Olympic Times – Sports Daily

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

We got our full measure of Olympic moments in the just-completed Beijing Games, topped by Michael Phelps’s eight gold medals and Usain Bolt’s lightning sprints.

Nonetheless, some of the greatest feats took place in corporate suites, where the Olympics’ global sponsors calculated huge returns on their investments.

General Electric Co.’s NBC soared past its $1 billion ad revenue target by delivering the biggest TV audience for a non- U.S. Summer Games since Barcelona in 1992. Its industrial divisions sold $700 million of equipment to Olympics venues and other Beijing customers.

Coca-Cola’s Olympic-themed “Red Around The World” campaign yielded 17 percent and 18 percent volume gains in China the past two years. Coke not only cut into Pepsi’s market share lead, it also induced Yao Ming, China’s iconic basketball player, to leave Pepsi and endorse Coke.

I could go on and on about the Olympic sponsors as hustlers — perhaps McDonald’s super-sized ad campaign, “I’m loving it when China wins” or Adidas’s new four-story retail emporium in Beijing, the shoemaker’s biggest in the world. Yes I could, except I know my astute readers don’t need Kodak to get the picture. (If you did happen to need Kodak, Beijing is awash with this Olympic sponsor’s latest digital imaging products.)

Corporate Land Rush

Let me be blunt. What has unfolded in China the past two weeks is less a global sports festival than a corporate land rush into the world’s No. 1 growth market. In those terms, the Cha-Ching Games of Beijing have been a huge success.

In terms of the vision of Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, Beijing represents a total bastardization. His credo was “The important thing is not to win but take part.” The Beijing Games’ motto was: “Do you take Visa?” (Of course they do, silly; Visa is another global sponsor which plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into the Games.)

I’m no naif. Sure it’s been many an Olympiad since there were pure amateurs. Sure the Games have been big business ever since the Los Angeles Games of 1984, when Peter Ueberroth showed how lucrative they could be.

What Beijing did was remove the last fig leaf from the Olympic ideal. Put it right up there among the laurel leaves on the winners’ heads and that was that.

The International Olympic Committee sold out the Games’ soul — even if at a handsome price — to accommodate a host that didn’t subscribe to basic Olympics values and sponsors that didn’t seem to care.

Berlin Games

Not since the worst moments of Avery Brundage, the longtime Olympics autocrat who appeased Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Games by pulling American Jewish runners from a track event, has there been such pitiful leadership.

IOC President Jacques Rogge and his cohorts repeatedly let the Chinese play them for patsies. In part, the suits from Lausanne, Switzerland — IOC headquarters — were victims of their own egos.

They awarded Beijing the Games in 2001 under a dearly held conceit: that the Olympics are a great geopolitical force for good. It’s why they prefer to call this a Movement, not a sports property. That’s why Juan Antonio Samaranch, the longtime imperious president of the IOC, liked to be called “Your Excellency.”

Beijing represented both a grand commercial opportunity for sponsors and a grandiose gesture for the Movement. The Olympics were supposed to be, at once, a welcoming of China into the international community and a means of changing China’s uglier practices. The Beijing delegation pledged human-rights reforms if awarded the Games.

Business China’s Way

Alas, this proved to be less the stuff of a Nobel Peace Prize than of a Faustian bargain. The closer the 2008 Games grew, the less sway Lausanne held over Beijing. In the seven years between bid and Games, China had become a fast-emerging economic power, which did business the way it did government: in its own didactic way.

By the time it was clear China had its own ideas about what constituted human rights, media access, peaceful dissent and other such western values, it was too late. A predictable, recurring pattern developed.

NBC and other broadcasters would scream about China’s severe restrictions on where they’d allow cameras outside athletic venues. IOC officials would “tsk, tsk.” China would do as it bloody well pleased.

Internet Access

Journalists would scream about China’s restrictions on their Internet access during the Games. IOC officials would “tsk, tsk.” China would do as it pleased.

The IOC was at its most feeble when it refused to stand up for Joey Cheek, the gold-medal speed skater at Turin. He’s become a prominent advocate for Darfur and wanted to come to Beijing to enlist other Olympians in the cause.

China, which is Sudan’s biggest oil customer and has been accused of complicity in that country’s Darfur slaughters, could see no good in that. Cheek was refused a visitor visa and the IOC declined to stand up for him.

In the same non-Olympic spirit, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies repeatedly deflected reporters’ increasingly hostile questions about why no permits had been issued for protests that were supposed to be allowed in designated areas.

The Chinese government finally provided an answer of sorts. It threatened two elderly women who’d submitted repeated protest applications with a sentence to re-education camp if they persisted. With such hosts, the Olympics were about as much fun as the cultural revolution.

Rogge’s Status

Thus did Beijing wind up being less a coming-out party for China than a shakedown of its many visitors. Olympic sponsors may nonetheless have done very well by the Games, but the IOC has not. Rogge’s alpha status in the Olympic movement has been weakened.
And even sponsors who did great business in Beijing should worry about the way these Games played out. The Olympic rings are the world’s most recognized brand, but they have been dinged.

