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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Shawn Johnson will compete for the 2012 Olympics in London. Shawn Johnson’s 2012 Olympics announcement was made yesterday in Des Moines.

Johnson told WHO-TV the following: “It’s just exciting, but I’ve got a ways to go. This is just a start. And nothing is a sure thing, but I’m going to give it as big and best an effort as I can.”

Her coach Liang Chow told press:

“Every time she comes in, it seems like her desire is getting stronger and stronger. Yesterday afternoon, she just didn’t want to leave me alone. She wanted to do more and more, and was asking directions.”

“It’s hard for me to tell you anything on the timing. I’m hoping she can get back to the competition floor by next year. For this year, mainly it will be the preparation stage.”

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Kerri Strug is married! Kerri Strug got married yesterday to Robert William Fischer III. Strug is the beloved gymnast who won the Olympics 1992 bronze medal and 1996 gold medal.

Strug now works for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The couple have dated since 2008. She tells press that their first date was basically love at first sight.

Fisher says Kerri has a passion for life that inspired people for years; he says that together she gives him inspiration to be a great person.

Kerri tells PEOPLE:

“Robert always wants to make me happy. He’s a little old-fashioned. He really courted me, and for a while. To this day, he still gives me flowers on a regular basis.”

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