I would be doing if I thought I was trying to swim upstream.

Five years ago, bobsled driver Steven Holcomb was deeply depressed. His U.S. four-man bobsled team was peaking and had a strong chance to win the first American gold medal in the event since 1948 at the 2010 Olympics. But despite devoting a decade of his life to that goal, Holcomb could not focus on it. He held a dark secret not even his teammates or coach knew.

He was going blind.

"I was losing my vision quite rapidly," Holcomb recalled in a phone interview. "I was realizing what my life was about to become. I was at the peak of my career and it was all about to come crashing down. My vision became so bad it was a safety issue. I was withdrawn, I wouldn't come out of my room.

"My coach [Brian Shimer] said, 'These guys are working their butts off for you, and you're just going through the motions.' I told him, 'I'm going blind, I'm going to have to quit.'"

Holcomb had keratoconus, a disease that leaves one out of every four victims blind without a cornea transplant. Holcomb's vision had already declined to 20-600 -- without the strongest corrective lenses, he could not recognize a person sitting across the table. He could get the transplant, but that would end his career due to the constant jarring that comes with driving a bobsled.

But as Holcomb writes in his new book, "But Now I See," he was able to continue his career. After a dozen eye specialists told Holcomb that a cornea transplant was his only hope, Dr. Boxer Wachler provided hope in a revolutionary treatment called C3-R that did not require invasive procedure. The treatment worked so well that not only did Holcomb continue his bobsledding career and win a gold medal at the 2010 Olympics, but the procedure is now known as the Holcomb C3-R, just as ulnar collateral ligament replacement is known as Tommy John surgery.

"Keratoconus is a lot more common than I ever realized going in," Holcomb said. "I thought I had some crazy rare disease. ... I've met so many people who have it. Two other people on the team have it and one had the same procedure. It's very common and this procedure stops it and is a cure.

"It's kind of one of the reasons for putting the book out. I wanted people to know there is a solution. It's not covered by insurance so people don't know about it -- it's not as widespread as it should be."

Blindness wasn't the only issue for Holcomb. He also suffered from depression, but was able to overcome that, as well. It wasn't easy, but he did it.

"There is always hope. Do not give up," he said. "There is always hope and always help. I kept everything a secret. I had depression and I kept it a secret and never let anyone know. When I did, that was when my life changed and it took off from there."

Holcomb is looking for more gold in Sochi at the 2014 Olympics, and he has a good chance. His team recently returned to Whistler, site of their 2010 gold, and won a World Cup race there.

"I would say that's a pretty decent place to hang out," Holcomb said of Whistler. "I love that track for obvious reasons. Winning a gold medal there brings up its value, and there is just a lot of beautiful scenery there."

And now he can see it all.

With every sunrise and sunset, with the change of another season, the moments from the greatest two weeks in Maggie Steffens' young athletic life drift further and further away. Four months after carrying the U.S. women's water polo team to its first gold medal, the 19-year-old is adjusting to life as a college freshman and Olympic champion.

There are days like the one not too long ago, when Steffens shared her gold medal with a mother who immediately wanted to take a picture biting the hardware.

"I was like, 'Uh, no,'" Steffens said. "I brushed it off as no big deal, but inside I was cringing. I mean, really? This isn't some chocolate bar."

And on the day she moved into her Stanford dorm this fall, there were the whispers. She heard them. "There goes the Olympic girl."

"I told them, 'Nope. My name is Maggie,'" she said. "I'm the same Maggie I was before all of this."

She may be the same person, but the way strangers view her is infinitely different. Four years ago in Beijing, the feisty 15-year-old watched from the stands as her older sister, Jessica, and other members of the U.S. team lost in the gold-medal match for the second time in three Olympics. She insisted it wouldn't happen again.

Then in London this past summer, as the youngest member of the U.S. team, Maggie scored an unfathomable 21 goals on 27 shots -- including a 5-for-5 showing in the 8-5 gold-medal victory over Spain -- to win the Olympic crown and make "The Star-Spangled Banner" the song of choice at the tournament's conclusion.

When her world stopped spinning, when Steffens finally returned home to California and had a second to hop in her bed, close her eyes, take a deep breath and try to absorb what had just happened, the memories that most prominently flooded the 19-year-old's head weren't the images everyone would have expected.

Sure, she thought about the goals she scored and the plays she made. Of course she reflected on the moment her gold medal was hung around her neck and the night her and Jessica paraded around the pool deck with the American flag draped behind them. The gut-wrenching semifinal win over Australia is there, too, a night when the Aussies forced overtime with one second left. But the memories that make her smile most are the ones no one knows about.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek still hopes to compete at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships after having surgery to repair a sports hernia.