source: bloomberg.com

The Olympics wrapped up on Sunday with a closing ceremony as ornate and decadent as the gala that opened the games two weeks ago and so far, reviews of the host country have been mostly positive.
Though what China actually did to deserve the compliments is about as hazy as your average Beijing sunset.
“For Chinese leaders, all (their) effort paid off,” wrote Jim Yardley in a well-balanced piece for the New York Times this week. “The games were seen as an unparalleled success by most Chinese – a record medal count inspired nationwide excitement, and Beijing impressed foreign visitors with its hospitality and efficiency.”
Yardley’s piece, called “After Glow of Games, What Next for China?” goes on to say, “while the government’s uncompromising suppression of dissent drew criticism, China also demonstrated to a global audience that it is a rising economic and political power.”
That much seems obvious. China has been a seat of economic and political power for about the last six millennia. But the Olympics were meant to show the world a different side of the planet’s most populated nation. After a decade of planning, the games were to serve as a coming out party of sorts, reintroducing us all to a whole new China – one that is forward-looking and ready to take its place among the world’s superpowers.
Yet even after all the best laid plans sought to soften things for the international stage, did we really learn anything about China that we didn’t already know?
The Games of the XXIX Olympiad played out amid concerns over alleged human rights violations, religious persecution, air pollution, governmental control of the press and unfulfilled murmurs of boycott.
That the athletic heroics of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, the Redeem Team or the U.S. volleyball squad could distract us from those larger issues was handy in the moment, but the fact remains China has done little to address its many ills. Little aside from a few brazen acts of misdirection designed to conceal the true nature of things for two short weeks.
Sure, it built a $43 billion stadium complex and filled it to the brim each night. The opening and closing ceremonies were studies in extravagance. But this was already a nation that had nothing to prove in terms of sheer size. No one ever doubted that China had the might, it was nearly everywhere else that the Chinese needed to make strides.
To cut down on pollution, leaders temporarily restricted local levels of traffic. They sent out exhaustive instructions to its citizens on how to deal with the foreign tourists. They created specially designated “protest zones,” … then didn’t approve any of the applications filed by groups to make use of those areas during the games.
Those who did protest – including some Americans – were arrested, briefly jailed and then hustled onto planes headed back to their home countries just prior to the closing ceremonies.
Before the Olympics began, Chinese authorities effectively stalled protesters from the embattled region of Tibet by offering to meet with representatives of spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in October. There is no sign yet they intend to break their word, but critics theorize it was nothing more than a public relations move, designed just to get protesters off China’s back until after the Olympics.
The productivity of those meetings will be the first indicator as to whether or not the Olympic experience will have any lasting effect on China. Some hope that the country will benefit a surge in “self-confidence,” from hosting the games and that by feeling better about itself, China will learn to become more open and more tolerant.
Others are not so optimistic.
“They have earned a tremendous amount of face because of the Olympics,” Beijing media executive Hung Huang told Yardley. “They are going to ride on that for a while. We don’t have a culture that is pro-change.”
Personally, I’m holding my rave reviews until China can prove it’s ready to lead the world in more than just the gold medal count.

from: missoulian.com

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

Michael Phelps wants more in 2012

LOOK out London, Michael Phelps is coming to the 2012 Olympics and he’s thinking about adding even more events to his repertoire.

The Beijing Olympics and Phelps’s eight gold medals are still making headlines, but the good news for his rivals is that the London games will be his last .

And the bad news? He could be taking part in even more events.

“I am looking forward to trying some new events — some events that I’ve never really had the opportunity to swim since my schedule is always so crowded,” Phelps said, adding he’s never competed in a backstroke event at a major international meet or in the 100m freestyle.

Only a few swimmers are likely to breathe a sigh of relief after Phelps confirmed his future plans.

“No breaststroke, no distance swimming, no open-water swimming,” Phelps said. “At least those guys will still be my friends.”

The only other swimmers likely to be pleased by the 23-year-old American’s comments are those young enough to compete in 2016.

“I’ve never wanted to go beyond 30,” Phelps said. “I might go a few years beyond the Olympics.

“I said to my coach: ‘Don’t get any ideas because I don’t want to compete beyond 30,’ and he said: ‘That’s good because I don’t want to coach you past the age of 30’.”

Phelps has said basketball player Michael Jordan and golfer Tiger Woods are the two superstars he’d most like to meet following his exploits in China, and he could be learning lessons from one of them already.

Woods took time at the pinnacle of his career to remodel his swing to renew his dominance. Phelps is speaking of switching the training programme he has followed for the past decade.

source: thetimes.co.za

The United States and China lead the medal count thus far in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, according to reports on Thursday.
The U.S. is second to China with 29 gold medals. The U.S. has also earned 34 silver medals and 32 bronze medals to bring their medal count to 82 overall, the highest of all nations.
The U.S. women’s soccer team won the gold medal against Brazil, while the U.S. women’s softball won silver after losing to Japan. Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor defended their gold medal in women’s beach volleyball.
The U.S. swept the men’s 400m in track and field as LaShawn Merritt outlasted rival Jeremy Wariner to win the gold.
On Sunday, Michael Phelps set the all-time Olympic record for eight gold medals in a single Olympics, breaking Mark Spitz’s record from the 1972 Olympics. Phelps extended his all-time record for most Olympic gold medals to 14.
Phelps set Olympic records in each event, but set seven, not eight, world records. Phelps missed the world record in the 100-meter freestyle (50.58), but set an Olympic record in the event.
Phelps set a world and Olympic record in the 200-meter individual medley (1:54.23), the 200-meter freestyle (1:42.96), 200-meter butterfly (1:52.03), 4×200 freestyle relay (6:58.56), the 4×100 medley relay (3:29.34), the 400m individual medley (4:03.84) and 4×100 freestyle relay (3:08.24).
Phelps won the exhilarating 4×100 freestyle relay, along with Cullen Jones, Garrett Weber-Gale and anchor Jason Lesak on last Sunday.
Nastia Luikin won the individual all-around final in women’s gymnastics as she totaled four medals during the Olympics. Shawn Johnson won the gold medal for the balance beam to add to her two silver medals. The women’s team won silver in the team final, while the men’s team won bronze.

Venus and Serena Williams won the gold medal in the women’s doubles final in tennis. In track and field, Angelo Taylor won the 400m hurdles, Dawn Harper won the 110m hurdles and Stephanie Brown Trafton won the women’s discus throw.

