Homoclinic classes of geodesic flows on rank 1 manifolds

We prove that the homoclinic class of every hyperbolic periodic orbit of a geodesic flow over a C^ closed rank 1 Riemannian manifold equals the unit tangent bundle. As an application, we give a proof using symbolic dynamics of the theorem of Knieper on the uniqueness of the measure of maximal entropy and theorems of Burns et al on the uniqueness of equilibrium states.