Swedish shooting great Jonas Jacobsson collected his 14th Paralympic gold medal Monday as host China climbed to the top spot in the gold medal standings.
Second-placed United States piled up eight gold medals, but has a total of 17 medals against 28 won by the Chinese. Britain was third on the ladder with seven gold.
China, which topped the medals table with 63 gold in Athens 2004, is widely expected to dominate the Games.
Jacobsson surpassed the eight-year-old world record by a huge margin in the morning in the men’s 10m air rifle standing position in his disability class, increasing his Paralympic medal tally to 14 gold, one silver and eight bronze medals.
He will compete in three other events – the men’s 50m free rifle 3×40 standing SH1, the mixed 10m air rifle prone SH1 and the mixed 50m free rifle prone SH1.
“Every competition is a new one. You have to focus,” he said.
South Africa’s Natalie du Toit was equally impressive.
The 24-year-old amputee grabbed her second gold of the Games, winning the women’s S9 100m freestyle final.
She had won the 100m butterfly in her category on Sunday in a world-record time of one min 6.74 sec.
Du Toit, who finished 16th among 25 competitors in 10km marathon swim at last month’s Olympics, and Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka are the only athletes in Beijing appearing in both the Olympics and Paralympics.
Also in the Water Cube, Wang Xiaofu, who led the Chinese Paralympic team into the Bird’s Nest stadium on Saturday, bounced back from a shock defeat in the men’s S8 100m butterfly to win the 100m freestyle.
Elsewhere, China’s Yao Juan was back on the top of podium, eight years after she won her first Paralympic gold medal in Sydney. The 24-year-old won the women’s F42-46 javelin with a world record throw of 40.51m.
“I have always wanted to win back the gold medal, and I never gave up,” said Yao, who finished a distant fifth in Athens four years ago.
Yao’s compatriot Guo Wei followed suit, taking the men’s F35-26 javelin crown.
Lin Haiyan, 45, captured the first shooting gold for China by taking the women’s SH1 10m air pistol, while visually impaired compatriot Wang Lijing prevailed in the women’s 57kg judo competition.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

China and Algeria both received double happiness in judo as they each wrapped up the two golds in women’s and men’s competition respectively at the Beijing Paralympics on Sunday.

Guo Huaping and Cui Na both surprised their coaches and themselves after winning the women’s -48kg and -52 kg divisions.

Guo overwhelmed Brazilian Karla Cardoso, silver medallist at the 2004 Athens Paralympics, by an ippon.

The 27-year-old from a farmer’s family in east China’s Jiangxi Province participated in the Athens Games where the women’s judo made its Paralympic debut and finished fifth.

Guo started strongly to throw Cardoso for yuko in the final while the Brazilian could hardly cope with the aggressive rival. A determined Guo ended the match after throwing Cardoso for ippon.

Earlier, Carmen Brussig from Germany and Russian Victotia Potapova conquered the bronze medals.

“I didn’t do well in Athens 2004, because I was too nervous since it was my first major competition. I worked very hard in the past four years, but I didn’t expect a gold medal. I was just thinking to make the top three,” said Guo. “I have no time to call my families so far, but I can’t wait to share my happiness with them.”

Less than six minutes after Guo’s inspiring triumph, her teammate Cui Na defeated Sandrine Aurieres-Martinet from France in women’s -52 division.

Cui, a Paralympic debutant, won over the stubborn French rival by waza-ari 30 seconds before the five-minute bout ended.

The 19-year-old, who plans to extend her golden trip to London in 2012, took the gold not only as a reward to her own effort, but a morale booster for all disabled people in China.

“I’ve been training for seven years. It’s very hard. This is the first gold medal for our country in the -52kg division. I think it’s a breakthrough,” she said. “I also want to say, although we are disabled, we have very strong minds.”

The bronze medals went to Russia’s Alesya Stepanyuk who beat the Japanese Minako Tsuchiya by awasete ippon, while Brazilian Michelle Ferreira overcame Sheila Hernandez from Spain by ippon.

While China dominated the judo mat in women’s event, Algerian judokas made a gold sweep in men’s competition.

Mouloud Noura captured the gold of men’s -60kg class after overcoming Iranian Saeed Rahmati, while Sidali Lamri beat three-time Paralympic champion Satoshi Fujimoto from Japan to win the gold in the men’s -66kg division in overtime.

Noura sailed into the final with two straight ippon victories and the 26-year-old showed even stronger determination in the final. The victory came less than 40 seconds into action and the Algerian threw his Iranian rival for ippon.

“There’s a loser and a winner in any competition and the only thing I’ve thought is to win the gold medal. I’ve made every preparation to win the Games,” said Noura.

China’s Li Xiaodong won his second Paralympic bronze medal after the Athens Games by overcoming the Russian Said Shakhmanov in less than one minute with an ippon, while Ramin Ibrahimov from Azerbaijan shared the third place with the Chinese by beating Britain’s Ben Quilter.

In the last match of the day, Algerian Lamri upset Japanese Fujimoto, the favorite for men’s -66kg division, in the golden score period. The Japanese had his right arm injured during the regular five-minute bout, but he was unremitting until Lamri finally threw him for waza-ari.

“In the name of God, I would first like to say that winning this medal was very and very difficult,” said Lamri. “I am very happy and proud winning this gold medal. I have known Fujimoto for a long time. I have defeated him before and he did too.”

Despite letting go a fourth Paralympic gold, Fujimoto was satisfied with his performance.

“A lot of people expected me to get the gold, but I’ve got the silver. But I’m still proud to return to Japan with it,” he said.

In the bronze medal matches, Victor Sanchez from Cuba defeated Ukrainian Sergii Karpeniuk Arpeniuk by waza-ari and Jani Kallunki beat Reza Golmohammadi Andarian from Iran by osaekomi ippon.

from: xinhuanet.com

Sport-by-sport guide

Archery
Archery has been a Paralympic sport since Rome 1960. At the Paralympic Games, archers shoot the Olympic round only (70 meters, qualification & finals): Men’s Individual Olympic Round; Men’s (Open) Team Olympic Round; Women’s Individual Olympic Round and Women’s (Open) Team Olympic Round. Archers compete both standing and in a wheelchair in women’s and men’s categories. The Paralympic program includes singles and team events, and the competition and scoring procedures are identical to those used in the Olympic Games. Team competition is an open competition for both men and women and includes three archers of any class (standing or sitting). Archery opened the first International Games for the Disabled at Stoke Mandeville in 1948. It reached a new pinnacle 44 years later when Paralympian Antonio Rebollo ignited both the Olympic and Paralympic flames in Barcelona with a fire arrow.

Athletics
Athletics became a Paralympic Games sport in Rome, 1960 and has more events and competitors than any other sport in the Paralympic Games. Track events include all Olympic distances (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 10000m, marathon, 4 x 100m relay and 4 x 400m relay). Field comprises, shot put, discus, javelin, club throwing (for severely disabled athletes), pentathlon, long, high and triple jump. Wheelchair racing, 60m sprint was included in the Paralympic Games for the first time in Tokyo, 1964. This continued to be the standard racing distance until Toronto, 1976, when 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m events were introduced.