China leads all nations with 46 gold medals, winning 15 silver medals and 22 bronze medals to give them a medal count of 79 thus far.

Wei Yang continued China’s dominance in gymnastics by winning the gold in the men’s individual all-around final on Wednesday. He Kexin won the gold for the women’s uneven bars, while Zou Kai (floor exercise, horizontal bars), Li Xiaopeng (parallel bars), Xiao Qin (pommel horse) and Chen Yibing (rings) won gold medals for the men. The men’s and women’s team swept the team final in gymnastics.

Zhang Juan Juan won the gold for women’s individual archery and Liu Zige set a world and Olympic record as she won the gold in the women’s 200-meter butterfly in swimming.

China won five gold medals in synchronized diving: Tian Liang and Jinghui Yang (women’s 10m platform); Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia (women’s 3m springboard); Lin Yue and Huo Liang (men’s 10m platform); and Feng Wang and Qin Kai (men’s 3m springboard)

The host nation won nine weightlifting gold medals: Long Qingquan (men’s 56kg), Zhang Xiangxiang (men’s 62kg), Chen Xiexia (women’s 48kg), Chen Yanqing (women’s 58kg), Liao Hui (men’s 69kg), Lu Yong (men’s 85kg), Cao Lei (women’s 78kg), Liu Chunhong (women’s 69kg) and Wang Jiao (women’s freestyle 72kg).

China also won three gold medals in women’s judo (Xian Dongmei, 52kg; Tong Wen, +78kg; Yang Xiuli, 78kg) and four in shooting: Pang Wei (men’s 10m air pistol), Guo Wenjun (women’s 10m air pistol), Chen Ying (women’s 25m pistol), and du Li (women’s 50m rifle 3 position).

Guo Wenjun, Liu Chunhong, Cao Lei, Chen Xiexia, Chen Yanqing and Liu Chunhong all set Olympic records. On Monday, Zhong Man won the fencing gold medal for China in the men’s individual saber.

China swept the trampoline event as Lu Chunlong won the men’s trampoline and He Wenna won the women’s trampoline.

Great Britain is third behind China and the U.S. in total number of gold medals with 17, while Australia and Germany have 11. Russia is third in total medals with 51 (16 gold), while Great Britain is fourth with 40.

Although Jamaica has just five gold medals and nine altogether, all of their medals have come in track and field. Usain Bolt became the first runner since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the gold medal in the 100m and 200m, setting world and Olympic records in both. Bolt ran a 9.69 in the 100m and 19.30 in 200m.

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from: transworldnews.com

United States suffered a gold medal wipe-out on Wednesday after suffering another dismal track and field performance which virtually conceded Olympic Games supremacy to China.
The US only managed two silver medals in the women’s 400m hurdles through Sheena Tosta and in the men’s 200m from defending champion Shawn Crawford.
Walter Dix picked up a bronze behind Crawford.
But even those two medals came by default with Crawford and Dix being promoted after original second and third place men, Churandy Martina of Dutch Antilles and American compatriot Wallace Spearmon, were disqualified.
By the end of the day, China still topped the medals table with 45 gold out of a total of 79 while the US had 26 golds out of 82.
Jamaica piled on the misery for the United States on the track at the Bird’s Nest.
First Melaine Walker took the hurdles gold before Usain Bolt stole the show with a record breaking performance in the men’s 200m which delivered him the double sprint gold as well as a second world record.
Crawford could only marvel at Bolt, who reminded him of US eight-gold swim superman Michael Phelps.
“The guy came out and made the best Olympics of my lifetime,” Crawford said. “To me, Bolt is like what Michael Phelps is to swimming.”
America’s night ended on another low note when world polevault champion Brad Walker was eliminated in qualifying after failing three times to clear 5.65m.
American pride was restored by their teams with its NBA superstars cruising past Australia 116-85 in men’s basketball and the baseball team making sure of their place in the last four with 4-2 victory over Japan to set up a semi-final date with old rivals Cuba.
Team USA will face defending champions Argentina on Friday for a place in the basketball finals.
Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant scored 11 of his game high 25 points during a 14-0 run to start the second half, extending a 55-43 lead at the break to 89-61 at the start of the final period.
“At the start of second half we wanted to come out and we had a particular set we wanted to run. I had a lot of good looks and knocked them down,” Bryant said.
LeBron James finished the game with 16 points, many coming as he attacked the rim for hard fought points in the first half. Carmelo Anthony also chipped in 15 for the winners, while centre Chris Bosh and Deron Williams both had 10.
Meanwhile, a dominant United States ensured their place in the last Olympic softball final ahead of the sport being dumped from the Games by beating Japan 4-1.
Yukiko Ueno and Monica Abbott kept each other’s team scoreless through the first seven innings of regulation play and the first extra period.
But then the Americans scored four runs off the previously untouchable Ueno in the ninth inning for victory.

