On Thursday, August 2, United States Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth and Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr will be joined by 2008 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team hopefuls on a teleconference call to mark the one-year countdown to the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic & Paralympic Games in Beijing, China.

The 2008 Olympic Games officially open on Aug. 8, 2008, while the 2008 Paralympic Games begin Sept. 6, 2008.

The August 2 “Countdown to Beijing” teleconference will begin at 12:00 p.m. EASTERN/10:00 a.m. MOUNTAIN/9:00 a.m. PACIFIC. The dial-in number is 1-800-311-9410 and the pass code is USOC 2008. 

Athletes on the call will include Steven Lopez (Sugar Loaf, Texas), a two-time Olympic champion and four-time World Champion in taekwondo; Sheila Taormina (Colorado Springs, Colo.), a three-time Olympian in two different sports (swimming/triathlon) and looking to become the first person to compete in three different events at the Olympic Games as a modern pentathlete in 2008; Mariel Zagunis (Beaverton, Ore.), a 2004 Olympic gold medalist and 2005 World Champion in fencing; Sarah Hammer (Temecula, Calif.), a two-time World Champion in cycling; gymnast Nastia Liukin (Parker, Texas), won world titles on the uneven bars and balance beam in 2005 and earned two silver medals at the 2006 World Championships in the team event and the uneven bars; and 2004 Paralympic high jump silver medalist and two-time World Champion Jeff Skiba (Issaquah, Wash.). 

WHAT:            USOC One-Year To Beijing Teleconference

WHO:              USOC Leaders Peter Ueberroth and Jim Scherr
                         2008 Olympic & Paralympic Hopefuls

WHEN:           Thursday, August 2
                         12:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Mountain/9:00 a.m. Pacific)

DIAL-IN:         1-800-311-9410
Pass code:     USOC 2008

Athlete Biographies

Steven Lopez (Taekwondo/Sugar Loaf, Texas)
The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and Steven Lopez wins another world championship or Olympic gold medal.

Such has been the life for USA Taekwondo over the past eight years while witnessing the feats of this living legend in the sport. In May of 2007, Lopez, 28, became the most decorated Taekwondo athlete of all time when he captured his fourth consecutive world title in Beijing. His string of world championships (2001, 2003, 2005 & 2007), coupled with his two Olympic gold medals (2000 & 2004) evoke a Lance Armstrong-like run of dominance, endurance and longevity.

And Lopez, the living legend from Sugar Land, Texas, has his sights squarely set on Olympic title No. 3 in Beijing in 2008.

Mariel Zagunis (Fencing/Beaverton, Ore.)

In 2004, Mariel Zagunis won the gold medal in women’s saber and became the first American to win an Olympic fencing gold medal in 100 years.  Following her gold medal victory, she entered the University of Notre Dame in 2004 on an athletic scholarship. 

Her parents, Robert and Cathy, were collegiate rowers (at Oregon State and Connecticut College, respectively) before competing with the U.S. rowing team at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal.

Zagunis was the first American fencer to hold the Jr. World Cup Champion title (2002), and she did so for three straight years (2002, 2003, 2004). She is the youngest fencer ever to win the Federation International d'Escrime (FIE) World Championship gold, and the youngest fencer to win three FIE medals in one season. Zagunis was the first fencer in the history of the sport to hold more than two World Champion titles in one season (2001: Cadet, Jr. and Jr. Team titles).

In October 2005, Zagunis captured her seventh World Champion title at the World Championships in Leipzig, Germany, in the women's team event. A year later at the 2006 World Fencing Championships, she won the silver, after losing in the final to American Rebecca Ward.

Zagunis is currently ranked No. 1 in the world, and is the second U.S. fencer in history to have won the World Cup Title from the FIE, which she won in 2006.

Sarah Hammer (Cycling/Temecula, Calif.)
Sarah Hammer successfully defended her world title in the women’s three-kilometer individual pursuit at the 2007 UCI Track World Championships. Hammer’s back-to-back world titles marks the first time an American woman has won consecutive world championships on the track in over 20 years.

