You can call me crazy or just say it's nationalistic pride, but when CBC's Olympic Primetime host Ian Hanomansing announced at midnight last Saturday that Canadians were up for three medals, I stayed up… til 2 am!
In the span of 45 minutes, Canadian athletes won three medals on day 8 of the Beijing Games. It was so worth it to see Carol Huynh win not only Canada's first medal of the Games but Canada's first gold medal in women's wrestling. David Calder and Scott Frandsen won silver in pairs rowing and Tonya Verbeek won the bronze in the 55kg of wrestling.
This was just the beginning…
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It's hard to make the Olympic team for your country as an able-bodied athlete. Imagine trying to accomplish that same feat but as a physically disabled athlete. Disabled is a misleading word as these athletes portrayed below are very able.
Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee South African, made headlines in his attempts to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in the 400m track event. While this was happening Natalie du Toit qualified for both the Olympic and Paralymic Games in marathon swimming and Natalia Partyka of Poland qualified in team table tennis.
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Usain Bolt of Jamaica ran a world record 9.69 in the 100m to win Olympic Gold in Beijing. Bolt stopped pumping his arms at about the 80m mark yet managed to better the world record in an event he just started competing in last year.
Bolt finished an astonishing two-tenths of a second ahead of silver medalist Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago. American Walter Dix won the bronze with a time of 9.91. Six men ran under 10 seconds in the final. I can only imagine what Bolt's time would have been had he kept his arms pumping for the full 100 meters.
Who could have predicted that Powell would finish 5th and that Gay would not even make the finals.
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With a strong butterfly leg in the 4×100 medley relay, Michael Phelps gave his teammate Jason Lezak the lead going into the final leg. The win gave Phelps a record 8 gold medals in one Olympics and seven World Records. Phelps also set an Olympic record in the 100m Fly.
Dara Torres, the 41-year old American swimming in her 5th Olympic Games, came 2nd in the 50m free by the slimmest of margins, 0.01 seconds.
After the medal presentation she was back on the deck for the final of the 4×100 medley relay. Swimming the anchor leg she made inroads on the Aussie, world record 100m holder Lisbeth Trickett but could not catch her.
Add her three silver medals from Beijing to the nine medals (4 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze) Torres won in 4 previous Olympics for a total of 12 Olympic medals. That's only 4 behind Phelp's medal haul of 16 from two Games – Athens and Beijing. As a 15-year old Phelps also had a 5th place finish in the 200m butterfly in Sydney.
Michael Phelps edged Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100m fly by the slightest of margins to capture his seventh gold medal in Olympic record time. It appeared as if Cavic had touched first but the electronic timing proved otherwise. Phelps time of 50.58 was a mere 0.01 faster than Cavic.
Phelps has now tied the record of seven gold medals in one Olympics set by Mark Spitz in the 1972 Munich Olympics. He has an opportunity to surpass it with a win in the 4x100m medley relay on the weekend.
The Serbian team protested the win but the result stays.
Michael Phelps again proved just how extraordinary a talent he is by winning two gold medals yesterday. Again, the wins in the 200m butterfly and the 4x200m freestyle relay both came in world record time. Five golds and five world records, so far. In addition, Phelps now holds the record for most career Olympic golds with eleven. With three events to go, that record will likely fall as well.
Lin Miaoke sang "Ode to the Motherland" during the Beijing Opening Ceremonies, or so we thought. We now know she was lip syncing.
I could have understood if she had been lip synching to her own recorded voice, as singing in front of a huge audience could be a bit overwhelming for a 9 year old. Evidently the actual singer, 7 year old Yang Peiyi, didn't portray the image China wished to show the world. Apparently she wasn't cute enough.
Surely, in a country with over 1 billion people, there is a young girl who can both sing and who represents the 'right' image of China. I hope they don't resort to these types of tactics in the 2010 Games.
The 4x100m mens freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics was a thriller! The Americans were at least a half body length behind the French with less than 50 meters to go. When CBC commentator Bryon MacDonald shared that Alain Bernard, swimming the final leg for France, was the world record holder for the 100m freestyle* I figured it would be all but impossible to catch him.
Was I in for a surprise! American Jason Lezak propelled himself forward and out-touched Bernard for the gold medal and a world record. MacDonald said that Bernard swam the last 50 meters right next to the lane marker shared by Lezak. This is a major mistake for a high caliber swimmer. It allowed Lezak to draft, expend less energy, and then explode by Bernard.
For those techies out there, in 1998 Chatard and his coworker calculated that a swimmer could take 9.5 seconds off their time over 400 meters if they drafted behind another swimmer. (Swimming Faster by Ernest Maglischo) That's a lot of time!
Back to Phelps. Two gold medals for Phelps and two world records.
* The world record was broken by Australian Eamon Sullivan in the first leg of the relay. Coming into the race Bernard was the world record holder.
The thing I love most about the Olympics is the inspirational stories. The times when an athlete has surpassed their personal best, overcome an adversity to compete or to medal, or broken a world record.
As I hear of more and more athletes being found guilty of using illegal performance enhancing substances, I find it harder to keep cynicism at bay. I'll cheer and be excited when a record is set and then wonder if the athlete was clean.
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Michael Phelps could win eight gold medals in swimming at the Beijing Olympics and break the record of seven set by Mark Spitz in 1972. Phelps is off to a great start as he won the 400 individual medley and beat his own world and Olympic record in the process. In the qualifying race yesterday he set an Olympic record.
He certainly has the ability to win eight medals. In the 2004 Games in Athens, the then 19-year old Phelps won 6 golds and 2 bronze medals. At the 2007 World Championships he won 7 gold medals including 2 relay golds.
Fellow American swimmer Katie Hoff was also attempting to break a record of 6 gold medals in one Olympics. That record was set by Kristin Otto of East Germany in 1988. Hoff finished third in the 400 individual medley tonight so the most gold she can win now is five.
Athletes capable of such a feat do not come around often. It's about time a record set in 1972 was broken. Though it may be hard to do as Spitz did and break the world record in each gold medal win. Seven finals (4 individual and 3 relays) and seven world records. Amazing!