from: afp.google.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

His phenomenal swimming performance was in the books, and not even Michael Phelps himself was interested in watching the rest of the Olympic Games.
Asked if he would stay in Beijing for the Closing Ceremony, a week after his final race, Phelps said, “I have some other things . . . obligations that I’ve got to do.”
So while Phelps attends to sponsor promotions, the Games organizers and NBC Sports are committed to playing out the schedule through Sunday. It’s just that without him, the 2008 Olympics are limping toward the finish.
That’s more than an expression, in China’s case. Track hurdler Liu Xiang, a defending Olympic champion and a Yao Ming-sized star in this country, pulled out of his 110-meter heat Monday because of a foot injury. He walked slowly away from the starting blocks and off the track, taking the hopes and years-long anticipation of China with him into the tunnel of the “Bird’s Nest” stadium.
The Chinese still have Yao and his basketball team, which qualified for the quarterfinals, but Liu’s absence causes “major trauma,” said Jamie Metzl, an executive of the New York-based Asia Society.
“It is impossible to overstate the impact of Liu Xiang to the people of China,” said Metzl, a former State Department official. He had predicted if Liu lost his final race, “you would feel the air going out of the stomachs of 1.3 billion people.”
That may describe how NBC executives felt when Phelps climbed out of the pool for the last time. The network was enjoying a record pace for Olympic ratings, averaging some 30 million viewers nightly as Phelps was shown live (or close to it) in U.S. markets, winning a record eight gold medals while competing in the mornings in Beijing.
The American women’s gymnasts also helped boost the ratings, and they’re down to one event: All-around champion Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson will compete Tuesday on the balance beam.
So what’s left after that? Not much. There’s still some drama in the gold medal count, being led by China, but few high-profile contests will spice the competition. Track and basketball usually drive the second week of the Summer Games. With Liu out, the biggest track event is Wednesday’s 200 meters, with Jamaica’s Usain Bolt attempting to duplicate his world-record performance in winning the 100 last weekend.
For Utahns, there’s intrigue in Wednesday’s quarterfinal basketball game, featuring former University of Utah center Andrew Bogut of Australia against the U.S. team with Jazz players Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. But the Americans have played so well, in contrast to 2004, that little mystery remains in the tournament. What’s more, Sunday’s gold medal game begins at 12:30 a.m. Utah time.
At this point, NBC’s best strategy might be to superimpose an image of Phelps swimming alongside sailing vessels or canoe paddlers, or just show a lot of beach volleyball.

from: sltrib.com

Japan’s double Olympic gold medallist Kosuke Kitajima is hoping Michael Phelps will steer clear of breaststroke when he takes up new events.

“Phelps in breaststroke? That would be the last thing I’d like to see,” said Kitajima, who won the breaststroke “double-double” in winning the 100 and 200 event for a second successive Olympics.

“I really hope not to see that happening,” he added.

After winning a record eight gold medals last week in freestyle, butterfly, individual medley and relays, the American said he planned to take up new events.

Breaststroke, however, is his weakest discipline and he is pondering taking up backstroke events and the 100 freestyle.

Kitajima, who is considering retiring from the sport, said he was in awe of what Phelps had done in Beijing.

“His achievements are just beyond description, and the whole world recognises his ability,” added Kitajima, who also won a bronze medal in the 4×100 medley relay.

“I have great respect for him. We are both athletes, but I’m also a fan of his.

“Being able to stand on the same podium as Phelps …was indeed a great joy for me.”

from: reuters.com

Michael Phelps said rest was the first thing on his agenda in the wake of his epic Olympic performance in Beijing, before he and coach Bob Bowman chart a new course for London 2012.
Despite his remarkable achievement – an unprecedented eight gold medals in nine days to take his career total to a record 14 Olympic titles – Phelps says there is plenty left to do to achieve his goal of changing the sport of swimming in the United States.
“There are some things I still want to do to raise the bar a bit more in the world of swimming,” Phelps said. “For me, it’s still work in progress.”
But Phelps, whose Beijing programme matched his schedule in Athens, will spring something new on the world of swimming in London.
He hadn’t even dried off after winning the 400m individual medley here when he said he was through with that event – although coach Bob Bowman may have other plans.
“I would say I would like to go down and start sprinting, but Bob isn’t so keen on that,” said Phelps, who showed in Beijing just how dangerous he could come to be in swimming’s shorter races.
Phelps swam the lead-off leg of the 4x100m freestyle relay in 47.51sec, making him the third-fastest performer in history in the prestige event behind current world record-holder Eamon Sullivan and former world record-holder Alain Bernard of France.
Phelps was also the second-ranked swimmer in the world in the 100m and 200m backstroke in 2007 – one of the top performers all time in each event although neither was on his Beijing programme.
“We’ll see how keen he is on going to the sprints,” Bowman said. “There is more and different training. He’s more naturally suited to longer events.”
Phelps said he and Bowman would experiment a little, as they did at the 2005 world championships in Montreal in the wake of his impressive Athens Games.
“I think over the next four years, I would like to try new events and see what happens.
“Bob has said he wants to start fresh and do things he hasn’t done before, new training methods and stuff like that.”
After moving from his hometown of Baltimore, following Bowman to a coaching job in Michigan, both are planning a return to Maryland.
“We are going to look at some different events, mix up the training programme a little bit and do some experimenting,” Bowman said. “We have plenty of time and we will look at reinventing ourselves.
“We have accomplished this set of goals and I would dare to venture to say we are not going to do it again, at least not like this.
“We will start coming up with some goals that excite him and start working towards them.”
But first, Phelps said a little vacation was in order.
“It’s something I haven’t done for a long time,” he said. “I am looking forward to seeing friends, hanging out and sitting down. Not moving.
“Bob has a saying about putting money in the bank and this week was about making withdrawals. I guess I’ve gotten through every penny. Now it’s time to start making redeposits.”
But Phelps won’t rest too long, especially since his over-arching aim is to raise the profile of swimming in his home country so that it can garner headlines outside of Olympic years.
“I don’t want this sport to be an every four year sport,” he said. “We get lots of attention every four years, but for the rest of that time there is really not a lot of attention.
“We swim every single day, there is never really an off-season. I just want more people to get involved in the sport and I think it will happen in the next four years.”
Besides, Phelps can’t take too much time off, since he has to book a spot in the 2009 World Championships in Rome.
“My mom has told me I have to make the (US) team so she can go to Rome,” Phelps said. – AFP

from: nst.com.my

Michael Phelps on Sunday broke the record for the most number of gold medals at an individual Olympic Games as he helped the US team win the 4x100m medley relay.

