Winners

Usain Bolt

Never has a sprint king been so aptly named as the streak of yellow lightning from Jamaica who pulled off an unprecedented double-triple of world records and titles in winning the 100m, 200m and 4×100m sprint relay golds.

Little-known before the start of this year, and regarded as being too tall and lanky for the shorter dash, Bolt exploded onto the world scene with a 100m world record in late May and the manner in which he confirmed that in Beijing will go down in Olympic history.

He reckons he can improve his start which could bring the 9.6secs barrier into prospect. His pre-and post-race antics upset IOC chief Jacques Rogge, but he delighted fans, pundits and sponsors alike with his laid-back approach.

Michael Phelps

The Beijing Games started at 8:08 on 08/08/08 in keeping with Chinese beliefs that the number eight brings good luck and it will be the record eight gold medals won by Michael Phelps that will mark these Games forever.

Some of his golds he won easily, others were agonisingly close, but at the end of the day the legendary seven golds won by Mark Spitz in Munich 35 years ago had finally been surpassed.

The unassuming American now holds the record of Olympic titles at 14 and he fully intends to compete in London in four years time when he will be just 27 years old.

That could see him bidding to hike his career golds up to an amazing 20.

Chris Hoy

The Flying Scotsman was originally a steam-engine train that smashed world speed records in the last century, Now it refers to the 32-year-old Edinburgh powerhouse who spearheaded Britain’s astonishing track cycling campaign which saw them win seven out of the 10 golds on offer.

Hoy, who was left distraught after the IOC scrapped the one kilometre event he won in Athens, worked furiously to turn his formidable four-lap time trial skills into ones with power and acceleration and it paid off as he won the individual and team sprints as well as the keirin, equalling a 100-year-old British Olympic record in the process.

Yelena Isinbayeva

Diva is a word that is overused in the sporting world, but if there is any athlete who merits the description it is Russia’s peerless pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva.

The former gymnast and Red Army lieutenant pocketed her second straight Olympics gold with consumate ease, clearing 25cm higher than her nearest rival, and then produced a one-woman show of the highest quality and drama.

She failed twice in her bid at a new world record height of 5.05m, but on her third attempt she sailed over triggering one of the most gleeful gold medal celebrations of the Games.

She insists she will be back in four years time in London to bid for the treble.

Team China

China completed the Long March to world sporting supremacy on home territory and the toppling of the United States never looked in doubt from the moment that weightlifter Chen Xiexia opened her country’s account with the second gold medal of the Olympics.

By the end of the Games, China had made off with 51 golds, well ahead of the Americans.

The United States remained ahead in total number of medals won though.

China’s successes came mainly in lower profile sports such as diving, shooting and table-tennis while success in sports like athletics and swimming remained elusive with just Liu Zige’s women’s 200m butterfly gold to celebrate for the hosts. How well the Chinese defend their crown in London in four years time will be fascinating to watch.

Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba

The fleet-footed duo from Ethiopia underlined their country’s domination of long-distance track running by claiming men’s and women’s 5000m and 10,000m doubles within a day of each other.

Both won with consumate ease. Bekele became the first male athlete to do the double since another Ethiopian Miruts Yifter achieved the same feat in the boycotted 1980 Games in Moscow, while Dibaba’s accomplishment was a ground-breaker for the women.

Ethiopia’s gold rush was a bitter blow to arch-rivals Kenya but the east African running power bounced back with first ever golds in the men’s marathon through Samuel Wanjiru and in the women’s 800 and 1500 metres through Pamela Jelimo and Nancy Jebet Langat.

Losers

Tyson Gay

Gay started the year as world champion and the leading force in global sprinting alongside Asafa Powell. He left Beijing empty-handed and confused. Gay’s preparatuons for the Olympics were badly hampered by a hamstring injury, but even then few would have predicted he would fail to make it through to the final.

His fall from grace presaged a miserable time for US sprinters as Usain Bolt and the all-conquering Jamaicans won five out of the six sprint golds on offer with Russia taking the women’s 4×100m after the Jamaicans dropped the baton.

Hapless handovers also doomed both US sprint relay teams and the powers that be have ordered a major review of all USA Track and Field programs.

Liu Xiang

Hurdler Liu’s dream of providing China with the big win they sought in the Olympic Stadium was shattered under the twin burdens of injuries and massive pressure.