(Wheelchair) Basketball
Wheelchair Basketball was developed by Sir Ludwig Guttmann at Stoke Mandeville Hospital following WWII as a form of rehabilitation for injured war veterans. Basketball became a Paralympic Games sport at the first Games in Rome in 1960. Wheelchair Basketball is open to male or female athletes and is played by two teams of five players each. Players are allocated points from 1 to 4.5 depending on their functional ability. Five players out of 12 from each team are on the court at any one time and throughout the game the total point value of each team on court must not exceed 14 points.

Boccia
Boccia is unique to the Paralympic Games and was refined from an ancient Greek ball tossing game by the Italians in the 16th century. Men and women compete together in team, pairs and individual events. It is a game of precision with leather balls thrown as close as possible to a white target ball (the jack) on a long, narrow field of play. Boccia became a Paralympic Games sport in Barcelona, 1992.

Cycling
Cycling competitions are relatively new for athletes with disabilities. In the early Eighties, the visually impaired were the first group of athletes to compete, and athletes with cerebral palsy and amputees began racing at the International Games for the Disabled in 1984. Up until the 1992 Paralympics, the competitons for each of these different groups were held separately. Then, at the Barcelona Games, spectators witnessed intense competitions in both track and road races between athletes in all three disability groups. The cycling events are divided into individual and team (a group of three cyclists from one nation) events. Athletes with cerebral palsy compete using standard racing bikes and, in some classes, tricycles. Athletes who are blind or visually impaired compete on tandem bicycles with a sighted team-mate, and they participate in the road race and the time trial events. Finally, amputees and cyclists with permanent locomotor deficiencies compete in individual road race events using cycles specifically constructed for their needs. Handcycling was included for the first time at the Athens Paralympic Games. Handcycling is for athletes who normally require a wheelchair for general mobility, or athletes not able to use a conventional bicycle or tricycle because of severe lower limb disability.

Equestrian
Riders compete only in individual and team dressage and develop creative ways to communicate with their horses if they are unable to give signals with their legs, such as utilising a dressage whip or other aids. In dressage competition, riders perform individually and they must ride a pattern which includes various changes in pace and direction. At the Paralympics, all riders are grouped according to their functional profiles and they are judged on their ability to control and maneuver the horses. Prior to Athens, athletes competed on borrowed horses. Own horses were used in Athens. Equestrian became a Paralympic Games sport in Atlanta 1996.

(Wheelchair) Fencing
Fencing became a Paralympic Games sport in Rome in 1960. There are team and individual events for men and women in foil and epee and for men only in sabre. Athletes are connected electronically to a scoring box that records hits on their opponent. In the initial rounds of the competition the first fencer to score five hits wins but in the latter stages it is the first to 15 hits.

Football
Seven-a-side football, for players with Cerebral Palsy, became a Paralympic Sport in New York in 1984 when the Games were split – for financial reasons -between Stoke Mandeville, England and New York. Five-a-side football for visually impaired athletes was introduced at the Summer Paralympic Games in Athens 2004. Goalkeepers can be visually impaired (B2/B3) or fully sighted in five-a-side football. GB has two sighted goalkeepers. The goalkeepers are not permitted to leave their area.

Goalball
Goalball was invented in Europe in 1946 and was used for sport and rehabilitation for the post WWII blind veterans. The game was introduced to the world in 1976 at the Paralympic Games in Toronto and the first world championships were held in Austria in 1978. Women first competed in goalball at the 1984 Paralympic Games in New York. All players wear masks and bells in the ball enable players to pick up its movement. Taped lines on the court enable players to ‘feel’ their way around the court. Audience/spectators are asked for silence while watching, as players listen to the bells. Goalball is a team sport for men and women. A team is comprised of six players with no more than three players per team on the court at any one time. The object is to roll the ball past the opposition defence and into the opponent’s goal. A bell inside the competition ball enables defending players to hear it and try to prevent its passage. Matches are played on a court 18m x 9m in two, seven-minute halves, with three players on each side. No GB team competing.

Judo
Originating in the late nineteenth century, judo developed from a diverse range of Japanese combative arts and was funded by Professor Jigoro Kano who studied the principles of the jujitsu schools of Japan’s Samurai warriors when developing the sport. Judo’s inherent qualities of touch, balance and sensitivity complement the highly developed skills of visually impaired athletes. Visually-impaired judo became a Paralympic sport at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul. Women competed for the first time at the Athens Paralympic Games in 2004. Unlike sighted judo, visually-impaired judo fighters begin bouts holding each other’s judogis (suits).

Powerlifting
The benchpress competition widely known as “weightlifting ” was among one of the original Paralympic sports dating back to its inclusion in the second Paralympic Games in 1964 and was offered exclusively to Spinal Cord Injured lifters. The sport undertook a major transition with the incorporation of identical rules as those of the able-bodied “powerlifting” competitions and with the inclusion of other disability groups. At the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona, 25 countries participated in the Powerlifting competitions. That number more than doubled in 1996 at the Atlanta Paralympic Games with 58 countries in participation. Since 1996 that number has risen to a total worldwide membership of 109 countries on five continents. Women competed for the first time at the Sydney Games in 2000.

(Wheelchair) Rugby
Wheelchair rugby, formally known as ‘murderball’, is unique to the Paralympic Games. It was invented in the 1970′s in Winnipeg by persons who had become quadriplegics as a result of spinal cord injuries to the neck. The purpose of the game is for players to score goals by touching or crossing the opponent’s goal-line while maintaining possession of the ball. Using a volleyball, players carry, dribble or pass the ball while moving toward the opponent’s goal area. The player in possession of the ball must dribble or pass at least once every ten seconds. A goal is scored when a player in control of the ball touches the goal-line with two wheels. It is believed to be the fastest growing wheelchair sport in the world. After being a demonstration event at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, wheelchair rugby became a full medal sport at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. Full contact sport. The athletes’ village has a welding workshop for repair to chairs after collisions.

(Adaptive) Rowing
Rowing was introduced to the Paralympic Programme in 2005 and will make it’s debut to the Games in Beijing in 2008. Rowers compete in four Paralympic boat classes – men’s arms only single scull (AM1x), women’s arms only single scull (AW1x), trunk and arms mixed double (TA2x) and legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four (LTA4+) and each class race over a distance of 1000m. Rowing is open to athletes with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, lower-limb amputations and visual impairments.

Sailing
Sailing was introduced as a demonstration sport at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games and became a full-medal sport at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. Crews of three athletes compete aboard the 23-foot keelboats in the Sonar event. The 2.4mR is a single-handed keelboat. Both events are open to male and female competitors. There are slight modifications in equipment and a scoring system assigns points based on a level of disability, which allows athletes from different disability groups to compete together. Sailing is open to amputee, cerebral palsy, visually impaired, wheelchair and les autres athletes

Shooting
Shooting became a Paralympic Games sport in 1980 during the sixth Paralympic Games in Arnhem. The shooting competition is divided into rifle and pistol events, air and .22 calibre. Athletes shoot from three positions: standing or sitting, kneeling and prone. The programme includes men’s, women’s, mixed and team events, although team events are not held at the Paralympic Games.

Swimming
Swimming has been a Paralympic Games event since the first games were held in Rome in 1960. It is one of the largest and most popular competitive events in the Paralympic Games. Athletes compete in freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, individual medley and relay ranging from 50m to 400m. Swimming is open to all disability groups, including swimmers with spinal cord injuries, swimmers with cerebral palsy, swimmers with amputations and others swimmers including those with progressive diseases such a muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis, dwarfs, swimmers with joint disabilities including stiffness, spina bifida, swimmers with a combinations of different disabilities, etc; blind and partially-sighted swimmers.

