No more bronze medals for LeBron James. This time he's coming home with gold - and that's a guarantee.

So he says, anyway.

James made his guarantee in a Time magazine story that hits newsstands Friday. The Cleveland Cavaliers superstar is featured on one of the covers of the Olympic preview issue.

After comparing the feeling of receiving a gold medal on the podium to opening a prized gift on Christmas morning, James was asked if that meant he would lead the Americans to the title.

"Absolutely," James responded.

Asked if he guaranteed it, he repeated, "Absolutely."

The Americans are the favorites, but they haven't won a major title since the 2000 Olympics. James was on third-place teams in the '04 games and the '06 world championships.

James has a mild sprained right ankle and likely won't play Friday when the Americans face Canada in an exhibition game before leaving for China.

Baseball team complete: Colorado second baseman Jayson Nix was picked to round out the U.S. baseball team headed to the Beijing Olympics.

The Rockies optioned Nix to Triple-A Colorado Springs on Saturday so he'd be eligible to play in the Olympics.

USA Baseball also announced three minor leaguers to replace players who initially were picked for the team. Pitchers Jeremy Cummings of Tampa Bay and Brian Duensing of Minnesota will join San Francisco outfielder Nate Schierholtz.

They are replacing pitchers Clayton Richard of the Chicago White Sox and San Francisco's Geno Espineli, who were called up by their big league clubs, and injured St. Louis outfielder Colby Rasmus.

Schierholtz had thought he would be picked for the original team after playing in the Futures Game earlier this month during All-Star festivities in New York. In spring training, Schierholtz appeared set to earn a roster spot with the Giants but wound up at Triple-A Fresno.

Being an Olympian has boosted his spirits to say the least.

"Definitely. It will get my mind off things a little bit," he said. "I'm pretty excited. It's an honor to go play for the USA. It's an experience to go to a foreign country and play in a different environment. The games we play will be under pressure."

The Americans - who did not qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics after winning gold four years earlier in Sydney - open Olympic play Aug. 13 against Korea. Baseball and softball will come off the Olympic program after these games, at least for 2012 in London.

"For me, it definitely means a lot more," Schierholtz said. "It's important for our country especially to bring home a medal and show it's still important over here. Baseball's our national pastime."

German TV warns of gene doping in China: A German television report on the availability of gene doping in China has stunned anti-doping experts shortly before the Beijing Olympics.

In a documentary by ARD television, a Chinese doctor offers stem-cell therapy to a reporter posing as an American swimming coach.

The report, filmed with a concealed camera, shows the doctor with his face blurred speaking in Chinese and offering the treatment in return for $24,000, according to a translation provided by the ARD television.

The documentary broadcast Monday did not offer evidence that the hospital had provided gene doping to other athletes, but anti-doping officials were appalled that the treatment was so readily available.

"I could not have imagined it in such a provable form," Mario Thevis, chief of the German center of preventive doping research in Cologne.

Another Cologne expert on gene doping, Patrick Diel, said he was "stunned to see it."

"It goes beyond my worst expectations," Diel said.

In the documentary, the reporter posing as an American swimming coach meets with the head of the gene therapy department of a Chinese hospital. It did not name the doctor, or the hospital.

The fictitious coach says he is seeking stem-cell treatment for one of his swimmers.

"Yes. We have no experience with athletes here, but the treatment is safe and we can help you," the doctor replies. "It strengthens lung function and stem cells go into the bloodstream and reach the organs. It takes two weeks. I recommend four intravenous injections ... 40 million stem cells or double that, the more the better. We also use human growth hormones, but you have to be careful because they are on the doping list."

The program also showed how pharmaceutical companies in China were ready to sell steroids and the blood-booster EPO.

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