The Unofficial 2008 Beijing Olympics Blog

Australian Grant Hackett’s bid for a record third consecutive Olympic title in the Men’s 1500m Freestyle fell apart as Tunisian Oussama Mellouli proved faster than the Australian on Sunday, at the National Aquatics Center.

Mellouli’s time for the gold medal of 14:40.84 was an African record.

Against the expectations of many, he stuck with the two fastest qualifiers, Hackett and Canadian Ryan Cochrane, throughout the race and began to pull away with 200m left.

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Michael Phelps won his record eighth gold medal in the Men’s 4 x 100m Medley Relay final on Sunday but this time needed some help from his friends.

The US team of Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Jason Lezak and Phelps won at the National Aquatics Center in a time of 3:29.34 and in doing so broke the world record by 1.34 seconds.

The defending Olympic champions and world record holders led from start to finish.

Peirsol gave them a great start with a 53.16sec split. Hansen increased the lead on the world record split taking it 0.39 seconds under at the race’s halfway mark. Brenton Rickard swam his breaststroke leg in 58.56, faster than Hansen, to bring the Australians into second place.

Phelps fought off the Australian challenge in the Butterfly leg before Lezak kept Eamon Sullivan on his shoulder until the wall.

The Australian team of Hayden Stoeckel, Andrew Lauterstein, Rickard and Sullivan finished 0.70 seconds behind the US to win silver in an Oceania record 3:30.04, also under the old world record.

Australia went into the race as world champions but only as beneficiaries of a US disqualification at the 2007 world championships.

Japan’s team of Miyashita Junichi, Kitajima Kosuke, Fujii Takuro and Sato Hisayoshi took bronze in an Asian record 3:31.18.

Russia finished fourth in a European record 3:31.92.

Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain became the first cyclist to repeat as Olympic champion in the Men’s Individual Pursuit in the Laoshan Velodrome on Saturday.

A big pre-race favorite to defend his Athens 2004 Olympic crown, Wiggins stopped the clock in 4:16.977 to leave Hayden Roulston of New Zealand (4:19.611) with the silver.

Steven Burke, also from Great Britain, won bronze by erasing Russian Alexei Markov’s early advantage. Burke claimed bronze in 4:20.947 to Markov’s 4:24.149.

Wiggins, who set an Olympic record in qualifying on Friday, August 15, at 4:15.031, overcame a fast start by Roulston to win his fifth career Olympic medal.

Roulston gave him a stout challenge, holding Wiggins at just 0.002sec at 2,500m. Wiggins powered ahead in the final kilometer to win by more than two seconds. Roulston’s medal is New Zealand’s third-ever medal in Olympic Cycling Track competition in the Men’s Individual Pursuit. Gary Anderson won bronze at Barcelona 1992 and Sarah Ulmer won gold at Athens 2004.

American Taylor Phinney, the youngest Cycling Track athlete in Beijing at 18, started fast against Roulston in the first round, but faded later on to finish seventh.

Oleksandr Petriv of Ukraine was ranked fourth after the qualification round of the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, only above German shooters Ralf Schumann and Christian Reitz. However, the three shooters with the lowest qualification scores were the ones who won the medals today.

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Since Day 1 to Day 7, the Chinese have re-emphasised the fact that they are more than determined to occupy the top spot at the Olympic games. They indeed are on the top with 26 Gold Medals, where Her next competitor is standing at 10 Golds only. Where as United States of America still trying its level best to hold with 46 Medals in total, 5 ahead of China’s total tally of 41 at the end of Day 7.

IF we take the Gold medals for example, Whopping 16 of those 26 Gold medals come from Women for China where as American women could only 5 Gold Medals to American Total Tally.

On the Men Side, the competition has been neck to neck where the Chinese Men managed 10 Golds and Americans managed a competitive 9 Golds.

The Other Striking Observation for the Americans is that they dont miss out on medals atleast. May not be Gold but they have a knack of finishing up in the final three more often than any . This can be seen by looking at the Bronze tally of USA.

So, Surely its the Women Power which is driving the Chinese Canoe out of the Rough waters

Michael Phelps will have to fight his “great friend and great competitor” Ian Crocker in the Men’s 100m Butterfly on Saturday morning in his quest for eight gold medals.

The world record holder of this event, Crocker won’t allow an easy win for Phelps, as this is Crocker’s only chance to win an individual gold medal at the Beijing Games.

In the Women’s 200m Backstroke final, defending Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe will encounter the close competition from two Americans — world record holder Margaret Hoelzer and the 16-year-old rising star Elizabeth Beisel.

Great Britain’s Rebecca Adlington will go for her second gold at the Water Cube in the Women’s 800m Freestyle, after winning the Women’s 400m Freestyle on Monday. Camelia Alina Potec of Romania will be her biggest rival, with the absence of world champion Kate Ziegler of the United States and Olympic champion Ai Shibata of Japan, who failed to qualify.

The Men’s 50m Freestyle final will see the close match of Thursday’s 100m Freestyle champion Alain Bernard of France, world record holder Eamon Sullivan of Australia, and Brazilian Cesar Filho Cielo who qualified fastest for the final in an Olympic record.

Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson of Sweden made history on August 15 in their epic 7-6(6), 4-6, 19-17 defeat of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra of France to book their spot in the Men’s Doubles final at the Olympic Green Tennis Center.

The last was the longest set ever played in Men’s Tennis at any Olympic Games and set a new record for the most number of games (59) played in a Men’s Olympic (best-of-three sets) match.

Aspelin and Johansson won on their second match point as the clock approached 10:30 p.m. (UTC/GMT +8). Johansson jumped into his teammate’s arms as the crowd gave a standing ovation.

This is only the Swedish team’s third tournament playing Doubles together. They reached the semifinals in Doha and Bastad earlier this year.

for more http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/headlines/tennis/n214547652.shtml

China’s Zhang Juanjuan of China outshot Park Sung-hyun from the Republic of Korea for an upset win in Archery Women’s Individual competition Thursday.

Twenty-seventh seed Zhang scored 110 out of a possible 120 points. Top-seeded Park took the silver at 109.

Yun Ok-hee (ROK) took third place after a close 109-106 victory over the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Kwon Un-sil in the bronze medal match.

Chinese Wang Feng and Qin Kai won the Men’s 3m Springboard Synchronized gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games on Wednesday.

The Chinese duo collected a winning total of 469.08 points in the six-dive final.

Russians Dmitry Sautin and Yuriy Kunakov took the silver in 421.98, and Ukrainians Illya Kvasha and Oleksiy Prygorov bagged the bronze in 415.05.