The signs were there that all was not well before the Games even got underway as the Shanghai Express holed up in the sidings while Cuba’s Dayron Robles snatched away his world record.

It still came as a stunning blow to the nation, however, when he pulled up in pain after a false start to his opening heat and marched disconsolately off the track.

Liu later apologised to his compatriots and vowed to regain his crown in London in four years time when at 29 he will still be in his prime as a hurdler.

Laure Manaudou

The French swimmer exploded onto the scene as a 17-year-old in Athens four years ago and she supplanted Grand Slam tennis swimmer Amelie Mauresmo as France’s most admired woman athlete. But Beijing was a different story.

Her form slumped in the last few months as her love life and wrangles with coaches became a staple of the French gossip columns.

It all came home to roost in China where she could only manage seventh place in the final of the 400m freestyle where she was the defending champion, followed by last place in the 100m backstroke final and finally a dismal eighth and last place in the semi-finals of the 200m backstroke after which she tearfully fled for home.

Brazil’s footballers

If failing to end the jinx that has seen the Brazilians never having won the men’s Olympic title to go with the five World Cups they have won, it was arch-rivals Argentina that sent them packing with a humiliating 3-0 thumping in the semi-finals.

Dunga’s players did save some face by defeating Belgium for the bronze medal but their performances in China left the legendary Pele shaking his head.

The Brazilian women went one better and reached the final but once again they fell to the United States and the tears and anguish that the players displayed at the final whistle showed that there was no silver lining for them in defeat.

Roger Federer

The Swiss maestro said he would salvage his season with wins in the Olympics and at the US Open. His stunning quarter-final loss to Fernando Gonzalez in Beijing leaves him with just Flushing Meadows to go this year.

To make matters worse his Spanish nemesis Raphael Nadal won at a canter as he underlined his newly-acquired position as the number one tennis player in the world.

Federer has now played in three Olympics and his best performance remains a fourth-place finish in Sydney in 2000. Curiously, there was some consolation for him when he teamed up with Stanislas Wawrinka to win the men’s doubles title for his country. He had hoped for more.

Cuba’s boxers

Cuba’s proud record in Olympic boxing was dealt a painful knockout blow as the Caribbean island came away empty-handed in terms of gold medals.

They had eight boxers out of 10 competing who reached the semi-finals and four made it through to the finals, but not one managed to strike gold -the first time that has happened since 1968 other than 1984 and 1988 when they didn’t compete.

At least the Cubans had a legitimate excuse as they had lost five of their best boxers to defections in the 18 months before the Games began. Regrouping for London in four years time will be high on the lost of priorities – if they can keep their top talents at home.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=829071

“That’ll probably go down as one of the greatest Olympic games ever,” LeBron James said after Team USA’s thrilling 118-107 victory over Spain earned it the gold medal Sunday.

The moment he received his medal, James reached down, grabbed it and stared at it. He held it inches from his eyes and just gazed at it, transfixed. And when they handed him a bouquet of red roses, he held them to his nose and inhaled two huge breaths, the sweet smell of victory filling his nostrils and lungs.

Carmelo Anthony wiped a tear from his right eye as they raised the American flag above the court and played the U.S. national anthem, and Kobe Bryant sang along as James stood nearby, stone-faced, his right hand on his heart.

Moments earlier, the American players had locked arms and stepped onto the medal podium as one, then raised their arms in unison toward the American fans who had hung a U.S. flag over the railing in the upper deck.

The members of Team USA didn’t just win their gold medals, they earned them against the first opponent that finally gave them a game. They didn’t dominate in the final game; they performed. They didn’t nearly blow it; they closed it out.

During the interviews, Anthony, who along with Wade, James and Carlos Boozer were the only returnees from the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, summed it up: “We were at America’s lowest point in ‘04, and to have put USA Basketball back at the top of the world, it couldn’t feel better.”

Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor won their second straight gold medal in women’s beach volleyball Thursday, a 21-18, 21-18 victory over the Chinese duo of Tian Jia and Wang Jie. The contest was every bit as close as the final score indicated. The biggest lead by either team was three points.

May-Treanor and Walsh were not the top seed in the tournament. That honor belonged, instead, to Tian and Wang, who have helped establish a sport that is in its nascent stages of development in China.

