Bad boy shakes up badminton

Smashing his sport's stereotypes and swinging at coaches with equal abandon, Chinese Olympian Lin Dan has been labeled the "bad boy of badminton," if you can believe that.

Lin, the world's top-ranked badminton player, reportedly tried to hit another player's coach with his racket this year and also took a swing at his own coach, according to a story in The Dallas Morning News, which also reported Lin denied on his Web site ever taking a swing at anyone.

One top opponent called Lin, 24, "arrogant," and many Chinese fans have called for his removal from China's Olympic team.

Adding to the intrigue surrounding "Super Dan" -- who beat Hong Kong's Ng Wei 21-16, 21-13 Tuesday in his first match in Beijing -- is the fact he also dates the world's top-ranked women's player, China's Xie Xingfang, who won her match Tuesday on a court next to her beau.

In China, Lin and Xie are called "The Condor Couple," named after characters from a Chinese novel about "an impetuous young warrior and his calm, elder lover."

Groups of girls went ga-ga over Lin before his match Tuesday, but competitors for his heart had better beware of Xie, who told Reuters, "I just want to be the woman who cooks soup for Lin Dan after the Games."

• FRENCH TOAST -- Though they've tried proving differently in the past, the French apparently don't know when to quit.

After French swimmer Alain Bernard helped inspire the U.S. men's 400 freestyle relay team to a gold medal with his ill-fated comment before the race -- "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for" -- another French swimmer had the temerity to keep talking trash after the race, which the U.S. won by .08 of a second.

"A fingertip did the victory," Frenchman Amaury Leveaux said. "It is nothing."

After the race, the American team was asked by NBC Sports "who's talking now?"

"We are. United States of America," said Garrett Weber-Gale, who added later, "We heard the Frenchies were talking some stuff."

• WHERE'S SPITZ? -- Roger Maris' family was on hand when Mark McGwire broke Maris' single-season home run record, and baseball's gentlemanly former home run king, Hank Aaron, at least had the class to record a video message for Barry Bonds that was played the night he broke the career homer mark.

So why isn't swimming legend Mark Spitz in Beijing to watch Michael Phelps' attempt at breaking his 36-year-old record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics?

"I never got invited," Spitz, 58, told AFP in Hong Kong. "You don't go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am.

"I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost -- it is."

Spitz said he has no idea why he wasn't invited.

"They voted me one of the top five Olympians in all time. Some of them are dead. But they invited the other ones to go to the Olympics, but not me," Spitz said. "Yes, I am a bit upset about it."

COMPILED BY TODD DEWEY REVIEW-JOURNAL