First the gold, then the Wheaties. At the Olympics in Beijing this month, Nastia Liukin followed in the footsteps of Mary Lou Retton and Carly Patterson, the two other American gymnasts who have won Olympic gold in the all-around competition. Now she and American decathlete Bryan Clay follow them onto the Wheaties cereal box.

Liukin and Clay will get their own special edition Wheaties boxes, General Mills Inc. announced yesterday.

Liukin, who is from Parker, Texas, won five medals in the Beijing Olympics, including helping the United States win silver in the team competition.

More Olympics

A day after returning to the United States from his Olympic triumphs, the 14-time gold medalist Michael Phelps jumped into a YMCA swimming pool and gave pointers to children about their strokes.

"This is a great place to get started on my next goal, my next dream of trying to get more people involved in the sport of swimming but also more people involved in exercising," Phelps said.

Phelps joined officials from Visa, one of his sponsors, in presenting a $20,000 grant to the YMCA of Greater New York to support youth swimming programs.

• Peter Ueberroth's term as chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee ends in the fall and he will move into a non-voting role on the board of directors of the USOC. Ueberroth turns 71 Tuesday.

Golf

Ryder Cup hopefuls Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie had encouraging opening rounds in the Johnnie Walker Championship in Gleneagles, Scotland. Clarke shot a 1-under 72 and Montgomerie had a 74 on The Centenary Course at Gleneagles, where Frenchman Gregory Havret took the first-round lead with a 68. Nick Dougherty had a 73 to start a late bid to rise from 14th in the standings to the top 10 who qualify automatically.

Baseball

Josh Beckett has been scratched from a scheduled start again, and the Boston ace plans to have his ailing right elbow examined today by Dr. James Andrews in Alabama.

• Second baseman Howie Kendrick, one of the Los Angeles Angels' top hitters this season, went on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left hamstring.

• A gray, rectangular box on the wall of the umpires dressing room at Wrigley Field containing a phone and a high definition TV monitor signaled a new era as instant replay arrived in major league baseball for the first time.

Basketball

The Penn State men's basketball team will play four exhibition games in Toronto this weekend against Canadian colleges and universities. The slate starts with a doubleheader tomorrow and single games Sunday and Monday. After the trip, the team breaks until the NCAA's official start of basketball practice in mid-October.

• Oklahoma State point guard Andrea Riley, the Big 12's top scorer, has been reprimanded and suspended by the NCAA for fighting with an LSU player during the Cowgirls' final postseason game last season.

• The Memphis Grizzlies signed 7-foot-2, 254-pound free-agent center Hamed Haddadi, who played for the Iranian national team in the Olympics.

Soccer

Defenders Danny Califf, Michael Orozco and Marvell Wynne were added to the U.S. roster for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago. Midfielder Ricardo Clark also was among 20 players selected by U.S. coach Bob Bradley.

Wild Things

Washington's chances at making the playoffs for a seventh consecutive season took a major hit as the Kalamazoo Kings took both games of a doubleheader, 5-3 and 8-3, at Consol Energy Park.

Auto racing

Phil Hill, the only American-born Formula One champion, died of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 81. The 1961 Formula Open champion and a three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, Hill died at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in California.