Day 9 (August 17)
Gymnastics
Not surprisingly, the Chinese men continued their dominance with different teammates winning the event finals in Pommel Horse and Floor Exercise. The more interesting results, however, came in the women’s event finals.
Alas, Alicia Sacrimone– who nearly torpedoed the US’s chance of winning any medal in the team competition – was denied personal redemption. Because patently unfair (or just incomprehensible) scoring in the Women’s Vault event final led to a Chinese gymnast – who landed on her knees for Christ sake – winning the bronze medal, just ahead of Sacrimone – who landed perfectly for a change.
But it had to have been a shock to all when a North Korean and German won gold and silver respectively in this event.
On the other hand, just as it was in the team competition, Sacrimone’s teammates made up for her shortcomings. Because Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin won silver and bronze respectively in the Women’s Floor final. In fact, the results in this event were distinguished by the fact that a Romanian competitor won, thus shutting out the Chinese completely.
Swimming
With his team’s relatively easy win today in the Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay, US swimmer Michael Phelps completed his Phelpsian quest to win 8 gold medals in one Olympic Games. He has now surpassed the formidable standard set by Mark Spitz at the Munich Games in 1972 of winning 7 gold medals.
Final count for Phelps: 8 for 8 in ’08; Congratulations Michael!
Meanwhile, in other events of note, 41-year-old Dara Torres missed gold in the Women’s 50m Freestyle. Ironically, she lost by the same margin Phelps, her 23-year-old “son”, won the Men’s 100m Butterfly to keep his dream alive, namely, by the blink of an eye or .01 seconds. Britta Steffen of Germany foiled Dara’s Olympic dream.
In the biggest surprise of the day, Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia upset 2-time Olympic champion Grant Hacket of Australia in the Men’s 1500m Freestyle. In doing so, Mellouli won his country’s first Olympic swimming gold medal. Settling for silver, Hacket had to have been doubly disappointed by the fact that both he and Mellouli finished well off his world-record time.
Track and Field
I wonder if it’s a testament to their national training methods or the performance-enhancing ‘herbs’ they use to flavor their sports drinks that make these Jamaicans so incredibly fast….
[The iPINIONS Journal, August 16, 2008]
The Jamaicans are becoming to Track and Field what the Chinese are to Ping Pong. Not only are they dominating the sprints for Jamaica at these Olympic Games; like the Chinese, they are also providing the best results for other countries by competing under many non-Jamaican flags. Jamaican grande dame Merlene Ottey pioneered this trend when she began competing for Slovenia in 2002.
Of course, nobody could have predicted that Jamaicans would sweep the Women’s 100m. Because, where sprinter Walter Dix won bronze to save face for the once-dominant Americans in the Men’s 100m, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart won gold, silver and bronze respectively, shutting out the Americans for the first time in modern Olympic history.
Remarkably enough, this was the first time a Jamaican had won gold in either the men’s or women’s 100m. And given that none of these Jamaican women or Bolt is over 21, chances are very good that they will dominate the sprint events for years to come.
Lauren Williams of the US finished fourth, and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie of the Bahamas finished seventh.
(NOTE: The quizzical quote at the beginning of this section belies my true admiration for these Jamaican athletes. In fact, I sympathize with the fact that some of them complained about being tested for performance-enhancing drugs so much that the loss of blood might affect their performance at these Games. So just imagine how much better they might have performed if their veins were not so sapped….)
The Ethiopians continued their dominance of the Men’s 10,000 as two-time defending champion Halle Gebrselassie ceded the crown to teammate Kenenisa Bekele. Another Ethiopian, Sileshi Sihine, won runner up. A perennial foe from Kenya finished third; 35-year-old Gebreselassie in sixth place.
Easily the most dramatic moment of the day came when Liu Xiang, China’s only hope for a gold medal in Track and Field, pulled up lame in his first qualifying race of the Men’s 110 Hurdles. He then hobbled out of the stadium without saying a word.
In fact, television commentators observed that – when this happened – you could hear a pin drop in the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium, which (as you can well imagine) was filled to capacity for the first time since that spectacular Opening Day Ceremony. After all, Xiang’s gold medal in this race was to have been the crowning achievement of these Olympic Games for over 1.3 billion Chinese.
But, where Xiang’s Olympic coach, Sun Haiping, was utterly inconsolable, here’s how his high school coach, Gu Baogang, explained this national tragedy:
I have experienced in the past the great pressure that government officials exert on the athletes as well as the coach, and that they demand a gold medal, otherwise it is meaningless. Liu Xiang is still a young boy and he has been put under a bit too much expectation.
Indeed, call me cynical but I believe Xiang decided it was better to claim injury, which might evoke sympathy, than to lose this race, which would incite ridicule. Frankly, the fact that Dayron Robles of Cuba recently broke Xiang’s world record might have inspired his dramatic passion play on this world stage….
To be fair, however, reports are that Xiang suffered a torn Achilles tendon several months ago. Yet, given the national interest vested in his performance, one wonders why China’s best doctors – renowned for practicing traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture – did not ensure that he was fully rehabilitated for this big occasion.
At any rate, leave it to Xiang’s American sponsor, Nike, to help the Chinese people put his failure into perspective and preserve his marketability:
Love sport even when it breaks your heart.
Day 10 (August 18)
Gymnastics
I was getting really tired of watching the Chinese dominate the event finals – as they did again by winning gold and silver in the Men’s Rings. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when a Pole, a Frenchman and a Russian won gold, silver and bronze in the Men’s Vault, shutting out the Chinese. (In fact, none of the Chinese even qualified for this event final.)
Unfortunately, the scoring in this sport has evolved to a point where one needs to be a Euclidean mathematician to understand it.
[The iPINIONS Journal, August 12, 2008]
Unfortunately, the frustration I expressed in this quote became a living nightmare for American gymnast Nastia Liukin.
Because, after performing a routine on the Women’s Uneven Bars that was just as difficult but far more aesthetically pleasing, she ended up with the exact same score as Chinese gymnast He Kexin. Since the rules now prohibit awarding them both gold medals, however, the judges added insult to this unfairness by handing Kexin gold and Liukin silver – according to some convoluted tie-breaking system. Liukin was robbed! (Not to mention that Kexin is clearly closer to 13 than the required 16 years of age that is required to compete.)
Track and Field
Women’s Pole Vault is my favorite field event. And, that the women vaulters are just as scantily clad as the women who compete in Beach Volleyball might have something to do with it.
Accordingly, I was pleased to watch reigning world champion Elena Isinbaeva of Russia vault to a world-record of 5.05m (or approximately 16′ 6″). Jennifer Stuczyinski of the US was second and Svetlana Feofanova was third.
In another field event of note, American Stepanie Brown Trafton won the Women’s Discus with her first of six throws, upsetting heavily favored Yarelis Barrios of Cuba. And hers was the first Olympic medal the US has won in women’s discus since the 1932 Los Angeles Games.
Maria Mutola is generally regarded as the greatest female 800m runner of all time. But her results in Olympic competition have been decidedly mixed. Because even though Beijing is her sixth Olympic Games, she has only won bronze in 1996 and gold in 2000 in this event.
Therefore, it is probably fair to assume that her fifth place finish was really her Olympic swan song. Teammates from Kenya won gold and silver.
The Americans continued their dominance in the Men’s 400m Hurdles when Angelo Taylor, Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson swept gold, silver and bronze respectively.
Day 10 Medal Count: USA 72, China 67, Russia 36
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