Table Tennis
Table tennis has been a Paralympic sport since the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960. Table tennis is played in over 50 countries and in terms of the number of participating athletes is the fourth largest Paralympic Games sport behind athletics, swimming and powerlifting. Table tennis competitions take two forms at the Paralympic Games: standing and wheelchair events (sitting). Individual and team, men’s and women’s events are included in the program.

Wheelchair Tennis
Wheelchair tennis was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Paralympic Games and became a full-medal sport at the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona, with men’s and women’s singles and doubles events being a part of every Paralympic Tennis event since then. The Quad division (for players affected in three or more limbs) made its Paralympic Games debut in Athens in 2004, where Peter Norfolk MBE became Great Britain’s first-ever Paralympic Games gold medallist in tennis, winning the quad singles title before partnering Mark Eccleston to silver in the quad doubles.

Volleyball
Volleyball was introduced to the Paralympic Games in Arnhem in 1980. Originally both standing and sitting competitions were included in the Games, however, standing volleyball was removed from the programme following the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney. In sitting volleyball the court is smaller than standard (6x10m) and has a lower net, so the game is a considerable faster than the standing equivalent. The game lasts up to five sets and the winning team is the first to win three sets. The team winning the set is the one to reach 25 points with at least a two-point lead.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Australia’s Paralympic team says it has been disappointed with the support it has received from the corporate sector.
The Beijing Paralympics start this weekend, with the opening ceremony taking place Saturday night.
The head of the Australian team Darren Peters says it’s been difficult to find corporate sponsorship.
“Very disappointed in the banking/finance sector – we’ve got so many letters of rejection from them, even for any approaches,” he said.
“None of the top sponsors have partnered with us and so we’ve had to go about that the hard way.
“And there’s certainly been a shift away from sport since Athens and it’s something we’re going to have a look at between now and London to try to sort that out.”

source: radioaustralia.net.au

Taiwan‘s Paralympics javelin gold medalist Chiang Chih-chung has been barred from defending his title at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing this month, it was reported Wednesday.

The visually-impaired Chiang, a two-time Paralympics javelin gold medalist and world record holder, will not be attending the games that will be held between September 6 to 17 and attended by some 4,000 disabled athletes, the Taipei Times reported.

Chiang, 28, won gold at the Sydney and Athens Paralympics, setting a world record in Athens with a throw of 57.28 metres. He also won the gold medal at the 2007 International Sports World Games in Brazil.

In February, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) informed the Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) that although Chiang met the minimum conditions for participation, he had not been accredited for the Games, the paper said. No reason was given.

Apart from Chiang, 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships javelin gold medal winner Chen Ming-tsai has also been excluded.

“We objected to the IPC and the Beijing Olympic Committee through various channels, but received no clear reply,” CTPC president Linda Chen was quoted as saying.

“For the IPC to make such a decision, China must be interfering behind the scenes,” said Lai Fu-huan of CTPC’s standing committee.

Chiang said he was disappointed at not being able to represent Taiwan at the Games. “I don’t understand why the rules of the game have been changed. Taiwan has been in a weak position and has been pushed around by China all along,” he said.

Taiwan’s Sports Minister Tai Shia-ling did not accuse China of political interference, but said there should be a standard procedure to decide the participation of athletes in sports events.

“If China has blocked Chiang from the games for no reason, then it might have political implications, but the matter needs to be probed,” the Taipei Times quoted her as saying.

Taiwan has sent 17 athletes to the Paralympics Games in Beijing to compete in six sports.

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from: bangkokpost.com

Inspired by the golden exploits of their Olympic compatriots, Great Britain’s Paralympians are in bullish mood at their holding camps in Macau and Hong Kong ahead of the thirteenth Paralympic Games in Beijing, that opens on Saturday.
“The Olympics were an inspiration to us,” Phil Lane, the chief executive and chef de mission of the Britain Paralympic team, said. “We come just after so that is always likely, but this one has been so fantastic for us that it would be difficult not to be inspired. Everyone is so confident here.”
But rather than fighting to move up the medals table, Britain’s challenge is to repeat the success of finishing in second place in Sydney in 2000 and Athens four years later. For Lane, who has been a reassuringly strong leader since taking over in 2001, it has been about managing expectation. For much of this year UK Sport and the British Paralympic Association (BPA) have been in disagreement about what the medal target should be for Beijing.
UK Sport, after the increase in lottery funding for the BPA, said that it was 40 golds and 110 medals and finishing second in the table, while the BPA said that it was 35 golds, 95 medals and the top five. Part of the BPA’s caution is based on the result that one key injury, for example to David Roberts, the swimmer, could take away 10 per cent of their golds. UK Sport’s is partly because the team of 206 athletes contesting eighteen of the 20 sports are the best-prepared and best-funded to leave Britain.
“The difference between Athens and now is that, given the increase in lottery funding that the athletes have enjoyed over the last four years, they are preparing in an increasingly professional way and training alongside the Olympians in the same training environment,” Lane said.
The rise in Paralympic funding has not been as dramatic as the increase from £70 million to £235.1 million for the Olympic team, but it has more than doubled from £14.8million for the four-year cycles up to Athens to £29.5 million for Beijing.
Lane plays peacemaker and spread-better. “We are hoping for between 35 and 40 gold medals based on performances in the last 12 months,” he said. “You would hope that would get us in the top five, but we’re not going to be No1.
“I’ll have a wager that you will be able to come back whistling the Chinese national anthem.” The host nation are expected to be even more dominant in the Paralympics than they were in the Olympics.
The Paralympics have again expanded from 3,806 athletes from 136 countries at Athens in 2004 to 4,099 athletes from 145 nations in Beijing. China will be represented by 332 athletes. The hosts have the numbers and have prepared and targeted events backed by enormous funding. While many countries struggle to build Olympic high-performance centres, China constructed a £55 million National Paralympic centre in the Shunyi district of Beijing. Teams who have visited have been staggered by its size.
At Athens in 2004, China leapt ahead and were more dominant than any country in the modern era of the Paralympics since 1988. China won 63 golds and 141 medals. Britain were second with 35 and 94 respectively. In Beijing, China are expected to win between 70 and 75 golds.
“We all need targets, but I think everyone recognises what is feasible and they know it is no longer a case of just two or three countries dominating the medal table,” Lane said.
Lane is right that Paralympic Games are increasingly competitive as more nations take them more seriously and the United States Paralympic team are talking tough again after slipping down the table in Sydney and Athens. In Seoul in 1988, 49 countries won medals. In Athens in 2004, that increased to 75 countries, although 600 more medals were awarded that year.
“The number of medals being won, notwithstanding the Chinese, is gradually starting to even out,” Lane said. “We’re expecting big challenges from people from countries like the Ukraine, who I spoke to this week. They’ve been encamped in China for a month at one of their specialist high-performance Paralympic centres. We would hope to win more medals than them, but the issue is that they may well challenge in areas where traditionally we’ve been strong.
“Brazil were garnering medals at World Championships at a rate of knots. The Americans are very confident that they have put Athens behind them and are back where they should be.
“I think there is going to be a bigger spread of medals than ever before.”

