Deseret News | Plenty of reason to cheer — The Utah connection in Athens

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Plenty of reason to cheer — The Utah connection in Athens

By Lee Benson

Deseret News

Published: Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 12:39 p.m. MDT

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The Utah Connection

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If those aren't enough "twos," Utah can also lay claim to former BYU sprint champion Frank Fredericks of Namibia, a k a "Mr. Number Two," who has finished second four times in four Olympic finals at 100 and 200 meters, and former BYU gymnast Guard Young, a second-generation Olympian following in the footsteps of his father, Wayne Young, who competed for the United States as an Olympian in 1976.

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Others on the "Utah" list are current University of Utah basketball player Andrew Bogut, who will play for Australia; Sasha Pavlovic, the former Jazz draft pick, now a Cleveland Cavalier, who is a member of the Serbia-Montenegro national team; former Jazz draft pick Jose Ortiz, a four-time Olympian for Puerto Rico; BYU assistant track coach Leonard Myles-Mills, who will run sprints for his native Ghana; hammer thrower James Parker of Layton (Northridge High School and Utah State University), BYU runner Maggie Chan-Roper of Hong Kong, who will compete in the women's marathon; three BYU men's team swimmers: Mark Chay and Gary Tan of Singapore and Diogo de Oliveira Yabe of Brazil; cyclist Levi Leipheimer, a Montana native (currently living in California) who attended Rowland Hall-St. Mark's High School in Salt Lake City and, after that, the University of Utah for two years while racing for local Wasatch Front bicycling teams; and Heather Moody of Green River, Wyo., a mainstay on the U.S. women's water polo team.