After presiding over the splendor of the opening ceremony, Olympics head Juan Antonio Samaranch faced a personal tragedy: His gravely ill wife died Saturday as he flew home to Spain to be with her.

Maria Teresa Salisachs-Rowe, 67 and reportedly suffering from cancer, died Saturday in Barcelona.

"She was not an IOC member, but she was a very close friend to all of us. She was like the first lady of the IOC," said Pal Schmitt, an International Olympic Committee member from Hungary.

"She was a glorious woman. She was always exquisite," IOC vice president Anita DeFrantz said. "She was kind and generous."

Dick Pound, who as first vice president temporarily has taken over Samaranch's duties, said the Olympic flag would be lowered to half-staff at the Olympic Stadium, three hotels where IOC officials are staying and IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

A Mass is scheduled Monday at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Sydney for Olympic officials and others.

In the village, a moment of silence was observed by the 199 national team mission chiefs at their morning briefing.

Samaranch, who is to step down in July after 21 years as president, is expected to return to Sydney next weekend.

Holdsclaw hurt: Chamique Holdsclaw probably will miss the five preliminary round games of the U.S. women's basketball team because of a foot injury.

Doctors found the beginning of a stress fracture in Holdsclaw's right foot and advised her to sit out until the medal round to give it a chance to start healing.

Holdsclaw, a 6-foot-2 forward and, at 23, the youngest member of the U.S. team, is a WNBA all-star with the Washington Mystics.

Carter to Nike: Vince Carter has a new shoe deal that will allow him to pay off his multimillion-dollar debt for walking away from his last one. Carter, who signed a multi-year deal with Nike worth $30 million, planned to wear his new sneakers in the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team's opening game against China tonight.

Of the $30 million, more than half of it will be used to pay off Carter's debt to Puma. Carter breached his contract with Puma earlier this year, and an arbitrator ruled that Carter must pay $13.5 million -- plus $1 million in attorney's fees -- and cannot sign another sneaker deal for three years. Carter had to pay additional money, believed to be $3 million, to have Puma waive the three-year injunction.

TV ratings: NBC's taped telecast of the opening ceremony at the Sydney Olympics drew a 16.1 national rating with a 29 share from 8 p.m. to midnight EDT/PDT. That's 17 percent higher than the 13.8 rating the 1992 Barcelona Games opener received and 32 percent lower than Atlanta's 23.6.

The 18.8 rating that NBC averaged from 8-11 p.m. overwhelmed the 11.7 combined total for CBS, ABC and Fox over that period.

NBC research estimates 56 million people saw all or part of Friday's show.

"In the past it hasn't been the highest-rated night of the Olympics, so this bodes well," NBC Sports VP Kevin Sullivan said.

Test offered: The 2002 Winter Games should be the first Olympics where athletes are tested for human growth hormone, U.S. anti-doping officials said.

White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey and Frank Shorter, the former marathoner who will head the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said they fully expect a test for the banned performance-enhancer to be in place for 2002.

"I think it's just a question of how sophisticated the test will be," Shorter said.

In a related development, the U.S. government pledged $3.3 million to fund anti-doping programs for the Salt Lake Games.

HGH, which was designed to treat dwarfism, is used by athletes to build muscle.

Team out: The Romanian weightlifting team was thrown out of the Olympics after two lifters failed drug tests before the games.

IOC director general Francois Carrard said that the expulsion was ordered by the International Weightlifting Federation.

Under federation rules, any nation is suspended from competition for the rest of that year if three or more of its weightlifters test positive for banned drugs. A third Romanian weightlifter tested positive earlier this year.