from: timesonline.co.uk

Australia’s Paralympic team is aiming to take its all-time medal tally over 1000 at the Beijing Games starting on Saturday.
The team of 170 athletes – 96 men and 74 women – which flew out from Sydney today is the largest team Australia has sent overseas for a Paralympic Games.
And the Australian Paralympic Committee is confident it can collect the 92 medals it needs to take Australia’s tally to 1000 over the past 48 years.
“Its a hard task, but we’re in the running for that and we could win the 1000th medal in these Games,” committee CEO Darren Peters said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
No more specific medal projections would be made so as not to place extra pressure on athletes already feeling the weight of expectation, he said.
The athletes will have a few days to acclimatise to conditions in Beijing before the 13th Paralympic Games, which run from September 6 to 17.
At the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, Australia won 100 medals and came fifth overall with 26 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze.
China topped the medal tally with 63 gold and 141 medals overall and is expected to considerably exceed their 2004 tally at their home Paralympics.
The team’s best-known athlete Kurt Fearnley, who won gold in the wheelchair marathon in Athens, was impatient to get started.
“It’s been four years in waiting,” Fearnley told AAP.
“I’m putting myself in for individual medals and hopefully I’m on the higher end of the medals.”
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s wife Therese Rein, an honorary member of the Paralympic team, was at the airport to wish them luck.
“The team is brilliant and the atmosphere and support between athletes is amazing,” she said.
“They’ve all trained really hard and I’m sure they’re going to do brilliantly.”
Ms Rein’s father was an Australian Paralympic athlete in the 1950s.
“He was an archer, he played wheelchair basketball, he played tennis and he swam,” said Ms Rein.
“Sports was really meaningful for him and helped him to be the best he could be.”
Australian Paralympic Committee chairman Greg Hartung said the team was the best away team Australia had ever assembled.
“They are big on talent and big on toughness and we will expect our athletes to perform at peak value for Australia,” he said.

source: smh.com.au

Games leave behind sleeker, greener Beijing

Huge investment for the Olympics will cement Beijing’s place as a world-class city and business centre, and leave a legacy of improvements for its residents.
Unlike Athens and some other past host cities, where the Games led to a mountain of debt and many of the venues now sit unused, Beijing and the Chinese government can comfortably afford the roughly $40 billion they have spent on the Games.
More importantly, less than a quarter of that bill has gone on purpose-built venues such as the Bird’s Nest stadium. The rest has been spent on infrastructure such as new subway lines and projects like upgrading buses and boilers to cleaner technology.
“Many of the changes were necessary for Beijing’s continued, brisk development, and the Olympics served to substantially accelerate their implementation,” said Denis Ma, associate director of research in the Beijing office of property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle.
Ma pointed to the transformation the ever-expanding subway lines will bring about, as they help reduce vehicle emissions and allow the development of residential hubs in the suburbs.
Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities at JPMorgan Securities, noted a range of other benefits that would help with the city’s long-term development.
“With an improved transport system, financial services infrastructure, communications network and hospitality industry, post-Olympics Beijing will be better positioned to fulfill its potential as a world-class metropolis,” Ulrich said in a report.
The state-of-the-art venues are also a legacy in themselves.
The new operators of the Bird’s Nest, a consortium led by state investment group CITIC, plan to sell naming rights and make it home to one of Beijing’s professional soccer clubs, building a complex of hotels, restaurants and shops around it.

COST VS BENEFIT
AEG Worldwide, a U.S. sports and entertainment management firm hoping to tap into a post-Olympics boom, has already teamed up with the National Basketball Association’s NBA China to win the right to manage the Wukesong indoor stadium, which staged the Olympics basketball competition.

AEG is also looking at staging events in the Bird’s Nest.
“We’re interested in the Bird’s Nest. We do have content that can fill the Bird’s Nest occasionally,” President and Chief Executive Officer Tim Leiweke told Reuters, citing a few European soccer clubs, including some from the English Premier League.
Leiweke said that Beijing was unlikely to eclipse Shanghai as a destination for major sporting and entertainment events.
“Shanghai is probably the most important and attractive market in the world for us right now,” he said.
With many venues slated to be converted for use by the general public and several located inside universities, they are poised to benefit the broader community in a city of 17 million.
Equally important is the way the Games sparked the construction of new public spaces throughout the city, said Zou Huan, an urban planning expert at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Not only would the Olympic Green likely rival Tiananmen Square as a prime destination for tourists in the future, but the many new parks and green spaces will give ordinary Beijingers a break from often cramped living conditions.
“They resemble European city squares in the sense of how they give people a space outdoors to chat, to meet up. That’s very useful, and it is really changing the city life here,” said Zou.
Ideally, city officials would have had the time to carry out their plans with more attention to detail, so as to avoid sacrificing some buildings of historical value, he said.
Thousands of people were also forced to move to make way for the venues, parks and light rail lines.
“But you have to look at the costs and benefits,” Zou said. “Overall, I think the gains for Beijing’s urban landscape are more important.”

source: reuters.com

Following is a selection of the top 10 moments from the Beijing Olympics:

1) Usain Bolt breaks the 100 meters world record. Bolt already owned the record and in front of a packed Bird’s Nest stadium he ran 9.69 seconds. He thumped his chest in triumph over the last few meters before his ‘marksman’ celebration which became one of the lasting images of the Games.

2) Michael Phelps roars in triumph and relief after American team mate Jason Lezak overtook France’s Alain Bernard on the final leg of the 4×100 freestyle relay to keep alive Phelps’s dream of beating Mark Spitz’s record from 1972 of seven golds in a Games – a dream he was to realize.

3) Liu Xiang dejectedly walks away from the track as he realizes he has to withdraw from the defense of his 110 meters hurdles title because of a leg injury. Liu was the most popular sportsman in China and his grimacing departure clouded the Games for millions of home fans.

4) Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva turns the Bird’s Nest into her private theatre with a gold medal and world record-breaking pole vault performance that captivated the 91,000 crowd. After she spent most of the competition lying under a towel, she broke her own world mark with a leap of 5.05 meters.

Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia breaks the world pole vault record

5) The Opening Ceremony. It emerged that some of the performance seen on television had been enhanced by computers, a child singer was replaced by a supposedly prettier face to mime to her voice and representatives of China’s ethnic minorities were no such thing. But it was a jaw-dropping beginning to the Games, culminating in former gymnast Li Ning being swung up the roof of the stadium and ‘running’ around the top level before lighting the cauldron.

6) German weightlifter Matthias Steiner kisses a picture of his late wife Susann on the gold medal podium, choking back tears over the promise he made to her that he would keep their Olympic dream. The super-heavyweight made the pledge to Susann at her bedside in hospital as she lay dying after a car crash in 2007.

7) American Matt Emmons blows a 3.3-point lead on the very last shot of a 120-shot competition to throw away the gold medal in the “marathon” event of shooting. Four years ago in Athens he had fired at the wrong target and squandered a 3-point lead.

Usain Bolt breaks Michael Johnson’s 200 meters record. Charging towards the finish line, Bolt has his eye on the clock all the way and once again celebrates his triumph in style — this time, after he completed his run.

9) Rohullah Nikpai wins Afghanistan’s first Olympic medal with a bronze in the men’s 58-kg taekwondo. Proof that no matter how tough the conditions you have to train in, Olympic success is achievable if you have the talent.