Lysacek will be off the ice for about six weeks following Tuesday's surgery in Los Angeles. Once he returns, he'll be evaluated on a week-to-week basis. Nationals are nine weeks away, with the men's short program on Jan. 25 in Omaha, Neb.

Lysacek has been struggling with a groin injury since this summer, and the injury forced him out of last month's Skate America, which would have been his first competition since winning gold at the Vancouver Olympics. A recent exam found he'd actually torn an abdominal muscle.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- USA Water Polo has made Jovan Vavic the interim national team head coach.

CEO Christopher Ramsey made the announcement Tuesday that Vavic would take over, while still handling his regular duties as head coach at Southern California. The plan is for Vavic to lead the team through qualification for next summer's world championships in Barcelona, Spain, then the position will be re-evaluated.

The American men finished a disappointing eighth at the London Olympics in August, closing play with five straight losses after going into the Olympics with hopes of gold after winning silver in Beijing.

Vavic has led the Trojans to 10 NCAA water polo championships, including four consecutive men's titles. A ten-time national coach of the year, Vavic has compiled a career .859 winning percentage coaching the USC men.

Unlike most of the distance runners who traveled to New York last week, marathoner Desiree Davila arrived knowing she wouldn't be hitting the famous 26.2-mile course.

Davila has been off her feet almost entirely since Aug. 5, when a mysterious and painful hip injury forced her out of the Olympic marathon in London after just one 2.2-mile lap. Composed but obviously devastated, she told reporters she had done everything possible to get to the start, including training on a special high-tech treadmill that minimizes impact and taking a cortisone shot. She hoped for a miracle, but it wasn't to be, so she crossed the finish line on The Mall 24 miles early and walked away from the race she'd spent four years visualizing.

Back home, a detailed MRI showed what had been missed in an initial diagnosis -- Davila had a stress fracture at the top of her right femoral shaft. She rested completely for eight weeks, then began some stationary bike work and only started running again about two weeks ago, for 10 minutes at a time. That puts her, in her words, at the bottom of the family mileage board below her fiancé Ryan Linden and their two dogs.

It's by far the longest layoff of a goal-oriented life, so how is Davila dealing with the unaccustomed inactivity? "You can ask the people around me," she said with a throaty laugh over the phone from New York City, where she was fulfilling sponsor obligations. "I think I needed it. I was so frustrated and beaten down by trying to get through the whole process. Now I'm itching to go."

Davila doesn't regret her decision to give London a try; she said she acted based on the best information she had at the time. "If it had been diagnosed right, I wouldn't have been there, and I wouldn't have tried to train to get there," she said. She's still unsure about when she'll race again. The imbalances created by months of favoring her right hip need to be addressed with soft tissue work and physical therapy.

For now, the Boston Marathon -- where she set an American course record in 2011 -- remains on her schedule (the race is on April 15), "and we'll keep it on until we know it can't work," said Davila, who trains in suburban Detroit with the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project. "Things would have to be pretty perfect in January for that to happen."

Lindsey Vonn learned to ski on a 300-foot slope steps from Interstate 35 in Minnesota and turned herself into the most accomplished American skier in history.

She crashed in a training run at the 2006 Winter Olympics and had to be air-lifted to the hospital, yet came back to compete in the race two days later (she finished eighth). She severely bruised her knee in a training run before the 2010 Olympics but overcame the injury to become the first American woman to win gold in the downhill. She won the World Cup overall title three consecutive years (2008 to 2010) and four times total, and has World Cup victories in all five events.

She posed for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and even won a cow in a race.

Vonn has done virtually everything a skier can do in her sport except compete in a World Cup race against men. And that will still be the case Thanksgiving weekend.

Over the weekend, the International Ski Federation (FIS) rejected Vonn’s request to compete against men at the World Cup race at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, the final weekend of November. In a statement, the FIS said: "One gender is not entitled to participate in races of the other and exceptions will not be made to the FIS Rules."

Vonn did not have a public comment. Bill Marolt, president of U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, said Vonn "has achieved greatness from her tenacity in seeking new challenges. We’re disappointed that the FIS Council did not support the proposal but also respect its direction."

As I wrote when Vonn first made her request, watching her race against Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Marcel Hirscher would have been great fun. But it also would have taken away from her fellow skiers that same weekend when they compete in Aspen, Colo., at the only women’s World Cup race held in the United States this season.

I respect Vonn's desire to challenge herself, and I wish her another superb season. But there is a reason the genders compete separately in sports. In addition to allowing opportunities for women, it provides them with important attention and financial possibilities. If a woman feels she has the skill to compete against men, by all means she should be allowed to do so. But only if she is willing to truly compete, which means competing throughout an entire season, not just when it would be fun or challenging or convenient.

After all, as good as she is, Diana Taurasi won’t get to play in one select NBA game just to challenge herself.