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Countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

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Following on from the Korean women’s gold medal yesterday in the team archery event, the Korean men’s team also won gold just now.

They set an Olympic record of 227 defeating Italy. China won the bronze medal, defeating Ukraine.

Gold - Korea - 227

Dong-Hyun Im
Chang-Hwan Lee
Kyung-Mo Park

Silver - Italy

Ilario Di Buo’
Marco Galiazzo
Mauro Nespoli

Bronze - China

Lin Jiang
LI Wenquan Li
Hai Feng Xue

China continues its stream of gold medals with Chen Yanqing winning the women’s 58kg weightlifting. She lifted a total of 244kg.

Marina Shainova from Russia won the bronze medal with a total weight lift of 227kg.

O Jong-ae of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had the same total weight of 226kg as Wandee Kameaim of Thailand but won the bronze medal as she had a slightly lower weigh-in.

Still no medals for the small nations, but they are making progress as Tsogbadah of Mongolia qualified for the final of the Women’s 10m Air Pistol and finished in 8th place overall with 479.6 points and Maridalin of Dominica finished in 5th place in the Women’s 53kg Weightlifting class with 204kg, but sadly none of the small nations I mentioned yesterday medalled in the team archery (as South Korea dominated the sport yet again)

In the qualification rounds, Iceland pulled off a suprise by beating Russia (a country a mere twenty times bigger in size and at least forty times bigger in population) 33 - 31 in the handball. Toureano of the Bahamas qualified for the next round of the Men’s Welterweight division in the boxing and Colin of Mauritius qualifed for the next round of the Men’s Light Welterweight division. In the Women’s basketball after the first round of matches Latvia are in 4th place having lost 57 - 62 to Russia.

The Beijing Times has revealed that the footprint fireworks sequence for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, was computer generated and inserted into the coverage too look like the real thing. Beijing’s hazy night skies and camera shake as though it was filmed from a helicopter was even added to the sequence to make it look more authentic.

The 29 footprints were lit at one footprint per second, with 29 of them marching from Tiananmen Square to the Birds Nest stadium. They were supposed to symbolize the path of the 29th Olympiad and their arrival to Beijing. The fireworks were actually lit, but what people saw on television was a computer generated sequence. Only the last footprint in the stadium was actually filmed by camera, the rest were slotted in at the right moment.

The head of the visual effects department for the opening ceremony said that since everyone thought it was filmed live, he couldn’t see a problem with it.

The United States tied with Argentina in women’s field hockey in the opening game.

“To play the world No. 2 in the first game of the Olympics and come away with a 2-all tie, we are to a degree satisfied,” U.S. coach Lee Bodimeade said.

The game was played in the afternoon rain in Beijing.

“I am not so happy with the result, because first, we were winning five minutes before finishing the game,” Argentine captain Magdalena Aicega said. “When we saw the number of shot corners we had and the number of penetrations we had … we had more than the U.S.A.”

In other games China defeated Spain 3-0 and Japan defeated New Zealand 2-1.

Aicega said there’s no time to worry about the result. Argentina will play Great Britain when pool play resumes Tuesday.

“The team have to look forward because it’s the first game, and we had a point,” she said.

The U.S. will play Japan on Tuesday.

Argentina’s Carla Rebecchi scored two goals in the first 12 minutes, and her team threatened to score several more times before the U.S. replied. Keli Smith scored after a penalty corner to cut Argentina’s lead to 2-1 18 minutes into the game. The Americans continued to control play for the remainder of the first half, but they missed on their next two penalty corners, and Argentina maintained its lead.

U.S. captain Kate Barber said her team remained calm after falling behind.

“We were a little bit on the back foot to start, and Argentina made us pay for that,” she said. “Our team is known to persist throughout the game, regardless of the situation or the time or phase of the game.”

The U.S. had a chance to win, but couldn’t convert after getting a penalty corner in the final minute. That opportunity, and the many stops the Americans made on Argentina’s penalty corners made Bodimeade think the Americans could have won.

“I’ll take the point,” he said. “We have some work to do.”

In other action Sunday, host China dominated Spain 3-0 in its opener. China’s Fu Baorong scored the first goal of the match in the 17th minute, then Li Hongxia followed with a goal in the 31st minute. Lihua Gao scored the only second-half goal.

Japan defeated New Zealand 2-1 in the first game Sunday. Sakae Morimoto scored the first goal in the 12th minute, then Toshie Tsukui scored five minutes later to make it 2-0. New Zealand’s Jaimee Claxton scored in the 25th minute to end the scoring.

Australia recovered from a 4-1 deficit to beat South Korea 5-4. Casey Eastham scored the game-winner in the 65th minute.

In the late games, top-ranked Netherlands defeated South Africa 6-0 and defending Olympic champion Germany defeated Great Britain 5-1.

It is easy to start thinking that Michael Phelps is only swimmer on the U.S. men’s Olympic team, but the team of Nathan Adrian, Cullen Jones, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and Matt Grevers won their preliminary in world record time.

Katie Hoff after her bronze medal win, set an Olympic record in 400 meter individual medley, breaking Janet Evan’ 20 year old Olympic record.

Federica Pellegrini of Italy broke the record again, swimming the fastest qualifying time.

Matteo Tagliariol from Italy won the Men’s Individual Epee at the Beijing Olympics today.

Fabrice Jeannet of France took the silver medal and Jose Luis Abajo from Spain took the bronze completing a European trifecta.