10) Estonian Gerd Kanter celebrates his discus gold medal by sprinting down the 100 meter track at the Bird’s Nest and mimicking Bolt’s marksman routine. High school jinks in a week when fun was put back into track and field.

from: reuters.com

all about sport and Olympics here at RobLadin dot com

Just when you thought the medal ceremonies were all over, British athletes are heading to Beijing in a bid for sporting glory.
More than 200 contenders are traveling to China to take part in the 2008 Paralympic Games between September 6 and 17.
Competing in 18 sports, the team hopes to add to the recent haul of gold medals by TeamGB and finish in the top three countries.
China is widely expected to top the medal table.
Most of the British squads will travel to the Far East – many via the ParalympicsGB holding camps in Hong Kong and Macau – over the next week.
The GB squad’s returning champions include archer John Cavanagh, 800m runner Danny Crates, swimmer Gareth Duke and cyclists Darren Kenny and Aileen McGlynn.
At the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games, Britain finished second in the medal table with a total of 35 golds, 30 silver and 29 bronze medals.

from. sky.com

The Paralympic Games are known as a joyful Games, a friendly Games, as an event far more laid back than their more famous cousin, the Olympics.

But if you think this means that every competitor at the Paralympics wears a halo, you’d be wrong.
In a perverse way, the fact that some people are willing to cheat to earn a medal at the Games can be seen as a sign of quite how seriously the competition is taken.
So how do people try and break the rules at the Paralympics, and how do their methods differ from their able-bodied counterparts?
Performance-enhancing drugs are also a problem in Paralympic sport.
The main offenders are competitors in powerlifting, just as weighlifters at the Olympics often seem to get into trouble.
In Sydney 2000, there were a total of 14 athletes who returned positive drug tests. The majority of these (10 out of 14) were powerlifting, with athletes mainly using drugs to increase power and strength.
In this regard the cheaters are little different to athletes like Ben Johnson in Olympic sprinting, or cyclist Floyd Landis in the Tour de France, who use steroids or EPO to increase muscle strength, speed, power and endurance.
There is another category of Paralympic cheats, however, whose illegal behaviour would make most people turn pale.
They are the “boosters”, mainly athletes who have spinal cord injuries such as paraplegia.
To gain an unfair advantage in their chosen sports, they try to raise their blood pressure, to trigger the kind of fight or flight response that normally happens when someone is in danger.
To do this they don’t take drugs – instead, they injure themselves to trick their bodies into boosting performance.
Some of the ways that Paralympic athletes “boost” include sitting on pins, thumb tacks or ball bearings, turning off their catheters – allowing fluid to build up inside the body – while some male athletes who go so far as to tie wire around their genital area.
Such extraordinary and totally illegal manoeuvres cause no pain to the athletes – who have no feeling in those parts of the body – but they can lead to a boost to athletic performance of up to 15 per cent.
Paralympic athletes are tested to ensure that their level of disability – or put another way, their range of movement – tallies with their registration. This is designed to stop people faking or overstating their disability to gain an advantage.
The biggest scandal in Paralympics history, however, relates to the faking of a mental rather than physical disability. In the Sydney Games of 2000, the Spanish team won the basketball event for intellectually disabled competitors.
It was only afterwards, when 10 out of the 12-member squad were found not to have any intellectual disabilities that the team was disqualified, causing a furore in Paralympic sport.
A Spanish journalist, who went undercover and became part of the Spanish squad, broke the story, claiming that officials had intentionally sought out people who were not intellectually disabled to boost the team’s chances of winning.
The International Paralympic Committee reacted to the scandal by taking all intellectual disability events off the program for Athens in 2004.
There was more disappointment in store for genuinely intellectually disabled athletes, when the IPC left their events out of the Beijing Games as well.
There is some hope for the future, however, as the IPC will revisit its decision after Beijing, so there could be some intellectual disability events on the program for London in four years time.

source: abc.net.au

World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) director general David Howman says the Americans seemingly building a doping case against Usain Bolt should look at themselves first.

Bolt, 23, has come under scrutiny since his triple gold, triple world record performances on the track at the Beijing Olympics, winning the 100m-200m double plus gold in the 4x100m relay.

Part of the pressure comes from the fact Jamaica has been slow to set up its own anti-doping programme but Howman, a New Zealander, dismissed that.

“Sometimes these doubts are cast but I would suggest some Americans could look at themselves first. They had cheats in 2000 [Marion Jones] and cheats in 2004 so they think no one wins without cheating.

“Why is the emphasis on that fellow and not, for example, on [eight gold medal winner] Michael Phelps? Both those guys are just freakish athletes.”

Howman said Bolt had been tested many times and said the innuendo being directed against the Jamaican has a lot to do with the perception Jamaica doesn’t have an adequate anti-doping agency. It’s been written that Jamaica opened it’s anti-doping agency only last week but Howman dismissed that, saying: “I went down there to open it in 2005 but since then there hasn’t been the political will to fund it.

“But he [Bolt] has been tested many times.”

Asked if the United States’ relative failures in track and field could be attributed to a much stronger anti-doping programme in that country, Howman was politic.

“It’s not specifically America. What you’ve seen is the fight against doping has resulted in a lot of athletes, who might not have previously got on the podium, now getting there.

“Relatively clean countries like Great Britain and Australia are now coming through.”

The absence of many Russian athletes because of doping violations was a talking point before these Games and Howman said over 60 qualified athletes from various countries had missed the Games because of doping violations in the leadup period, which evened the playing field.

Five members of the Russian track and field Olympic squad, and seven in total, were suspended by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after an investigation found urine samples did not match DNA tests for the athletes who claimed to have submitted them.

And Bulgaria was forced to withdraw its weightlifting team from the Games after several members returned positive tests.

The Beijing Games have been one of the cleanest and least controversial in recent years and Howman said that was due to a big push from Wada to get governments around the world to sign up to the Copenhagen Convention, which is a commitment to implement Wada’s anti-doping code. Since its inception in 2005, post-Athens, 93 countries, including New Zealand, have signed on with another 99 saying they intend to do so.

A total of 175 countries out of the 200-plus at the Olympics have recognised anti-doping programmes in place.

source:stuff.co.nz

With a few honourable exceptions Irish sport has punched well below its weight in Beijing and the root causes of our perennial shortcomings run deep

LAST NIGHT David Beckham put an end to the anguish of those behind the Find Little David Now campaign. The world’s most important person came out for the quiet seclusion he craves and sang to the world. In painstakingly acquired Mandarin David warbled a few words about togetherness and harmony. “Easy for you to say, Goldenballs”, we muttered.

The last day of any Olympic celebration always manages to feel the same as its predecessors. The hosts are tired and teary with pride and sentiment. Lots of athletes and no few journalists of the fan-with-a-laptop persuasion are gambolling about the place filled with beer and that sappy sort of up-with-people feeling they will feel embarrassed about by Tuesday.

And we blotchy Paddys are always tired and slightly disgruntled. We are looking back over the whole two weeks of Olympic disappointment with regret and sorrow and, in the media rooms, hoping the traditional Balkan feuding between the OCI and Government agencies won’t break out until we are fast asleep on a long-haul flight home because basically we don’t care.

People asked a lot these last few days what we thought about Usain Bolt. Doper or clean? And the answer was always the same: don’t care anymore. We cared deeply 20 years ago when we sat up all night to watch the Johnson-Lewis showdown, which had the global importance of a heavyweight title fight from the 1950s. Now we believe in nobody from that race and pretty much nobody who sprinted quickly ever since. And if Usain Bolt is clean and was easily beating a field full of dopers well then he is one big, showboating genetic freak and good luck to him. But sprinting ran out of reasons for us to care about it a long time ago.