May-Treanor and Walsh have 69 straight international victories, 108 consecutive wins overall. Their most recent loss came last fall in Boston, and they did not lose a set during their seven-match romp through the Olympic tournament.

In the medal ceremony afterward, Wang and Tian congratulated their countrywomen, Xue Chen and Zhang Xi, who beat the Brazilians for bronze. The host country had two medals in beach volleyball, their first ever in the sport.

Usain Bolt’s performance in these Olympic games are in my opinion way more impressive than what Michael Phelps did in the pool. He became the first man to win the sprint double since the legendary Carl Lewis won the double at the LA games in 1984. He is the only man to win both events in a single Olympics and set world records in both.

He won 100 metres gold in a world record time of 9.69 seconds.

In the 200m he completed the sprint double in a new world record time of 19.30 seconds. He broke the record set by American Michael Johnson of 19.32 sec set at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Johnson had this to say following Bolt’s 100m win: “It was the most impressive athletics performance I’ve ever seen in my life,” Johnson said. “I certainly expected him to win. I can’t say I expected him to win that fast or separate himself from the field so much. The fact he could have run even faster shows how great it was. It was an incredible performance.”

Matthias Steiner wins gold in the men’s +105kg category.

Clean & Jerk 258 kg / 568 lbs
Snatch 203 kg / 447 lbs

Matthias Steiner wins gold

His wife died tragically in a car crash in July 2007. Awe inspiring performance from him.

South Africa has just won it’s first medal. It has been quite a disappointing games for South Africa, especially after the swimming heroics from 2004.

Khotso Mokoena won a silver in the men’s long jump. He was 10cm behind winner Irving Saladinho of Panama, jumping 8.24m to the winner’s 8.34m.

Michael Phelps is going after eight gold medals in Beijing. He has started in fine form, his time of 4:07.82 in the heats of the 400m individual medley was 1.44 seconds faster than the next fastest competitor, and a new Olympic record.

Can he do it? He seems to be completely focused on it, even passing on appearing at the opening ceremony. If he makes it will he go down as the greatest Olympian ever? I am no swimming fan, but this is going to be something to watch!

Update 1: 1 down, 7 to go. A dominating performance, he smashed his own world record by 1.41 seconds.

Update 2: Gold number 2 came in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. The U.S. team won in a world-record time of 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds.

Update 3: Gold number 3! He blew away the field in the 200-meter freestyle and set another world record (1 minute, 42.96 seconds)

Update 4: Gold number 4 and 5! He won the 200-meter butterfly, setting yet another world record and then swam the leadoff of a runaway victory by the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team, which shattered the old world mark by more than four seconds.

Update 5: Gold number 6, world record number 6! Phelps dominated right from the start of the 200-meter individual medley and won in one minute 54.23 seconds.

Update 6: Gold number 7! Wow that was his toughest one yet, he won by one-hundredth of a second! To be honest I really didn’t think he was going to take this one. 50.58s vs 50.59s! The first non world record swim as well, though he broke the Olympic record.

Update 7: Gold number 8, world record number 8. The most dominate performance in Olympic history?

8 gold medals, 7 world records in these Olympics. 16 total Olympic medals, 14 of them gold. Absolutely incredible.

Pretty horrific accident

Baranyai was trying to snatch 148kg in his third lift in the men’s 77kg division, when his elbow popped out of its socket.

More pics at this link

Update:

Janos Baranyai of Hungary is recovering well after dislocating his elbow at the Beijing Olympics weightlifting competition and should be able to resume his career, the International Weightlifting Federaion chief said Friday.

The 24 year-old tore his right elbow joint while making a snatch attempt at 148kg in the 77kg division contest on Wednesday, sparking fears that he would not be able to lift again.

“There is no fracture, just dislocation of two bones,” IWF chief Tamas Ajan told a news conference.

Update link

President Bush made a surprise visit to the beach volleyball venue, where he watched the U.S. men’s and women’s teams practice.

Here he is with the 2004 gold medal winners Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. The bikini-clad players eventually drew him on to the court to participate in a warm-up drill bumping the volleyball back and forth.

May-Treanor bent over and offered the President a chance to give her a spank on the ass (you know, the whole “nice play” thing people do in sports these days…), instead, he playfully used the back of his hand to tap her on the small of her back. Missed opportunity I’d say.

Looks like President Bush might just be a fan. Cheerleader-in-chief?