The Unofficial 2008 Beijing Olympics Blog

Walkers, long-distance swimmers and decathletes braved relentless rain in the Chinese capital on Thursday as the 13th day of the Olympics got under way.

Russia’s Olga Kaniskina led from the start to win the first gold of the day in the women’s 20km walk, and Maarten van der Weijden of the Netherlands timed his final burst perfectly to win the men’s 10km marathon swim.

Playing on wet sand in front of a crowd draped in multi-colored plastic ponchos, China’s Zhang Xi and Xue Chen took the bronze in the women’s beach volleyball.

The semi-finals and finals of the men’s and women’s BMX competition were postponed until Friday after officials decided the dirt course was too dangerous.

The rain, though, failed to dampen the buzz around Jamaica’s Usain “Lightning” Bolt, who was celebrating his 22nd birthday on Thursday after winning a second sprint gold and setting another world record the night before.

Bolt was again the toast of his Caribbean homeland with a blistering 200 meters win that broke American sprinter Michael Johnson’s 1996 world record.

Added to his earlier 100m victory, that made Bolt the first man since America’s Carl Lewis [Images] in 1984 to win the double and cemented Jamaica’s reputation for speed as well as reggae.

“I’m number one,” the joyous athlete mouthed at cameras, thumping his chest and blowing kisses at the 91,000 Bird’s Nest crowd.

In a remarkable double disqualification, Americans Shawn Crawford and Walter Dix came fourth and fifth after Bolt but took silver and bronze when two athletes ahead were disqualified for running out of their lanes.

The Jamaican, variously dubbed the “U-Bolt” and “Insane Usain”, may now return to the track and try for a third gold in the 4×100m men’s relay on Friday.

JAMAICA, U.S. SHOWDOWN

Before then, the limelight turns to Jamaica’s similarly high-achieving women in Thursday’s 200m showdown.

Jamaican women have already swept the 100m medals.

The joint silver medalists from that race, Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, plus defending champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, will lead the Jamaican charge in the 200m at 7:30 p.m. (1700 IST).

For the Americans, world champion Allyson Felix, Muna Lee and Marshevet Hooker are hoping to regain sprinting pride for the sport’s traditional superpower.

Campbell-Brown was relishing the chance to bring more gold home. “Over the years, Jamaica is very strong, and I think everyone is just working very hard,” she said.

Also looming on Thursday is the 110m hurdles final, which was shaping into one of the high points of the Games but is now deflated by the absence of Chinese favorite Liu Xiang.

The Olympic champion limped from the track injured, leaving Chinese fans in tears and clearing the way for Cuban world record-holder Dayron Robles. “I’m very calm. I’ll win the gold medal,” he said.

The Chinese can at least console themselves with a look at the gold medal table, where they have built up a seemingly unassailable lead of 45. The hosts’ new sporting superpower status mirrors their growing global economic and political clout.

On a packed day of athletics, Americans Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merrit go head-to-head in the 400m on Thursday too.

The decathlon began with 100m and javelin rounds, with Czech world record holder and Olympic champion Roman Sebrle testing his battered body once again in athletics’ most grueling event.

He was speared in the shoulder by a javelin in early 2007.

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15-11 was the score when Jitendra Kumal of India Crashed out to the Russian Counterpart.

Sushil Kumar gave India it’s second medal at the Beijing Olympics as he won the bronze in the Men’s Freestyle 66kg against Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan.

Kumar took three periods to beat Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan 2-1, 0-1 and 1-0.

Spiridonov finished fourth in the 66kg weight class in Athens, while Kumar took 14th place

Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser won the gold medal in the Women’s 100m with a personal best time of 10.78 seconds at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Fraser led from the start to finish, well clear of her compatriots Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, who won silver together in identical times of 10.98s.

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World record holder Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia confirmed his supremacy in distance running by successfully defending his Olympic gold medal in the Men’s 10000m at the National Stadium on Sunday, August 17.

Bekele sliced almost four seconds off the Olympic record he set at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, finishing in 27:01.17. The silver medalist was perennial minor medalist Sileshi Sihine of Ethiopia, who clocked 27:02.77, while Micah Kogo of Kenya won bronze in 27:04.11.

The caliber of the race was so high that the first four finishers all beat the old Olympic record of 27:05.10.

Kidane Tadesse of Eritrea controlled the pace for most of the early stages of the race, with Bekele content to sit in third position.

The pace picked up when former world record holder and two-time Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia took control at the 6000m mark. With seven laps to go, Athens bronze medalist Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea regained the lead before Koso went to the front after 8000m.

Seven runners were in the front pack with two laps remaining, but at the final lap bell Bekele pulled away from Sihine, eventually winning by 20m.

Bekele is the sixth man to have won back-to-back Olympic titles in the Men’s 10000m.

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.

After winning three silver medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe finally won gold in the Women’s 200m Backstroke at the National Aquatics Center on Saturday.

And she smashed the world record for good measure.

Defending Olympic champion Coventry qualified fastest for the final and blew away her opposition from the start, turning in front at each turn under world record pace. She turned at the half way mark in 1:32.69 to come home in 32.55 to better the world record by 0.85 seconds with a time of 2:05.24.

World record holder Margaret Hoelzer of the United States was unable to reel Coventry in and finished with the silver medal in 2:06.23, 0.99 seconds behind Coventry.

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American Michael Phelps overcame the one man left in the field of challengers who could have stopped his charge towards eight gold medals in the Men’s 100m Butterfly on Saturday at the National Aquatics Center.

Defending Olympic champion and world champion Phelps, who had qualified second fastest for the final, realized at the 50m mark he had a huge battle on his hands when Serbian Milorad Cavic touched first, 0.09 seconds under the world record.

helps and Cavic battled it out in the last 50m. A monumental upset looked to be approaching - until Phelps dug deep and out-touched Cavic on the wall.

Phelps won in an Olympic record time of 50.58, to take his tally of gold medals to seven, but only just, and by the slimmest of margins - 0.01 seconds.

Milorad Cavic said after the semifinals he could beat Phelps after qualifying fastest for the final, but finished with the silver medal in a time of 50.59.

Australia’s Andrew Lauterstein capped a great series of swims in the heats and semifinals to win the bronze medal in 51.12.

But world record holder Ian Crocker (USA), who has been breathing down Phelps’ neck this year with some threatening times, only arrived in fourth place with a time of 51.13.