China has added to its growing list of gold medals tonight, this time in the the men’s 56 kilogram weightlifting. Long Qingqua 17, lifted 292kg to snatch the gold medal.

Hoang Anh Tuan of Vietnam finished second and Eko Yuli Irawan from Indonesia won the bronze medal.

After nine hours winning the 400 individual medley and setting a new world record, Michael Phelps set the fourth fastest time in the 200 meter freestyle preliminaries.

“Tonight was just a race to get into tomorrow,” Michael Phelps said. “I just try to conserve everything and make it into the semifinal. I try to bank as much rest as I can tonight - recover and sleep and try to warm down and get out of here as fast as I can, so I’m not getting so run down.”

Dominik Meichtry of Switzerland won the heat and Jean Basson of South Africa was second fastest.

Kirsty Coventory from Zimbabwe was fastest in the 100 meter backstroke.

Read more: Phelps advances in 200m free

It’s pretty ironic that two countries in a conflict, win Olympic medals in shooting. Natalia Paderina from Russia won the silver medal and Nino Salukvadze from Georgia took the bronze medal in the women’s 10 metre air pistol. The gold went to China.

“This medal is good for Georgia, especially during times like this,” Salukvadze said. “I am very nervous today. It’s very difficult for my people.”

Georgia had considered going home after the conflict started some time during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, but the IOC have said they will now be staying.

“It’s very difficult for us as Georgians because of everything that’s going on at home. It was nice that Natalia Paderina came up to me after and gave me a handshake,” Salukvadze said. “Yesterday I thought the Georgian Olympic team might withdraw.”

Uchishiba Masato from Japan beat France’s Benjamin Darbelet, with an ippon to win the gold medal in the men’s judo 66kg division.

Yordanis Arencibia from Cuba and Pak Chol-min from South Korea both won bronze medals.

Xian Dongmei from China added to her Athens gold medal by beating An Kum-ae of South Korea, who earns the silver medal.

Soraya Haddad of Kazakhstan and Nakamura Misato of Japan both won won bronze medals.

Australian husband wife team Lucinda and Clayton Fredericks continue their strong performances abd are leading the dressage phase of the equestrian.

Australia lead on 102.80 points, Germany 110.50 points and the U.S. are third on 115.60 points.

Dressage will be followed by cross-country on Monday and show jumping on Tuesday.

While the patch of rain earlier today delayed the start of the tennis, it was no problem for the beach volleyball.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh from the United States beat Japan’s Chiaki Kusuhara and Mika Teru Saiki 21-12, 21-15.

“It felt good out there, it was our first time on centre. But it’s so humid it was kind of hard to get your breath back in long rallies,” said May-Treanor, who with Walsh did not drop a match in Athens.

The temperature has come down a little with the rain, but it is still humid.

“We wear bikinis. We expect to get wet,” said May-Treanor, 31. “We play so much in humidity and sun it’s actually fun to get rain sometimes.”

Read more: Beach Volleyball-US women power into title defence

Here is how the sky looks today. There was a bit of rain this morning which even delayed the start of the tennis. The courts are all outdoor. The little bit of rain still hasn’t done anything to change the visibility.

China have won their second shooting gold medal and third overall.

Here are the results:

Wenjun Guo - China - Gold

Natalia Paderina - Russia - Silver

Nino Salukvadze - Georgaia - Bronze

Rain has delayed the start of the tennis today.

The first match due on Centre Court is American James Blake against Australia’s Chris Guccione in the men’s singles.

Roger Federer of Switzerland will play later today (Sunday) against Russian Dmitry Tursunov.

Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou has been banned from competing at the Beijing Olympics by the IOC for her role in the drug-testing scandal at the Athens Games four years ago.

Thanou and fellow Greek sprinter Kostas Kenteris missed doping tests on the eve of the 2004 opening ceremony, claiming they were injured in a motorcycle accident.

The pair eventually withdrew from the games and returned their Olympic accreditations. The IOC did not sanction them at the time but they were later suspended for two years by the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Read more: Thanou barred from Beijing Olympics

The United States took the lead in medal count on the first day of the Olympics due to the sweep of the Women’s Sabre event by the trio of Mariel Zagunis, Sada Jacobson, and Rebecca Ward.  Zagunis repeated her gold medal win of 4 years ago by defeating teammate Jacobson 15-8 in the gold medal bout.

Becca Ward also lost to Zagunis in the semifinals and then won a hard fought match with Sofiya Velikaya of Russia to take the bronze medal in a 15-14 victory.

Former US President George H.W. Bush was on hand to witness the historic fencing victory for the United States.

In sabre fencing, the points are scored with hits to the body above the waist as well as the arms and head.  Fencers use light fencing sabres that are connected wirelessly to a scoring system which shows the referee when a touch has been scored.  It is up to the referee to determine the correctness of the hit, awarding the touch to the fencer that begins their attack first.

The Netherlands has won the gold medal in the women’s 4×100 meter freestyle. They set a new Olympic record of 3:33.76. The United States finished second and Australia third.

Germany started strong but ended up finishing fifth. China will be disappointed by finishing fourth and missing out on a medal.

Here is the Netherlands team:

Inge Dekker
Ranomi Kromowidjojo
Femke Heemskerk
Marleen Veldhuis

United States team -

Natalie Coughlin
Lacey Nymeyer
Kara Lynn Joyce
Dara Torres

Australia team -

Cate Campbell
Alice Mills
Melanie Schlanger
Lisbeth Trickett