So it is in the eternal feud over who is to blame for our repeated Olympic failures. We don’t care anymore. We don’t have any hope that anybody will do anything about it. We’ll just mind our own business and get ourselves a bit of peace and quiet thanks, lads.

We are sitting here in the press room looking forlornly at the medals table. Three medals for an Irish Olympic squad and none of them tarnished or taken back yet! Should we be celebrating? Perhaps there will be a medal minted for Alistair Cragg in the best-shooting-off-of-mouth-by-a-blow-in category. But look at the sort of countries who are close to us in population.

New Zealand, who, it is widely known, have passion for nothing but rugby and sheep, have three times as many medals. They have nine: three golds, a silver and heap of bronze ones. They have won these things in sports as varied as sailing, track cycling and triathlon.

And Norway. As narrow in their range of stereotypical pursuits as the Kiwis, the Norwegians have time only for skiing and herrings but they managed 10 medals: golds in athletics, handball and rowing, a silver in taekwando and another in shooting.

And ourselves? Depending on the boxing lads to pull something out for us with their bravery and their blood, sweat and tears and the determination of a few people like Billy Walsh and Gary Keegan to match anybody in the world. What told most about what made the boxers stand out from the general run of Irish Olympic mediocrity was the sight of Billy Walsh these last couple of days torn between tears and anger at his three medallists not getting gold.

There was none of the “just glad to be here” stuff from the boxers. There was no sending an elderly pug along because he’d been a decent skin and deserved the Olympic jolly at the end of his days. They came to Beijing to win golds and if we celebrate anything about Billy Walsh and Kenny Egan and co today it is that they have a sense of their own potential and their own input that leaves them disappointed they didn’t make the top of the podium

Billy Walsh made a good point to me during the week. He was talking about boxing but he might as well have been talking about the broad mass of Irish sport. Billy said Irish boxing has its high-performance programme and nothing else.

The best of what is underneath till the age of 14 are out there in a system which has no form or shape to it. The high-performance programme gets its hands on the best 50 or so boxers in the country but by then their habits of balance, movement, stance and the rest have been formed.

Sometimes they have been lucky; they have had good, conscientious coaches. Sometimes they have been unlucky; they have had bad technique ingrained.

It’s not the coaches’ fault, says Billy. They are all out there begging to be educated. Coaches want to be coached in the art of coaching. They want the tips, the insider stuff, the knowledge that will make them better coaches. But there is no system for them and because they feel isolated and left out, there is a suspicion about the resources the high-performance programme gets and a slight resentment.

And Billy is right. Irish sport is all fur coat and no knickers. All talk about institutes and councils and elite programmes and not enough going in at the invisible end – finding kids when they are six, seven and eight, exposing them to the habits and values of a sporting life, providing them with the best techniques and training available at their age levels and then letting a genuine sporting culture develop.

We think cheering for the Dubs or Munster is a sporting culture. In the debate about sport we are all creationists rather than evolutionists. Here the Artists Formerly Known as BLÉ should take a bow. Apart from Paul Hession these were the Olympics that showed that for all the bellyaching and bitching they did, Irish athletics did nothing to prepare for the world post-Sonia.

For good or bad in Barcelona, in Atlanta, in Sydney and in Athens, Sonia was the Irish story of the second week of the Games. Subtract her from those Olympiads and look back at the Irish performances in track and field and measure their value against the amount of whingeing, infighting and argufying athletics has done in that time. Why did we waste our time?

Sonia was a freak of nature who just happened to be born here. The Artists Formerly Known as BLÉ could claim about as much credit for having developed her as they could for having influenced the weather.

And apart from Sonia, for all the huffing and puffing, strutting and posing athletics has done for the past five Olympiads, how much bang for our buck have we got? Should we care?

This week we’ll give out the gold medal for pouting. It has to be somebody’s fault so we will have a good row finding out whose fault it is and then we will start planning for 2012. Not how we will do better there but how we can make a few quid out of the Games being nearby. Gotta be some greasy-till action, hasn’t there?

This war-weary column has one suggestion. Forget about 2012. Don’t worry too much about 2016 either. Send small teams to each and let’s look at 2020 as a possibility for the six-, seven- and eight-year-olds who are scoffing Big Macs at the moment.

Let’s have no more of the fur-coat-and-no-knickers approach. Let’s get kids, every kid, playing. Let’s give little tax breaks to people who get out and coach kids, kick-start that vanishing spirit of volunteerism.

The true worth of a nation’s sporting culture isn’t really measurable in medals and cups. It’s in what lies beneath. Sporting campuses without a sporting culture are nothing but a vanity.

source: irishtimes.com

The weather, dark and damp, did its best to diffuse beach volleyball’s explosive pair.
The home crowd, patriotic and persistent, did its best to push the ultimate underdog’s through to arguably its most unexpected gold medal to add to its immense collection.
None of it was enough of a factor to keep Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor from doing what they always do: win.
The American duo successfully defended its Athens gold medal, beating China’s pair of Jie Wang and Jia Tian in straight sets, 21-18, 21-18. Walsh and May-Treanor ripped through the Olympic tournament without dropping a set, just as they did in Athens four years ago.
The two haven’t lost a match on the beach since August 2007 in Boston. Since partnering up back in 2001, they quickly established themselves as the best team on the beach, and their Beijing gold only solidifies it. And with May-Treanor at 31 years old and Walsh just turning 30 this week, it very well could be their last Olympic Games.
If this was their last Games, it ended just how they would’ve liked. Despite the conditions and a very game Chinese team, the Americans fought through near the end of each set to claim the win.
Despite Walsh’s surgically repaired right shoulder covered in black Kinesio tape, which eases pain and increases circulation in the area, the Chinese stayed away from the 6 foot-3 inch Stanford product, choosing instead to serve May-Treanor and force her to terminate as often as possible.
Down the stretch of the opening set, the plan backfired on China, as May-Treanor got on a roll. With the set tied at 17-17, May-Treanor had three consecutive kills to give the U.S. a 3-0 scoring run. After China stemmed the tide with a point of its own, May-Treanor ended the set with another kill, putting the U.S. one set away from gold.
The second set starting much like the first, with Wang and Tian taking small leads throughout much of the set. But trailing 15-14, the U.S. pair went on another 3-0 run, this one also capped by a May-Treanor kill, to lead 17-15.
With the rain driving down and the players practically playing in mud, the Chinese fought back this time, tying the game at 18-18.
That’s when May-Treanor, wife of Florida Marlins catcher Matt Treanor, ran down a deep attempt by the Chinese and followed it with a powerful kill off the block. A hitting error by the Chinese gave the Americans a match point. May-Treanor and Walsh wasted no time ending the match, this time on a Walsh kill, sending the duo into each other’s arms and onto their knees in celebration.
After finding family members to hug, they grabbed American flags, danced around the Chaoyang Park volleyball complex and celebrated yet another victory, this one resulting in a second gold medal.
As she did after the semifinal, and after the medal rounds in Athens, May-Treanor scattered some of her mother Barbara’s ashes on the court. Barbara May died in 2002 after a long battle with cancer.
Before May-Treanor and Walsh won their rain-soaked match, the Chinese pairing of Xue and Zhang Xi won the bronze medal by defeating Brazil’s Renata Ribeiro and Talita Rocha 21-19, 21-17.