Phelps broke the record previously held by American swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals in 1972.

The US won in a world record time of 3:29.34, beating their own world record from 2004 by 1.34 seconds.

Silver went to Australia in 3:30.04, who were also under the old best mark, while Japan took bronze in 3:31.18.

It was the 25th world record broken in the Beijing Water Cube at the Olympics and came in the final swim of the swimming competition.

Phelps finally cracked on Sunday when he was presented with a certificate to show that he had won an unprecedented eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

Phelps started crying and sheepishly looked towards he team-mates when the president of the sport’s controlling body FINA, Mustapha Larfaoui, gave the 23-year-old the certificate during the medal celebration for the men’s 4x100m individual medley, which the US team won in world record time.

The rousing applause he received from the 11,000 spectators in the Beijing Water Cube brought more tears to his eyes and it was only when the US flag was raised and the national anthem played that Phelps composed himself and broke into a broad smile.

from: bangkokpost.com

Organizers say events are sold out despite appearances. One possible explanation is that Chinese bought cheap tickets but aren’t using them.

Tickets were in such short supply for Friday night’s field hockey match between Australia and Pakistan that some relatives of players couldn’t get any, and those who did had to fork over as much as $130 apiece. At the box office, clerks told disappointed ticket seekers that the game was “sold out.”
But inside the 17,000-seat Olympic Green Hockey Stadium, the stands were a sea of blue — the color of the rows and rows of empty plastic seats. When the game began, only a quarter of the seats were filled, leaving an incredulous Donna Dancer, wife of Australian hockey coach Barry Dancer, to ask, “Where have all the tickets gone?”

It’s one of the great mysteries of the Beijing Olympics: In what is reportedly the first sold-out Games in Olympic history, many venues are far from full, with the expanses of empty seats giving events a somewhat forlorn appearance.

“Everyone I know wanted tickets; we Chinese love to see sports,” said Mike Ma, 34, a Beijing office worker who scored a field hockey ticket through a German friend because he was unable to buy one in China. “It’s a pity there are so many empty seats. We would like to know who is responsible.”
And how it happened.

Demand for the 6.8 million tickets has been crushing. When tickets first went on sale, online ticketing sites around the world crashed because so many people were trying to buy. When the final batch of tickets was offered in July, Chinese fans waited in 90-degree heat for as long as two days to buy them, with near riots breaking out at many locations.

“This is our fourth Olympics, but getting tickets to this one really has been a nightmare,” said Stacey Watson, a 44-year-old Australian, as she watched her country beat Pakistan, 3-1. “Then you get inside and you wonder who got all the tickets, because there is nobody there.”

Dancer, wife of the Australian coach, knows how tough it was to scrape together tickets for the players’ families. She and others spent long nights trying to get through to jammed Internet sites. They called dodgy ticket agencies, scalpers and people they barely knew begging for tickets. About 300 of them finally got tickets, scattered around the stadium.

Not every venue is empty. There have been full houses for swimming and gymnastics finals. The 91,000-seat National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, was packed Saturday for track and field. But at most other events, even table tennis and archery in which the Chinese are strong, the lack of fans is glaringly obvious, especially on TV.

Beijing Olympic organizers initially explained away the empty seats by citing the humid and rainy weather on the first days of the Games. But with the skies clearing, they have begun complaining about tickets that have been purchased but gone unused.

“All the tickets have been sold out; we will be encouraging all the ticket holders to watch the matches themselves,” Wang Wei, executive vice president of the organizing committee, said Friday at a news conference. “If they don’t want to go, they should give the tickets to those who do,”

Empty seats are a chronic problem at the Olympics, where large blocks of the best seats are set aside for sponsors, VIPs and media members who may not use them. The 2004 Athens Games were marked by vast swaths of empty seats.

But Athens was not sold out, and people could buy tickets at the on-site box office. Not so in Beijing. With no same-day tickets available, hundreds of people mill about outside the wire fences that separate the Olympic Green from the street, looking for tickets. Scalpers slink through the crowd, muttering their prices and avoiding police.

On Saturday morning, the cheapest price to see U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly race was $570, for tickets with a face value of $21.

One reason for the shortage is that organizers wanted to make the Games accessible to China’s 1.3 billion people, so they sold more tickets domestically and at lower prices than usual, some for as little as $4. The low prices encouraged people to snap up whatever they could.

But it turns out there weren’t that many people truly prepared to spend their Monday morning watching Mali play New Zealand in women’s basketball.

Also, the custom in Communist China is to attend sporting or cultural events as part of official work outings. Large blocks of empty seats in the cheaper nosebleed sections of the stadiums may have been allocated to state companies that ended up not using them.

From the looks of the stands, the empty seats do not appear to be tickets that were sold in the United States, Australia or Europe, said Mark Lewis, president of Jet Set Sports, the affiliate of CoSport, which was the official sales agent. In the cases where foreigners decided not to go to China, their tickets were returned and resold.

“I know where our seats are. . . . The people who bought our tickets are attending,” Lewis said.

So many foreigners have complained that the Chinese have been busing in rent-a-crowds to lend the stands a festive atmosphere.

“It’s better. Nobody likes an empty stadium,” said Dave Andrews, 27, of Perth, Australia. “But you can tell they’ve just been brought in here to fill the seats. They know nothing about hockey. They cheer at all the wrong times.”

from: latimes.com

Controversy swallows Cube after Michael Phelps seventh gold.

What can happen in a hundredth of a second? The beat of a hummingbird’s wing, perhaps, or maybe sound moving across an imperceptible distance. Saturday morning here, at the Beijing Olympics, it was the difference between one man’s hand touching an underwater wall, another man’s hand behind him only because an electronic device said it was so. In that time, Michael Phelps made athletic history just when it looked as if an American-born Serb named Milo Cavic would snatch it away.
Milo Cavic slowed down at the end and Michael Phelps, who everyone wanted to win, won the race out of nowhere is somewhat suspicious. This created controversy, therefore more viewers, ad therefore better television ratings.

