WORRIED BUT UNTHWARTED

British rower Steve Redgrave is a worrier. He claims fretting is essential to winning races. "If you're not worrying, you lose your mental edge," he says. "Before you know it, somebody comes out of the woodwork to pull a half a length ahead of you." Obviously the worrying has paid off. Nobody has streamed ahead of Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, his partner in the coxless pairs, for four years. Redgrave and Pinsent have racked up a unbroken string of more than 50 international wins, including four consecutive world championships and gold in the 1992 Olympics.

Redgrave and Pinsent have been unusually protective of their unbeaten record. Some champion rowers cruise through qualifying heats to a gentlemanly second or third, enough to make the finals. But not Redgrave and Pinsent. They always row for a first. "Every race is worthy of winning," says Pinsent. "Besides, defending the streak motivates us and keeps the pressure up."

Redgrave has a second--and even more enviable--record to worry about in Atlanta: he is trying to win a gold medal in four successive Olympiads. No rower has done it, and only three other athletes in the 100-year history of the Games have managed such a feat. In addition to his win with Pinsent in Barcelona, Redgrave captured rowing gold medals with other partners in 1984 and 1988. "Winning a fourth gold has been the motivation for carrying on with rowing for the last four years," says Redgrave, 33. "I began working and planning for it five days after Barcelona." That's about the same time the worrying began as well.

RULES

Rights Crosses

The games are a festival of human attainment, but a new rule this year is being decried as an abridgment of individual rights. A clause added to athletes' entry forms stipulates that competitors' disputes be resolved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, a 12-member body set up by the International Olympic Committee in 1994. The aim is to avert litigation over doping suspensions, as in the case of 400-m world record holder Butch Reynolds of the U.S., suspended in 1990. Reynolds sued in U.S. courts and won $27.4 million, a judgment later reversed. The new form requires athletes to take such disputes to the cas for "final and binding arbitration." Athletes' manager John Bicourt of Britain is crying foul. "We're told to sign away any right to mount any challenge," he says, "should we feel any athlete that we represent is unjustly accused." Bicourt is not advising athletes to balk at signing; he believes that anyone with a strong case will have recourse to ordinary courts. ioc officials seem to concur--in cases of "gross violations" of basic rights.

SECURITY

Peace Officering

Ever since 11 Israeli athletes were killed by terrorists at the 1972 Games in Munich, security has been an Olympic obsession. In Atlanta, along with 5,000 private security guards, 1,500 local police and 600 officers from the State of Georgia, an intimidating 14,000 federal troops will be deployed at the scattered Olympic sites. Yet officials promise the protection will not be obtrusive. "You won't see tanks going up and down Peachtree Street," Major John Gordon, security coordinator for the Atlanta police, told the U.S.'s National Public Radio. Instead the soldiers will be manning checkpoints, driving buses full of athletes, even watering soccer fields. Crime statistics rank Atlanta as one of the most violent cities in the U.S., but Olympic traffic and pervasive security usually make host cities safer, and officials pledge that Atlanta will reap the same benefit. Boasts Mayor Bill Campbell: "During the Olympics Atlanta will be the safest city in this country, certainly, and on the globe, probably." At least it will be the most heavily patrolled this side of Sarajevo.

FOOTBALL

Ladies' First

Forecasts for the first olympic women's football tournament may come as a shock: the U.S., not usually considered a bastion of soccer expertise, is a solid co-favorite with Norway for the gold medal. The Americans won the first women's World Championships, held in 1991, and the Norwegians took the second in 1995. Since then the U.S. has beaten Norway in two of three games and built a 15-1-1 record so far this year. Why the American prowess? Most countries offer few opportunities for female soccer players, but Norway has a thriving women's professional league and the U.S. a burgeoning co-ed youth soccer movement. The U.S. national federation estimates that 6 million Americans under 19 years of age play organized football at least 25 times a year--and 41% of them are female.

--Reported by Jon Abbey/New York and Barry Hillenbrand/Henley