Sarah began her cycling career at age eight when introduced to the sport by her father, Cliff. Sarah was a quick study with her first junior national title coming in 1995; the same year that Rebecca Twigg won the last women’s World Championship Track gold medal for the United States. Eleven years later, and twenty national titles later, Sarah put an end to America’s gold medal drought by taking the win and rainbow World Championship jersey in Bordeaux, France. Sarah has now squarely set her sights on another goal - a gold medal in the Beijing Olympic Games.

Nastia Liukin (Gymnastics/Parker, Texas)
Nastia Liukin is the 2005 balance beam and uneven bars world champion and also claimed silver medals in the all-around and floor exercise at the 2005 World Championships.  Despite an injured ankle that limited her routines, she helped the United States win a team silver medal at the 2006 World Championships and also claimed silver on the uneven bars. 

Liukin graduated from high school this past year and will begin taking classes at Southern Methodist University in January 2008.

In her first major competition following an ankle injury suffered just prior to the 2006 World Championships, Liukin earned silver in the uneven bars and balance beam and helped the team win gold at the 2007 Pan American Games.

She is the only daughter of Valeri and Anna Liukin and she is coached by her dad. Valeri won four medals at the 1988 Olympic Games, including two gold, and her mother was a 1987 rhythmic gymnastics world champion.

Sheila Taormina (Modern Pentathlon/Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Sheila Taormina (pronounced Tar-meena) is attempting to make her fourth U.S. Olympic Team in an unprecedented third sport. Taormina has already competed in the Olympic Games in the sports of swimming and triathlon. A graduate of the University of Georgia with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and a Master’s in Business Administration, she won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga. swimming the third leg of the 800m freestyle relay.

Thinking her competitive sports career was over, Taormina returned to Michigan. In 1998 she decided to enter the Waterloo Triathlon in Ann Arbor, Mich. for fun and won the women’s race, placing sixth overall. The race sparked a dream for Taormina of returning to elite competitive athletics in a second sport, which she did, making the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Teams in the sport of triathlon. She finished sixth at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia and 23rd at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece experiencing leg cramps during the bike ride.

While at a triathlon training camp at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in 2004, Taormina met modern pentathlete Eli Bremer in the swimming pool. Bremer asked Taormina when she was going to switch to modern pentathlon and become the first American to make a fourth U.S. Olympic Team in a third sport.

Following the 2004 Olympic Games, Taormina mulled over the idea of taking up a new sport, but wanted to try one of the winter variety, so she dabbled in cross-country skiing in Michigan for a while. Realizing skiing wasn’t for her, she decided to consider Bremer’s sport and in June 2005 made a trip to San Antonio, Texas to try out for the U.S. Modern Pentathlon coaches. The coaches were impressed and Taormina started down the pathway to a new Olympic dream. Living and training in Clear Water, Fla., Taormina decided in June 2006 to make the move to Colorado Springs to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center with the U.S. Modern Pentathlon National Team training program under coach Janusc Peciak.

Jeff Skiba (Paralympic Track & Field/Issaquah, Wash.)   

Skiba is a member of the 2007 U.S. Paralympics Resident Athlete Program at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. There, he lives and trains full-time with Ambulatory Head Coach Joaquim Cruz.

Skiba’s signature event is the high jump, in which he is the two-time defending world champion, the 2004 Paralympic silver medalist and the current Paralympic world record holder at 6’10-3/4” (2.10 meters). His most recent record-breaking performance came at the U.S. Paralympics Track and Field Championships in July.

In Boston this past February, Skiba became the first Paralympic athlete to compete at the U.S. Indoor Track and Field National Championships.

Skiba attended the University of Washington before moving to Chula Vista.

For more information, please contact the USOC Communications Division at 719-866-4529.