Do YOU think it was a set up and the other guy was asked to take the fall?

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won the men’s Olympic 100 meters in breathtaking style on Saturday, thumping his chest as he streaked to victory in record time.

In an awesome display of power running, the 21-year-old obliterated his own world record, despite raising his arms in triumph well before he crossed the line in 9.69 seconds.

“I came here just to win, that was my aim,” said Bolt. “I didn’t even know I’d won the record till I did my victory lap.”

Bolt’s supremely self-confident run in the world’s most-watched race capped a magnificent day of sport in Beijing.

In the pool American Michael Phelps equaled Mark Spitz’s 36-year record of winning seven golds in one games. He could become an unequalled Olympian on Sunday if he and his U.S. team mates win their last relay race.

Phelps defeated Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100m butterfly by one hundredths of a second, the narrowest margin possible.

Bolt’s victory was beyond doubt within meters of the starting block. He was ahead in a heartbeat and with 30 meters to go he glanced sideways and smiled in realization that he would win the showcase race of the Olympics.

The 21-year-old almost highstepped across the finish line to take the most coveted athletic crown meters clear of Trinidadian Richard Thompson who won silver in 9.89 seconds.

American Walter Dix won bronze in 9.91 but Bolt’s blistering speed made his rivals look like sluggards.

After scorching across the line, Bolt draped himself in a Jamaican flag, took off his golden running shoes and kissed them.

His performance sealed a remarkable transition from 200 meter specialist to winner of the showcase race of the Olympics.

Bolt only began racing the 100m in the last year, putting his fellow sprinters in the shade with his performances. He first really showed his threat in May, when he set a world record time of 9.72 in New York.

JOY AT HOME

Bolt’s father said “yam power” won it for his son. Wellesley Bolt said Usain son was partial to the vegetable grown in the Trelawny area of north-west Jamaica where he was born. Local citizens believe the local staple has medicinal powers.

Much of Jamaica clustered around televisions to watch the extraordinary run and jumped for joy at the victory of the man dubbed “Lightning” by the media.

Despite a tradition of producing world class sprinters, the Caribbean island had never before won a men’s 100m gold at the Olympics.

Bolt can now set his sights on becoming the first man to win the 100m and 200m Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984. He will be full of confidence ahead of Wednesday’s 200m final.

“I am just focusing on the 200 meters now,” said Bolt. “I came here prepared and I’m going to do it.”

The much-touted clash between Bolt, former world record holder and fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell and world champion Tyson Gay never happened.

Gay, suffering from a hamstring injury, failed to qualify for the late evening final in front of a roaring 90,000-strong crowd in Beijing’s magnificent Bird’s Nest stadium.

Powell, 25, who has never won a global sprint title, finished in fifth place.

“I messed up big time,” said Powell. “My legs died on me. Usain ran an awesome race. I’m very happy for him.”

PHELPS PHENOMENEN

Phelps’ victory was equally dramatic. He trailed Cavic but lunged forward on his final stroke to win. The sporting phenomenon of the Beijing 2008 Games punched the air and screamed with joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to hail him.

“It’s pretty cool, that’s all I can say,” said Phelps, who thought halfway he had blown it. “I am in a sort of dream world.”

“He can be called the best Olympian of all time,” Spitz told America’s NBC television, “not because he has more gold medals than anybody but in the way he’s handled himself and in the way he’s actually won under a tremendous amount of pressure.”

Phelps now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games.

Phelps’s success is down to total focus and the perfect swimmer’s physique of large torso and huge reach on short legs. His arm span is 3 inches more than his 6ft 4 height.

The only surprise was that Phelps did not win in world record time, unlike his other six title-winning swims in Beijing.

The women, though, were in record breaking form.

Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who had won three silvers already in Beijing, finally struck gold in the women’s 200 backstroke, bringing some rare cheer to her troubled homeland.

She shaved 0.85 seconds off the previous world best.

Britain’s Rebecca Adlington also smashed a 19-year-old world record to take gold in the women’s 800 freestyle.

LOWS AND HIGHS

Switzerland’s Roger Federer finally won the Olympic gold he craved to add to his well-stocked trophy cupboard. His doubles win will ease the pain of his quarter-final singles defeat and a poor season that has seen him lose his number one ranking.

Sweden’s greco-roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian was stripped of his 84kg-category bronze medal after he dropped it in disgust to protest a refereeing decision. Olympic organizers also threw him out of the Games for his medal ceremony protest.

Australia picked up two gold rowing medals but lost to Britain in a thrilling sprint for the line in the men’s four. Two more medals came Britain’s way in the cycling.

China’s gold medal charge paused on Saturday, with only one badminton gold coming the way of the host nation during the day as attention switched to sports where the Asian nation does less well.

China came second to the United States in the medal table in Athens and would dearly like to win this year to showcase a sporting superpower status to mirror a growing economic clout.

China leads the gold medal table with 27 to the United States’ 16.

from: reuters.com

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won the men’s Olympic 100 meters in stunning style on Saturday, obliterating his own world record to win in 9.69 seconds.

He took the most coveted athletic crown with ease, soaring across the line meters clear of Trinidadian Richard Thompson in silver in 9.89 seconds. American Walter Dix won bronze in 9.91 but Bolt’s blistering speed made his rivals look like sluggards.

The tall Jamaican raised his arms in triumph well before he crossed the line, thumped his chest and raced to salute supporters in the crowd who roared approval of a spectacular run.

