ROUNDUP : POLL RAPS FOUR SPORTS, INCLUDING SAILBOARDING.

Byline: Associated Press 

Synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, beach volleyball and sailboarding should be dropped from the Summer Olympics program, according to results of a nationwide media survey conducted by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.

The survey of sports editors, columnists, writers, sportscasters and commentators also gave strong support to the proposed addition of golf to the Summer Games and cited drug use as the most troublesome issue in the Olympics.

Strongest negative reaction (69 percent) went to sailboarding followed by 63 percent opposing synchronized swimming, 57 percent against rhythmic gymnastics and 53 percent against beach volleyball.

Golf, which was a medal sport in 1900 and 1904, was favored by 42 percent as a sport they'd like added to the Olympic schedule.

Flame's arrival:It's been from Hollywood to Broadway, past Elvis' house and to the White House. On Tuesday, the Olympic flame makes its grandest entrance yet - into Georgia for the final run to Atlanta.

After a cross-country relay that began April 27 in Los Angeles, the torch will arrive in Savannah around dinner time on the last leg of a journey that ends in the state capital at the opening ceremony of the Centennial Summer Games on July 19.

The torch will enter Georgia aboard a tall ship, escorted by a Coast Guard cutter, from Jacksonville, Fla. Gov. Zell Miller and Billy Payne, president of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, are among thousands expected to gather for the welcome at Savannah's waterfront.

Rowing update: World champion Maria Sandin of Sweden, who will be competing at Atlanta, won the final of the Women's Sculls at the Henley Regatta by 4-3/4 lengths from Swiss rower Caroline Lughi.

Here come the Romanians: Led by Lavinia Milosovici, a double gold medalist four years ago at Barcelona, seven Romanian gymnasts left for Atlanta in hopes of gaining more Olympic glory.

Romania is one of the leading nations in women's gymnastics, and past stars such as Nadia Comaneci, Ecaterina Szabo and Daniela Silivas also have been multiple gold medalists at the Olympics.

Now they face tougher challenges from countries which made up the former Soviet Union, as well as stars from China and the United States.

``We leave with big thoughts, both for the team and individuals,'' said Milosovici, the senior member of the team at 19.

Feats of clay: Lance Bade has loved to shoot since he was a kid. But if a driver's license hadn't set him free, the sport of bowling might have gotten between him and the U.S. Olympic team forever.

Instead, freedom struck when he turned 16. And now, at 25, he'll represent the United States at the Olympic Games shooting events July 20-27 at the Wolf Creek Olympic Shooting Complex in Atlanta. There he'll shoot international trap and double trap - two of the three Olympic shotgun sports.

He's Lance Bade of Ridgefield, Wash., a town of fewer than 2,000 souls that hugs the verdant bottomlands between the Interstate and the Columbia River.

``We were pretty outdoorsy and into hunting and fishing and stuff like that,'' Bade said. ``I had some friends who shot trap; I'd seen them shoot when I was real young. But none of my family was into the sport of clay shooting at all.''

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Photo

Photo: NASA employee Mark Winkel lights an Olympic cauldron at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Associated Press