UPDATE: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games - the Phelpsian touch...pure gold! -The iPINIONS Journal

Day 8 (August 16)

Swimming

You know the story by now: Michael Phelps on course to emulate Mark Spitz by winning eight gold medals in swimming at one Olympic Games.

Well, after the way he won his second gold medal (with the improbable come-from-behind swim by teammate Jason Lezak on the last leg of the Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay), he seemed destined to achieve this promethean goal. And the fact that he went into his last individual event, the Men’s 100m Butterfly, having won six gold medals (all in world-record time), I can’t imagine there was a single person on planet earth who would’ve bet against him winning number 7.

That’s why I was in such shock as I watched Phelps still trailing the (American-born, raised, and trained) swimmer from Serbia, Milorad Cavic, as they approached the wall to end this race.

Moreover, when it was over, I felt certain that Phelps had finally lost his golden touch.

Then the electronic display of results disabused me of this doubt by confirming his fingernail-biting .01 seconds win over Cavic.

When I did chop the last stroke, I thought that had cost me the race…. But it was actually the opposite. If I had glided, I would have been way too long. I took short, faster strokes to try to get my hand on the wall. I ended up making the right decision.

[Michael Phelps]

Now that’s destiny! And nobody expressed the hysterical combination of shock and jubilation, which must have been experienced by over a billion people worldwide, quite like Phelps himself did after he saw that he was still undefeated.

Meanwhile, just to add to the high anxiety this race generated, Serb swimming officials launched an immediate protest – claiming, one presumes, an international conspiracy to fulfill Phelps’ fairytale Olympic dream by denying Cavic his win.

But, after officials invited them in to see incontrovertible “super slow-motion images” of Phelps out-touching Cavic, the Serbs conceded defeat. Unfortunately, this episode will probably only feed their pathological disposition to suspect international conspiracies to thwart Serbia’s greatness.

And so, on it goes for the phenom Phelps: 7 down (to equal Spitz), 1 to go (to surpass him)

In other swimming finals of note:

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe gave the ostracized president of her country, Robert Mugabe, an ironic reason to hold her up as a symbol of national black pride after winning the Women’s 200m Backstroke in world-record time. But her win might have been especially sweet because it gave Coventry vindication over second-place finisher Margaret Hoelzer of the US – her former roommate and estranged friend with whom she has been having a well-publicized cat fight.

Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain won the Women’s 800 Freestyle, breaking the 19-year-old record held by Janet Evans of the US.

And in the second-most exciting race of the day, Cesar Cielo-Filho of Brazil won the Men’s 50m Freestyle – just out-touching two Frenchmen who took silver and bronze.

Track and Field

The feature race of the day was the final of the Men’s 100m. Unfortunately, much of the drama was lost when world champion Tyson Gay of the US failed to even qualify. That left the showdown to be run primarily between Jamaican teammates Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.

As things turned out, however, Asafa faded to fourth as Usain bolted – in world-record time (9.69) – to win gold for Jamaica in this event for the first time in Olympic history. But, even though immensely impressed by and proud of his victory, I agree with my Caribbean compatriot who lamented his aping black-American sprinters by showboating across the finish line. After all, had he maintained his form, that 9.69 could easily have been a 9.50…. Idiot!

Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Walter Dix of the US won silver and bronze respectively.

Remarkably enough, Jamaicans seem poised to contest for gold in the Women’s 100m as well – given that three of them have qualified with the best times for tomorrow’s final. But 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….

Basketball

The Chinese dream team kept their hopes alive by defeating the Germans 59 to 54. This win gave them a berth to the medal rounds beginning next. Meanwhile, the American redeem team continued their avenging march through these Olympics by handing the Spaniards, their purported “toughest competitors”, a humiliating 119 to 82 defeat.

Day 8 Medal Count: USA 54, China 46, Australia 25