His victory was beyond doubt within meters of the starting block and was over within a heartbeat. With 30 meters to go, Bolt glanced sideways and smiled in realization that he would win the showcase race of the Olympics.

After scorching across the line, Bolt draped himself in a Jamaican flag, took off his golden running shoes and kissed them.

“I came here just to win, that was my aim,” said Bolt. “I didn’t even know I’d won the record till I did my victory lap.”

His performance sealed a remarkable transition from 200 meter specialist to winner of the showcase race of the Olympics.

Bolt only began racing the 100m in the last year, putting his fellow sprinters in the shade with his performances. He first really showed his threat in May, when he set a world record time of 9.72 in New York.

Much of Jamaica was expected to have clustered around televisions to watch the extraordinary run and will have jumped for joy at the run by the man dubbed “Lightning” by the media.

Despite a tradition of producing world class sprinters, the Caribbean island had never before won a men’s 100m gold at the Olympics.

Bolt can now set his sights on becoming the first man to win the 100m and 200m Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984. He will be full of confidence ahead of Wednesday’s 200m final.

“I am just focusing on the 200 meters now,” said Bolt. “I came here prepared and I’m going to do it.”

The much-touted finals run-off between Bolt, former world record holder and fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell and world champion Tyson Gay never happened.

Gay, suffering from a hamstring injury, was too slow in his semi-final to qualify for the late evening race in front of a roaring 90,000-strong crowd in Beijing’s magnificent Bird’s Nest stadium.

Powell, 25, who has never won a global sprint title, finished in fifth place.

“I messed up big time,” said Powell. “My legs died on me. Usain ran an awesome race. I’m very happy for him.”

PHELPS PHENOMENEN

The day’s other highlight was Michael Phelps equaling fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz’s 1972 record of seven golds in one Olympics.

Trailing Serbia’s Milorad Cavic in the 100 meters butterfly, Phelps lunged forward on his final stroke to touch a hundredth of a second ahead, the smallest margin possible.

The sporting phenomenon of the Beijing 2008 Games punched the air and screamed with joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to hail him.

“It’s pretty cool, that’s all I can say,” said Phelps, who thought halfway he had blown it. “I am in a sort of dream world.”

On Sunday, Phelps can go one better than Spitz if he wins an eighth Beijing gold in the 100 medley relay.

“He can be called the best Olympian of all time,” Spitz told America’s NBC television, “not because he has more gold medals than anybody but in the way he’s handled himself and in the way he’s actually won under a tremendous amount of pressure.”

Phelps now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games.

Phelps’s success is down to total focus and the perfect swimmer’s physique of large torso and huge reach on short legs. His arm span is 3 inches more than his 6ft 4 height.

MEDALS FOR OTHERS

The only surprise was that Phelps did not win in world record time, unlike his other six title-winning swims in Beijing.

The women, though, were in record breaking form.

Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who had won three silvers already in Beijing, finally struck gold in the women’s 200 backstroke, bringing some rare cheer to her troubled homeland.

She shaved 0.85 seconds off the previous world best.

Britain’s Rebecca Adlington also smashed a 19-year-old world record to take gold in the women’s 800 freestyle.

She had won Britain’s first Olympic women’s swimming title in nearly half a century in the 400 freestyle on Monday.

But the Games have had some low moments as well.

Sweden’s greco-roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian was stripped of his 84kg-category bronze medal after he dropped it in disgust to protest a refereeing decision. Olympic organizers also threw him out of the Games for his medal ceremony protest.

Australia picked up two gold rowing medals but lost to Britain in a thrilling sprint for the line in the men’s four. Two more medals came Britain’s way in the cycling.

China’s gold medal charge paused on Saturday, with only one badminton gold coming the way of the host nation as attention switched to sports where the Asian nation does less well.

China came second to the United States in the medal table in Athens and would dearly like to win this year to showcase a sporting superpower status to mirror a growing economic clout.

from: reuters.com

recensioni blog

FRESH from grabbing his second bronze medal of the Olympics, Australia’s Andrew Lauterstein has told of his desire to crush Michael Phelps’ dream of a record eighth gold medal in tomorrow’s 4x100m medley relay. Phelps’ moment of truth will be revealed tomorrow when he shoots for his final gold medal in the medley relay, with Australia, according to Lauterstein, desperate to wreck his party.

The Australian team is likely to feature Lauterstein, Eamon Sullivan, Brenton Rickard and Hayden Stoeckel, all medallists in invididual events this week.

“All four swimmers have broken the Australian record, all are Olympic medallists so hopefully we can walk away with a medal,” Lauterstein said.

“We’re going to give the Americans a good shake, hopefully stop Phelpsy from getting his eighth gold.

“That’s the plan.”

Phelps is concern ed about the Australian team and heard Lauterstein’s warning.

The American said today: ”The Australians are our biggest opponents.”

Lauterstein was buzzing after claiming his second bronze of the week in today’s 100m butterfly final.

Earlier in the week he was part of Australia’s 4x100m freestyle relay team which finished third behind the US and France.

The 21-year-old was well beaten by Phelps who touched out Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by .01sec in the closest of finishes.

Phelps’ victory meant he equalled Mark Spitz’s record of seven Olympic gold medals at the one Games, winning the event in Olympic record time of 50.58secs.

Phelps never looked like winning after turning in seventh place but he finished like Bernborough to pip the Serbian, who later fired in a protest thinking the touch pads were faulty, but it was dismissed quickly.

Lauterstein claimed a big scalp in the race when world record holder Ian Crocker of the US finished fourth.

“It was just a great race to be a part of, it was an absolute spectacle,” Lauterstein said.

“I said it yesterday, when you hear Michael Phelps do his arm slaps it get’s your heart rate racing.