from: macon.com

Jamaica’s yam-powered Usain “Lightning” Bolt hopes to become the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win an Olympic sprint double on Wednesday.
The man whose father says owes his speed to the local vegetable has already won the showpiece 100 meters final in swashbuckling style, thumping his chest before the finish.
If he also carries off his preferred 200m in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest at 10.30 p.m. (1430 GMT) — and nobody looks capable of beating him — Bolt will not only equal the illustrious American.
He would also establish himself as the undisputed poster boy of the Beijing Games along with American swimmer Michael Phelps who won an unprecedented eight gold medals.
“I like to enjoy what I do,” said the lanky Bolt, who breezed through his 200m semi-final late on Tuesday, playing up to TV cameras and taking a look round at competitors during the race.
“You can’t be too serious in your job.”
Bolt, who runs the 200m final the day before his 22nd birthday, faces a tough challenge though to beat Michael Johnson’s 12-year-old world record of 19.32 seconds.
The Jamaican’s best is 19.67.
Bolt’s exploits have lit up his Caribbean homeland in the same way that Phelps’s eight golds in Beijing, passing Mark Spitz’s 1972 Munich record, have thrilled Americans.
While theirs have been the standout individual performances, it is team China’s overall record that is wowing the world.
The hosts, who came second to the United States in Athens 2004, go into Day 12 of the Olympics with a commanding lead of 43 golds on top of the medal table.
China now look impossible to catch, even by traditional Olympics powerhouse the United States, who have won 26 golds in Beijing so far. China’s Communist authorities are reaping the benefits of massive investment in a Soviet-style sports system.
“There is basically no worry about top spot,” state news agency Xinhua said, the confident tone contrasting with official caution over China’s prospects before the August 8-24 Games.

BRITISH SUCCESS
The Olympics have so far been a stunning success for China’s leaders, pollution and political concerns fading into the background once the sporting action began.
A few small pro-free Tibet protests by foreigners have barely troubled police, and Beijing authorities have declared the city’s much-decried air was the cleanest in a decade during August.
The only discordant note for the hosts, really, has been the injury to national idol and 110 meters hurdles Olympic champion Liu Xiang, who had been China’s main hope for a track gold.
Britain lie a better-than-expected third in the medals table thanks, experts say, to major investment in sport that has enabled athletes to train full time and improved facilities.
The latest success came from Christine Ohuruogu, who won the women’s 400 meters on Tuesday night for Britain’s first athletics win in China. She only made it to Beijing after winning an appeal against an lifetime Olympics ban for missing three drugs tests.
Britain’s 16 golds are its best showing since 1908 and the perfect way to fire up enthusiasm for the London 2012 Olympics.
“We have all seen what the Chinese have done. It has been fantastic,” London mayor Boris Johnson said, contemplating how the global credit crunch might affect Britain’s Games.
“But I am not intimidated by that. We can have a show that is equally as fantastic without wasting money.”
As well as Bolt, Jamaicans are also looking to Melaine Walker to boost their gold medal tally in the women’s 400 meters hurdles final on Wednesday in the Bird’s Nest.
The 25-year-old has the fastest time of the year of 53.48 but she will have to watch out for American Sheena Tosta.

from: reuters.com

Clear some more space in that pile of pretty Olympic medal boxes. Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin are bringing home more loot, including a gorgeous gold of Johnson’s very own.
Johnson beat her friend and teammate on the balance beam, the last women’s gymnastics event at the Beijing Games
“I finished off the Olympic Games with, to me, the most perfect ending ever,” Johnson said, beaming as she tugged at the ribbon around her neck. “To finally get the gold medal … on my very last routine meant the world to me.”
And it means the Americans will be strutting home with more bling than Diddy.
Johnson already had three silvers, including one from the all-around, where Liukin won gold. Together, the women have won eight medals. Throw in Jonathan Horton’s silver on the high bar Tuesday night, and the Americans are leaving Beijing with 10 medals. That’s the most they’ve won at a non-boycotted Olympics since 1932, when rope climbing and Indian clubs still got you medals.
“It just shows how strong we are,” said Liukin, who won five medals. “We went out there and showed we are the best. Going 1-2 in the all-around, that’s never been done by the United States. The Americans have never had 1-2 on beam before, either. And 2-3 on floor isn’t too bad.
“It’s definitely been a very successful Olympics for us.”
For the Chinese men, it was a rout. Li Xiaopeng won the parallel bars gold and Zou Kai got his third gold with a victory on high bar Tuesday night, giving the Chinese men a whopping seven gold medals. Yes, that’s every gold but one. And had the Chinese qualified a man in that final, they very well could have swept the top podium spot.
Quite a turnaround from four years ago, when China went to Athens as the overwhelming favorite and left with two measly medals, only one gold. The seven golds here tie the Soviet Union (1956 and 1988) for most at a single Olympics.
“Four years ago, we had a large failure and we blamed ourselves,” China coach Huang Yubin said. “But today, we are all proud of ourselves.”
Johnson arrived in Beijing as gymnastics’ latest “it” girl, the reigning world champion who had lost only one event in the past two years. It wasn’t a question of if she’d win gold, but how many. Team? All-around? Balance beam? Floor?
But the Americans were beaten by the Chinese in the team final, and Johnson finished second to Liukin, her close friend and roommate in the Olympic village.
It looked as if she’d finally win gold on floor, topping Liukin with a perky, powerful routine that would dazzle even the circus folks. But the last competitor of the night, Romania’s Sandra Izbasa, snatched the medal from Johnson, and the 16-year-old was left with yet another silver.
“I would never trade one of my silvers for gold,” she insisted. “What I went through to get them is very special to me and really touched my heart.”
Johnson is more mature than some people a decade older, and when she says things like that, she really does mean them.
But she’s been training for the Olympics since she was a little girl and no one trains for second place.
“It’s been a long battle,” said Liang Chow, Johnson’s coach. “She came in with the possibility of winning a few gold medals and that hasn’t happened. We were running out of chances.”
There was, however, one left.
The balance beam is gymnastics’ version of a tightrope over Niagara Falls, a 4-inch-wide slab of foam and wood that’s 4 feet off the ground. Make a mistake and something bad is bound to happen. But beam is Johnson’s favorite event. She whips off back handsprings and aerial somersaults with ease and confidence. Every move looks effortless.
When she finished, a grin spread across her face and she waved to the crowd. She and Chow slapped hands when she climbed off the podium, and Liukin’s father and coach, Valeri, clapped enthusiastically.
Johnson’s score was a 16.225, and she knew it was good enough for a medal.
Whether it would be gold would be determined by Liukin — again.
Liukin is the reigning world champion on beam, and her routine is gorgeous. She is long and lithe, giving an added touch of beauty to every move she does. Her leaps are done with a dancer’s grace, and one element flows seamlessly into the next. But she took a big hop on her landing, and the look on her face said she knew it was her turn to stand in her teammate’s shadow.
“I knew it wasn’t quite my best routine, but I knew it was enough for a medal. But I’m really happy for Shawn. Three silvers is kind of hard to take. I couldn’t be more proud of her,” said Liukin, who smoothed a few stray hairs in Johnson’s ponytail before the medals ceremony so it would be picture perfect.
When Liukin’s score — 16.025 — popped up, Chow hugged Johnson. As Liukin embraced Johnson, Chow and Valeri Liukin slapped hands.
“That’s the great ending. She was a little bit disappointed (after the all-around), but she went all the way to the end. I can appreciate that,” said Valeri Liukin, who finished a close second to his teammate in the all-around in the 1988 Olympics before winning gold on his last event, high bar.
“She deserved to be Olympic champion.”
The silver was Liukin’s fifth, tying the U.S. record for a single Olympics and giving her family bragging rights. Valeri Liukin won four medals — two golds, two silvers — in 1988.
Johnson bounced up and down after the final results were posted, grinning and waving to the crowd. But she was overwhelmed when she heard her introduction as Olympic champion, biting her lip and fighting back tears.
“To finally have a gold and be an Olympic gold medalist, it’s what everyone dreams of,” Johnson said. “It’s so exciting. It’s the best feeling ever.”
Horton was pretty thrilled, too.
He decided after the all-around final that he needed to upgrade the difficulty in his high bar routine to have any shot at a medal. While that might not sound too impressive, consider that most gymnasts spend months working on a routine before it’s ready for competition.
Horton spent all of three days.
“I had initially said, `No, don’t change your routine. Go with what got you here,’” said Mark Williams, Horton’s coach. “Jon’s a riverboat gambler. He said, `I’ll kick myself if I don’t.’”
Horton added one gravity-defying release move and changed his body position in another, adding a full half-point of difficulty. And he did it to perfection.
“I hit the floor and I looked at Mark and said, `Can you believe that just happened?’” Horton said. “I knew instantly I was going to medal.”
Had Horton not taken a hop on his landing, he might have had gold. But he’ll happily take his silver medal to go with the bronze the U.S. men’s team won.
“You can’t be upset with two medals at my first Olympics,” he said.

