The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The Olympic torch arrived for a five-borough tour of New York Saturday, two months before the Athens Games open and eight years before the city hopes to host its own Olympics.

Following a ceremony at Athens Square Park in Queens, Olympic long jumper Bob Beamon began the torch's 34-mile journey around the city - which recently was named as one of five finalists to host the 2012 Summer Games.

Beamon, a native of Queens who won gold at the 1968 Mexico City Games, held the torch aloft and then began his run as hundreds of spectators cheered wildly and waved Greek flags on a hot, humid morning.

WOMEN'S CYCLING: Kristin Armstrong's hope was to make the 2004 Olympics in the triathlon. Osteoarthritis in her hips ended that plan two years ago.

So she was coaxed into cycling - and only two years after competing against elite-level riders for the first time, she's an Olympic-bound national champion.

Armstrong won the women's national cycling road race championship in Redlands, Calif., Saturday, earning an automatic berth on the Olympic team that will compete in Athens. She edged time trial national champion Christine Thorburn by about half a bike length, finishing the 73-mile course in 3 hours, 26 minutes, 12 seconds.

GYMNASTICS: The next step in the confusing and secretive process in selecting the U.S. teams is the Olympic Trials, which run Thursday through Sunday in Anaheim, Calif. But contrary to the very idea of the event, the names of the 12 Olympic gymnasts - six men, six women - won't all be known once the meet ends.

Women's national coordinator Martha Karolyi will use the Trials as a glorified practice, from which she'll pick a team of nine to 11 gymnasts who will go to her ranch in Texas for a final training camp.

It is there, after a series of workouts closed to the public, that the six Olympians will be named July 18.

The men, meanwhile, head to California without a firm idea of what will happen when the Trials end. They could pick a team right on the spot or might wait until after a training camp in July. The decision probably will hinge on whether two of their top athletes, Blaine Wilson and Jason Gatson, are healthy.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Yolanda Griffith was added to the team. Griffith, a center-forward for the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs, was a member of the gold medal-winning 2000 Olympics team. Her addition completes the 12-member team that will compete at the Summer Games beginning Aug. 13.