CORAL GABLES (LALATE) – Claudia Heill (photos below) is dead at 29. Claudia Heill died following a suicide jump from a Vienna building today. Heill was the silver Olympic medalist for Austria in judo in the under 63 kilogram category during the 2004 Games.

Claudia Heill was a top athlete in her sport. She won medals in the 2001 and 2005 European championships. She picked up five medals in European Championships in a mere five year period.

Federation president Hans Paul Kutschera issued a news statement today that friends and colleagues of Heill are “devastated”. Kutschera added that “nobody could foresee this act of desperation.” Claudia had success in studies; she was a very active person. All who knew her are very concerned. “

Heill jumped from a sixth floor window to her death.

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Online reports indicate she was a Corporal in 2004 when she won the medal. Her country’s Defense Minister Guenther Platter issued the following news statement congratulating Heill in 2004. “Our athletes have proven that the training conditions are in the army sports centers provided a fertile ground for international success,” said the Minister. He added “The sporting elite come from of the army. I’m proud of our athletes.”

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LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – The 2010 Olympics Logo spells “Zion”, so claims Iran. Now the 2012 Olympics logo, which prompted enough stylistic criticism after its debut five years ago, is now the basis of Iran’s threat in boycotting the London Games.

What exactly does the “2012” logo spell out? It spells, remarkably, “2012”. But Iran doesn’t agree. Today, the IOC issued a news statement just to clarify that. “Our response is as follows: The London 2012 logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else,” the IOC said.

Iran is not convinced says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He and Secretary general Bahram Afsharzadeh say that the above logo is a “racist logo” and that it spells “Zion”. The secretary general of Iran’s National Olympic Committee sent a letter off to the IOC to explain their threat. “There is no doubt that negligence of the issue from your side may affect the presence of some countries in the games, especially Iran which abides by commitment to the values and principles”.

Iran says if the logo is not changed, they will boycott the games. Iran does not explain what prompted their decision this month, since the logo was unveiled years ago.

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LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – LaShawn Merritt has been banned from the 2012 London Olympic Games. LaShawn Merritt was banned today after reportedly testing positive for ExtenZe. The IOC made the decision to ban Merritt following a 21 month suspension announced by U.S. arbitrators yesterday. That 21 month suspension ends July 2011; it would have made Merritt eligible  to compete in the World Championships.

But today the IOC upheld a 2008 rule against Merritt. That IOC rule automatically bans an athlete from the next Olympics if they have been suspended for more than 6 months.

On Monday, the the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) ruled that Merritt had tested positive for prohibited testosterone prohormones during three tests. Merritt had accepted provisional suspension earlier in 2010. Merritt tested positive for the presence of DHEA, a dehydroepiandrosterone; reports claimed that  Merritt took “ExtenZe”.

USATF’s CEO, Doug Logan, said previously that he is “disgusted by this entire episode.” “He has now put his entire career under a cloud and in the process made himself the object of jokes. In this day and age, a professional athlete should know better.”

Merritt has called it a “a foolish, immature and egotistical mistake.”

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LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – Dara Torres wants a sixth Olympics, confirming today that the 2012 London Games will have Torres hopefully going for gold. Dara Torres told news Friday that she is now training for her sixth Olympics, a spot on the London Games in 2012.

In 2008, Torres, as broke first on LALATE, qualified for her fifth Olympics, the first U.S. swimmer to do so. Now the 43 year old feels she ready for the competition all over again. Torres reveals to news today that now five weeks after reconstructive knee surgery she feels determined to qualify.

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In Beijing, Dara qualified at age 41 and won three silvers. Torres made the news announcement on “Live with Regis and Kelly” during a Friday live broadcast. “[My] heart and head are like ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.”

As a youth, LALATE’s very own trained alongside Torres in the pool. Torres reveals to Swimming World she is already under full time training with coach Michael Lohberg at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex. That was her training facility since 2005’s birth of daughter Tessa Grace.

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“If Jack Nicklaus can win a Masters at 46 and Nolan Ryan can pitch a no-hitter at 44, why can’t a 41-year-old mom compete in the Olympics? I had the experience. I knew what to expect. I knew how to handle certain situations and young kids don’t have that.”

In a news statement today, Torres says she is ready.

“I wanted to get back into swimming on my terms. I just started training with the kids again and they are all giving me grief and teasing me. I have huge goggles and they asked me if windshield wipers come with them.

“It’s going to be fun being back again. It depends on what my body dictates. I know that I am more susceptible to injury. Now that I’m a little bit older, it’s going to be even harder than when I was 41.”

Torres was in the LA Olympics of 84, Seoul 88, Barcelona 92, retired, then Sydney 2000. When she qualified for Beijing, she told news “I’m shocked. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that I made my fifth Olympic team. I was thinking about my father, who passed away a year and a half ago, thinking about my daughter. I had to sit down for a minute to gather my emotions.”

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MUNICH (LALATE) – The Olympic IOC has approved three finalists for the 2018 Winter Olympics. The three applicants for the 2018 Winter Olympics all made finalists cuts Tuesday, marking the smallest contender pool for a winter Olympic games since 1981.

The three finalist cities are Annecy, France; Munich; and Pyeongchang, South Korea. In a statement Tuesday, IOC Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli said the following:

“The executive board decided that all three applicant cities deserved to move to the second phase of the bidding procedure. It has been made clear, however, that Annecy needed to review its project.”

The selection voting will be July 6 next year. Pyeongchang is the favorite, trying for its third time. It’s situated in the mountain range east of Seoul and its host bidder is Korean Air’s Cho Yang-ho.

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