from: ap.google.com

China’s greatest symbol of sporting success – the hurdler Liu Xiang – limped abjectly out of the Olympic stadium yesterday, forcing a stunned, disappointed and angry host nation to come to terms with the loss of its most coveted medal.

Injured and weighed down by the expectations of 1.3 billion people, the defending 110 metres hurdles champion barely made it out of the starting blocks in his first-round qualifying heat before tearing off his competitor number and hobbling off the track.

The stadium crowd of almost 90,000 people, who had been roaring their support for the home-grown hero only seconds earlier, were reduced to a disbelieving silence. Newspapers later showed people crying and television viewers – many of whom had stopped work to watch – staring at their screens in dismay.

Chinese journalists were in tears at the press conference as Liu’s coach explained that his protege of 12 years had succumbed to a chronic inflammation in his right achilles tendon and a bone spur. “We have done everything possible. We did our best,” said Sun Haiping between sobs. “This is a very hard moment for all of us.”

It was the end of a dream for China and the start of a furious bout of soul-searching as many turned against their former hero or blamed his failure on media hype, commercial pressure and state propaganda. Online comment – the freest and wildest guide to public opinion – was unforgiving. Tens of thousands logged on to express their views and, according to the two main portals, Sohu and Sina, the overwhelming majority were critical.

“We have been expecting you to perform in 2008, but now we just watch you quit. If you really want to dedicate yourself to the country, you would crawl to the finish line. But you always meant to lose,” said a commentator in the Baidu chatroom. Another accused Liu of playing with the country’s emotions.

Many were furious at the secrecy surrounding the injury, which only came to light over the weekend, although his coach said the runner has been suffering from the problem for many years.

Liu was lambasted as “fake”, “embarrassing”, “deceiving people by telling everyone he was in good shape” and spending so much time doing commercials that he had become a better actor than a runner.

Cooler heads called for calm, saying China was still on course to top the gold medal table. The hosts have 39 golds so far, largely in weightlifting, shooting, judo and diving, but none were as sought-after as a second victory for Liu.

Liu was the face of the Olympics as well as a source of national pride. His victory in Athens in 2004 announced China’s arrival as a sporting superpower when he achieved what no Asian man had previously managed – a gold on the track, matching Colin Jackson’s 11-year-old world record as he did so.

His boy-next-door grin now beams down from billboards across the country as he endorses Nike, Visa, Coca-Cola, Cadillac and, most controversially, cigarettes. The value of a gold medal in Beijing for Liu was calculated at 1bn yuan (£78m).

His withdrawal will also take much of the buzz out of the games. “I sympathise with him enormously,” said Wang Xiaoshan, a writer with Sports Illustrated. “This is such a pity. My guess is that it is the pressure from 1.3 billion people which hurt him. I don’t think it has much to do with the injury, for even if he was injured he would have had time to recover. I think he might have psychological difficulties.”

Liu’s former coach, Gu Baogang, blamed an over-intense training regime and pressure from political leaders on athletes to succeed.

Although he is Olympic and world champion, Liu has struggled with injury all year and lost his world record in June to Dayron Robles of Cuba. Their expected encounter in the final on August 21 was billed as one of the great showdowns of the games.

Fans who paid up to 7,000 yuan ($1,000) to be present are distraught. “I have eight tickets. They are now nothing,” said Qiu Jiafeng, a 25-year-old accountant. “This is a pity for everyone in China. We all expected him to win.”

Outside a sports shop, where the main display featured a gold figurine of Liu, customers were more forgiving.

“I had an image of him as a powerful, handsome man. That hasn’t changed,” said Wang Yinan, a student. “I can understand why some people are angry but I don’t agree with them. I think Chinese people put too much pressure on Liu. This has changed the way I think about athletes and the Olympics.”

from: guardian.co.uk

The latest edition of the Jamaica v U.S. sprint duel kicked off in the women’s 200 meters first round on Tuesday with American Muna Lee leading the qualifiers on another hot and clear morning.

Jamaica have taken both 100 meters titles, including a clean sweep in the women’s event, and Usain Bolt is a strong favorite to complete the men’s double.

The last Games in which the U.S. competed and failed to win any of the four sprints was 1976.

Defending champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, fresh after missing selection for the 100 and fastest in the world this year, cruised through with fellow Jamaicans Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, who shared the 100 silver.

Allyson Felix, runner-up to Campbell-Brown in Athens but who turned the tables in last year’s world championships, is again expected to be her chief rival.

She went through smoothly along with Marshevet Hooker and Lee, who led the way with 22.71 seconds.

“It’s great, I’ve been sitting around watching everyone else so it’s nice to get going,” Felix said.

“I was happy with my turn, finally. I just came out with the least amount of effort possible.”

The second round is later on Tuesday with the semi-finals on Wednesday and the final Thursday.

There was an upset in the long jump when indoor world champion Naide Gomes of Portugal, whose 7.12 meters is the longest jump of the season, managed only 6.29m after two fouls to miss out on Friday’s final.

“I lacked confidence and felt a lot of pressure,” she said.

Brittney Reese of the U.S. led qualification with 6.87m.

Carolina Kluft, who missed out on the triple jump final after opting not to defend her heptathlon title, also progressed safely.

“I didn’t get the speed over the board that I wanted but it was a safety jump,” said the Swede.

“I the final I hope to break my pb of 6.97 and see how far that takes me.”

All the major players in the women’s javelin went through to Thursday’s final, headed by Czech Barbora Spotakova.

Tuesday night’s action is highlighted by the men’s 1,500 meters, where Asbel Kiprop and Augustine Kiprono Choge could lead a Kenyan 1-2.

There are also golds up for grabs in the women’s 400 and 100m hurdles and the men’s discus and high jump.

Bolt, bidding to become the first man to complete the sprint double since Carl Lewis in 1984, returns to the track in the 200 semi-finals before Wednesday’s final.

reuters.com