GERMANY HOCKEY player Katharina Scholz has joined the list of female sports stars who have posed naked although the 25-year-old striker has no plans to pursue a career as a professional model after appearing in the German edition of Playboy magazine. “The most important thing for me is playing hockey,” she said.

“And because I am playing hockey, I got the opportunity to go on Playboy . Maybe when I look back after a few years I will be proud of it. Not everybody can go on the cover of Playboy .”

Bounce out

The dangers of sporting terminology were all too evident when a report from China’s official state news agency Xinhua briefly caused confusion. It read: “Pregame favorite Huang Shanshan of China crashed out of Olympic women’s trampoline after suffering sudden death in qualification at the Beijing Olympic Games here on Saturday .”

Fortunately for Huang, she hadn’t lost her life, merely exited the tournament and will doubtless look forward to “murdering” her opponents at a future date.

On your bike

Olympic competitors are not immune from the global problem of theft, as members of the New Zealand cycling team discovered when the mountain bikes they brought with them to ride around the Athletes Village suddenly disappeared.

But, after 48 hours, the missing bikes were back. “I’m not going to speculate on who they (the thieves) were, in the spirit of friendship,” said New Zealand team manager Dave Currie.