“So to handle the pressure again and come out and do another PB, that’s three PB’s in three swims, is pretty special.”

Lauterstein said he was oblivious to the amazing performance of Phelps.

“I had no idea…I knew that I wasn’t winning,” Lauterstein said.

“I could see the guy next to me out ahead of me and I could feel the Kenyan right next to me but apart from that I had no idea.”

An emotional Lauterstein also told how he savoured the moment of his first individual Olympic medal.

“I made Michael laugh on the way out to the medal ceremony by telling him to ‘really enjoy it mate”’, Lauterstein said.

“I couldn’t believe I was about to cry when I heard the American national anthem.

“I don’t a have a very good memory, so I just tried to take everything in.”

from: news.com.au

Even Michael Phelps couldn’t believe his eyes. He said he had to take off his goggles to make sure it was his name, and not Milorad Cavic, next to the No. 1 after a thrilling finish in the Olympic 100-meter butterfly.

Phelps, who was in seventh place at the turn, surged in the final few meters and somehow managed to out-touch the Serbian-American Cavic by a hundredth of a second. To the naked eye, it was nearly impossible to tell who won. And from some camera angles, it appeared Cavic had the gold. But the Omega electronic clock read: Phelps 50.58. Cavic 50.59.

The Serbian team was disputing the result, but FINA officials met with team leaders after the race and reviewed the video footage. The Serbians accepted the result after seeing the tape.

Cavic was gracious in defeat and said he was “honored” to be the guy who almost beat Phelps.

It was Phelps’ seventh gold medal at these Olympics, which ties Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record from Munich. He will attempt to break the record Sunday morning in the 4×100 medley relay.

Phelps was humbled to be on the same seven-gold pedestal as Spitz.

“The biggest thing is when someone says you can’t do things, when people say it’s impossible to tie or break these records, I proved anything’s possible,” he said. “If you put in the hard work and put your mind to it, anything’s possible.”

This time, there was no world record, as there had been for Phelps’ previous six golds. Instead, the Baltimore phenom proved he can win in the tightest of races. Phelps made up ground in the final 50, and took an extra half-stroke at the finish, which would seem to have hurt him as Cavic’s hands were already underwater gliding to the wall. But Phelps’ extra kick surged him forward with force at the touchpad.

“When I saw the replay, when I saw I took that extra half stroke, I thought I lost the race,” Phelps said. “But I guess that’s exactly what I needed. I’m at a loss for words. I’m excited and relieved. It wasn’t until I saw the No. 1 next to my name that I let out my roar.”

The lucky seventh gold also meant a $1 million bonus from Speedo, one of his many sponsors.

All the talk heading into the Olympics was that fellow-American and world-record holder Ian Crocker could spoil Phelps’ pool party in this event, but around the pool deck the past few days, the buzz was about Cavic. The Anaheim, Calif., native and Cal-Berkeley student set an Olympic record in the preliminary heats in 50.76 seconds, and swam the fastest semifinal time (50.92).

Cavic’s times were particularly impressive considering that Phelps and Crocker held the top 17 times in the event heading into the Olympics. Cavic, who is 6-foot-6, said after the semifinals that he was hoping to derail Phelps so that one day people would say, “Phelps had a chance to win eight and lost to some guy.” Cavic desperately wanted to be that guy.

Instead, he has to settle for the silver. Andrew Lauterstein of Australia won the bronze. Crocker finished fourth.

Cavic said the difference between he and Phelps was as tiny as “shaving your fingers.” Swimming results can be so close, he said, that his coach cleaned up the hairs on the back of Cavic’s neck with clippers just before the race. “Those are the differences in swimming. Everything counts. You can’t even show one one-hundredth of a second on TV. It’s that close.”

Cavic was not surprised Phelps made his move at the end. In fact, he expected it.

“I knew I was leading the race. I usually swim a faster first 50 and Phelps is a back-half swimmer, so I knew he’d be chasing me at the end. I saw a shadow in the side of my goggles, so the final eight meters I just put my head down, didn’t breathe, and hoped for the best.”

When a Serbian reporter asked Cavic, “How does it feel to be the one man who beat Phelps?” Cavic smiled and replied: “I didn’t beat Phelps. Maybe I’m the only guy who had a real shot of beating Phelps. This is all completely new to me. I felt so much pressure, and I’m very proud I was able to control my emotions and get so close. It was an honor for me to race Michael Phelps with all eyes on me. If we got to do it again, I’d win it.”

Crocker, the quiet, unassuming rival from Portland, Maine, also wanted to be “that guy” who ruined Phelps’ day. So much so, in fact, that he put all his efforts into the 100-meter butterfly rather than race in multiple events. Crocker beat Phelps to win the world titles in 2003 and 2005, and set the world record (50.40) in 2005.

But Phelps beat Crocker in the 2004 Olympics by .04 seconds and edged him again in the 2007 world championships by .05 seconds.

Crocker : “Sports is all about one person trying to derail the other person’s dreams.”

As usual, Phelps’ quest for history overshadowed the other events at The Water Cube on Saturday.

Brazil’s Cesar Cielo Filho set an Olympic record and won gold in the 50-meter freestyle, beating a pair of Frenchmen – Amaury Leveaux and Alain Bernard. He is Brazil’s first Olympic swimming gold medalist. Filho won the race in 21.30 seconds, lowering the mark of 21.34 he set in the semifinals.

It was Filho’s second medal of the Games. He tied U.S. swimmer Jason Lezak for the bronze in the 100-meter freestyle. Filho, 21, is a student at Auburn University.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe set a world record in the women’s 200-meter backstroke in 2:05.24. Margaret Hoelzer of the United States won silver.

And in the women’s 800, Great Britain’s Rebecca Adlington set a world record en route to a gold medal.

from: macon.com