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MELBOURNE, Australia -- Two-time Olympic cycling gold medalist Anna Meares will carry the Australian flag at the opening ceremony for the Rio de Janeiro Games on Aug. 5.Meares was announced Wednesday as the flag bearer and captain of Australias expected 410-member team. The ceremony was attended by former Seattle WNBA basketball player and now-retired Lauren Jackson, who carried the Australian flag at the 2012 London Games.The 32-year-old Meares won gold medals at the 2004 and 2012 Games. In her fourth Olympics, she will defend her title in the individual sprint and also compete in the team sprint and keirin.Meares, who was born in western Queensland state, says for me, a country girl, a coal miners daughter, to become the flag bearer for this country leaves me very emotional and proud. LaDainian Tomlinson Chargers Jersey . Pert has formerly spent time as an assistant coach with Cardiff City, Coventry City, and Bahrain mens national team. 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The World Cup of Hockey begins Saturday, Sept. 17, from Toronto when Team USA faces Team Europe in group play at 3:30 p.m. ET?(ESPN2).?Its time to stop worrying about who isnt on this team -- therell be plenty of time for recrimination and finger-pointing after the tournament for ignoring?Phil Kessel, Tyler Johnson, Kevin Shattenkirk and Justin Faulk if things dont go the Americans way during the upcoming World Cup of Hockey -- and focus on who is on this hard-working, hard-nosed team.Team USA GM Dean Lombardi, head coach John Tortorella and their highly efficient staff have assembled a surprisingly fast, very physical squad that will try to dictate pace of play with a vigorous forecheck and a game that hopes to be strictly north-south -- although the teams two pretournament games against Canada have shown that is still a work in progress.How Team USA could winFirst and foremost, alternate captain Patrick Kane is going to have to have the kind of tournament he hoped to have in Sochi at the 2014 Olympics but didnt. Kane is the defending NHL MVP and scoring champ, and Tortorella has put him in a leadership role that will up the ante for the?Chicago Blackhawks?star. If Kane is going -- and by extension that will mean the U.S. power play, which has been under the tutelage of associate coach and Hall of Famer?Phil Housley, is going -- that will take some of the pressure off the rest of the forwards.That said, Max Pacioretty, Blake Wheeler and Zach Parise?will have to find a gear they didnt hit during Team USAs two-game split with Canada during the warm-up last week. The Americans arent likely to get a ton of offense from the back end, but watch for Dustin Byfuglien, who has one of the hardest shots in the game, to keep opponents off-balance with his forays into the offensive zone. Jonatthan Quick is the U.ddddddddddddS. No. 1 because of his résumé, which includes two Stanley Cup rings, and his stellar performance in leading the U.S. to a victory over Canada last Friday. If Quick is on his game, anything is possible for this group.How Team USA could loseErik Johnson and Jack Johnson were repatriated from the 2010 U.S. Olympic team that earned a silver medal in Vancouver, and Matt Niskanen was added to the group ahead of more offensive-minded players such as Shattenkirk, Faulk and Cam Fowler, all of whom were in Sochi. Was Niskanen the right choice? Were about to find out.The U.S. looked disorganized in its own zone for long stretches against Canada. So trying to exploit its blue line, which doesnt appear to be as mobile as the Canadians, Swedes or Team North Americas defensive corps, will likely be the plan for opponents when the tournament starts. The Americans opted for more grit up front in the form of Justin Abdelkader, Brandon Dubinsky and David Backes. If the Americans get behind, though, they lack the explosiveness of a Russia or Sweden or Canada to erase deficits -- and that could be a fatal flaw.What to watch for: Beat Canada, or bustRight from the get-go, Tortorella and his staff opted to go with having Joe Pavelski play down the middle with Kane, even though Pavelski played on the wing with Joe Thornton at center in San Jose all last season. No one wins the World Cup without going through Canada at some point, and the teams will have played three times by the time the finals arrive (twice pretournament and once in the round-robin), so there will be familiarity and bad blood aplenty if we get a repeat of the classic 96 finals. ' ' '