The Associated Press 2008

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Paul Hamm won't be going to the Beijing Olympics, after all.

With less than a week of training time left, the reigning gold medalist withdrew from the Summer Games on Monday because he won't be healthy enough to compete. Besides persistent pain from the right hand he broke two months ago, he strained his left rotator cuff in his accelerated recovery effort.

"There came a point in the gym where I almost threw my arms in the air and just knew, this wasn't working," the 25-year-old Hamm said. "It was a really tough decision for me to make. You could drag this out even further.

"But what I know with my body and what I feel, there's no point for me to do that. It's not in the best interest of everyone involved."

Hamm said he did everything he possibly could but simply did not have enough time to recuperate. The American men leave for China on Wednesday, and podium training — the one opportunity gymnasts have to train on the competition floor and in front of judges before the meet begins — is Aug. 6.

The men's competition begins Aug. 9.

"We were so close," said Lawrence Lubbers, the hand specialist who operated on Hamm on May 27. "Without the shoulder, we probably would have made it. But the two were just too much."

Alternate Raj Bhavsar will take Hamm's place in Beijing.

Hamm's withdrawal is a huge blow for the Americans, who were fourth at last year's world championships and hoped his return would get them back on the podium. Hamm is the only American to win the world (2003) or Olympic (2004) all-around titles.

It also clears the way for China's Yang Wei in the all-around. Yang, the two-time defending world champion, is so technically superior that Hamm was considered the only one who could challenge him.

MACAU, China — The U.S. men's basketball team is striving to be confident heading into the Beijing Games while avoiding the complacency that has sabotaged it in recent Olympics.

That was the message from coach Mike Krzyzewski after he and the star-studded team arrived Monday in this southern Chinese casino enclave for its final preparations for the Beijing Games.

The team is "trying to be very confident, but that doesn't mean overconfident," Krzyzewski said.

"We don't have (anything) to be complacent about," he said. "We haven't accomplished anything yet. We're in the midst of trying to accomplish."

One of the Americans' most confident stars, the Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James, joined the team's first practice in Macau on Monday. His right ankle was taped as a precaution after he sat out the Americans' first tuneup against Canada on Friday with a sprain.

ZURICH, Switzerland — A FIFA-appointed judge is expected to rule today on whether soccer clubs can stop their players from competing at the Beijing Olympics.

German teams Schalke and Werder Bremen have refused to release two Brazilian players for next month's games. The clubs have appealed a decision by FIFA president Sepp Blatter that players 23 or under must be allowed to play for their country in China.

Soccer's governing body said the decision by the judge will come "most probably" today.

● Senior Iraqi government officials will meet with the International Olympic Committee today in Lausanne, Switzerland, to try to salvage the country's participation in Beijing.

A delegation led by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh will discuss reinstating the National Olympic Committee, which was dissolved by the Baghdad government in May, and led to the IOC suspending Iraq from the Olympics for political interference.