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…

The following day 18-year old Ryan Cochrane won the silver medal in the 1500 m swim, a couple days after breaking and briefly holding the Olympic record in the heats. The men's eight with cox won the gold medal and the lightweight women's double sculls and the lightweight men's coxless fours both won bronze.

On day 10 Karen Cockburn won silver in the trampoline, adding to her silver from Athens and bronze from Sydney. In Equestrian, Canada placed second in team jumping giving Ian Millar, a 61-year old and 9-time Olympian his first Olympic medal.

Day 11 was another big day for Canadians with Alexandre Despatie winning silver in the 3m springboard, Jason Burnett placing second in trampoline and Priscilla Lopes winning bronze in the 100m hurdles. Simon Whitfield made a gutsy move in the final 200m of the triathlon to also win silver on day 11 to go along with the gold he won in Sydney 2000.

After twelve days of competition Canadians have won 2 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze medals for a total of 13. There are several medal favorites still to come in the last four days of competition. This surpasses the medal totals in Athens 2004 where Canada won 3 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze for a total of 12 Olympic medals. Canada had it's top medal count, not including the boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics, in Atlanta with 22 – 3 gold, 11 silver and 8 bronze.

I'll admit, I was starting to wonder if Canada would win a medal. Heck, Togo had a medal already. Yes the Olympics are supposed to be about competing and not the medals. After all, there are only 302 events in 28 sports in total, so a large percentage of the approximately 11,659 athletes won't win any hardware. Plus Canada usually does much better at the Winter Olympics (or seemingly so), yet I still want and hope to see Canadians win medals.

When I was reflecting on the results so far, I started to wonder how many 4th place finishes Canadians had achieved. There was Dylan Armstrong in the shot put, who missed out on bronze by 1 cm, but broke his Canadian record. Mike Brown in the 200m breaststroke, who set a Canadian record in the semi-final. Blythe Hartley in 3m springboard. The Women's Eight with Cox in rowing. Martine Dugrenier in 63kg women's wrestling. Plus the women's softball team missed out on a medal in the final appearance of softball in the Games. A total of six fourth place finishes so far.

Add to that further 18 top 8 finishes (if I didn't miss any) so far. If you take a minute to think about it, a top 8 finish in the world is indeed a stellar accomplishment. 

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.

I watched a documentary about Oscar while he went through testing monitored by the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF).  The IAAF believed his carbon fiber prosthetics gave him an advantage over able-bodied runners.  They tested the amount of energy the blades returned when hitting the ground as compared to the foot of an able-bodied runner and concluded Oscar had an advantage.  Oscar took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won.  Had Oscar met the Olympic qualifying time, he would have been able to compete in Beijing.

Natalie was a national team swimmer who narrowly missed qualifying for the Sydney Games as a 16-year old.  In 2001 her left leg was amputed at the knee after a car crashed into her scooter.  A year later she became the first disabled athlete to compete in the 800m freestyle at the 2002 Commonwealth Games where she finished 8th.  In Beijing she competed in the 10K swim and finished 16th.  She was also given the honour of carrying the South African flag during the opening ceremonies.

Natalia competed in the team table tennis event in Beijing.  Despite being born with a right arm that ends just below elbow, she regularly competes with and beats able-bodied competitors.  Her team did not qualify for the play-off rounds.

There have been athletes with physical disabilities who have competed in previous Olympics. 

American Marla Runyan, who is legally blind, finished 8th in the 1500m 2000 Sydney Olympics.  She also competed in the 2004 Athens Games.  It's hard enough for athletes to deal with the close proximity of runners and all the jostling – imagine being legally blind and doing that.

American Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand, was the winning pitcher in the 1988 gold medal baseball match.  After the Games he bypassed the minors and made his professional debut with the California Angles, winning 12 games in his rookie year.  Jim played for 10 years in Major League Baseball.

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.   

The 21-year old Bolt narrowly missed the Olympic record by 0.01 seconds in the semi-final as he clocked 9.85 running into a headwind, again gearing down approximately 20 meters from the line.

The anticipation about the men's 100m race at the Beijing Olympics had been building since last year.  It was thought the the gold medal would be won by American Tyson Gay or Jamaicans Asafa Powell or Usain Bolt.    No one could have predicted how the event would unfold.

In the months preceding the games, Bolt had broken the world record mark of 9.74 set by Powell in September 2007.  Bolt lowered this mark to 9.72 in New York in June, the fifth time he had contested the distance.  Yes that's right.  Bolt had to make a deal with his coach in order to add the 100m to his race card.  His specialty is the 200m.  In New York, Gay placed second in 9.85.

Powell clocked a season personal best 9.88 in Sweden in June, in a race in which he beat Bolt. 

In the US Olympic trials Gay won the 100m with a wind aided 9.68.  Six days later Gay fell to the ground after suffering a hamstring cramp in the 200m quarterfinals.  The question now was whether Gay would be 100% in time for the Beijing showdown.

Leading up to Beijing it's easy to see why all the attention was focused on these three athletes.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

In the year leading up to Beijing, Marion Jones had her 5 medals won in the 2000 Sydney Games taken away due to her testimony at the Balco steroids trial.  Ironically, the Greek athlete who could inherit one of the golds avoided pre-race drug testing at the Athens Games resulting in her ban from both Athens and Beijing.   (The IOC is discussing this matter and will likely leave the placing vacant.) 

A third member of the US 4×400 meter relay team admitted to doping at the Sydney Olympics.  In addition seven Russian track and field athletes – including a world champion, were pulled from the Beijing Games for tampering with their urine samples.  Three Romanian 1500m runners were kept home for suspected blood boosting.  After eleven members tested positive for steroids, Bulgaria withdrew most of it's weightlifting team from the Games.

I don't understand how an athlete can repeatedly state in front of the world that they are clean, only to have their medals taken away years later for using a banned substance.  How can someone be proud of winning when they cheated?  Wouldn't it be tainted somehow?  Wouldn't they know deep down that what they're doing is wrong?

Perhaps they rationalize it by telling themselves that other athletes in their event use steroids so they need to as well.  The monetary rewards some countries give athletes if they win a medal may also be part of the problem.  Plus there are potential commercial endorsement deals worth millions of dollars.

The monetary rewards for medals range from the $15,000 Euros that Germany rewards for a gold medal win to the approximately $190,000 Euros that Greece offers. 

In an attempt to add to it's first and only medal win in 1960, Singapore is offering almost $500,000 Euro for a gold medal win.  Even Canada will now award medal winners with financial bonuses at the Beijing Games.

The anti-doping arm of the IOC is hard pressed to keep up with let alone keep ahead of any new drugs or anti-detection substances.  They are very diligent in their efforts to keep the Games drug-free.

Is there a solution?  Will the Olympics ever be drug free?  Is it a reflection of society?  I can't answer that.  I guess we just have to focus on the larger majority of the athletes who compete in the true spirit of the Games. 

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!