A drab and rainy afternoon in Beijing, which may affect tonight's running of field events like the women's javelin throw and men's triple jump. Elsewhere, the women's basketball semis are set to tip off, and the women's 10m platform diving final will take place at the Watercube. The United States women's volleyball team (above) pulled a surprising straight-set win over Cuba in those semifinals. What else is going on?
TABLE TENNIS: As the fields in the men's and women's singles competitions are winnowed down, the Asian powers are reasserting their dominance over the sport. But a moment of respectful tribute to Nigeria's Segun Toriola, the 33-year old Commonwealth champion. This is Toriola's fifth Olympics, and perhaps his last, and he won three matches for the first time. First, a seven-game victory over American David Zhuang, followed by another marathon match against Joao Montiero of Portugal. In both rounds, he had to fight back from a game down to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 win. He had an easier time yesterday with Belgian Jean-Michel Saive, winning in six.
Toriola's run ended today against Sang-Eun Oh of South Korea in the third round. After taking a 1-0 lead with a 14-12 extra-time game, he yielded three games to fall into a deep 3-1 hole. But summoning the power of the Super Eagles football team, using a compact stance to unleash lightning-quick attacks, Toriola fought back to take the fifth and sixth by identical 11-9 scores. After fighting to a 6-6 tie in the seventh and deciding game, he faltered. Oh advanced with an 11-7 victory.
"Although Oh deserved to win, one will miss the African," proclaimed the table tennis federation's website. "Toriola was enrichment for the Olympic tournament."
FIELD HOCKEY: This morning in the men's classification matches, New Zealand scored three goals in the second half to beat Pakistan 4-2, and The Nation reported that the Kiwis "trounced the green shirts with utmost ease." The South Asian Islamic republic finishes the tournament in eighth place, the worst performance in its history. Among the four losses was Pakistan's first loss to former colonial rulers Great Britain in 56 years.
The great on-field rivalry between Pakistan and India is a distant memory now -- in the 1960's and 1970's, it was Pakistan that ended India's dominance of the sport and gave the game some of its greatest matches. Now, India is a faded legacy -- the country didn't even qualify for Beijing -- and Pakistan hockey is a shell of its former proud self, after three golds, three silvers and two bronzes over 10 Olympiads.
SAILING: In the race that would not die, the Spanish and Italian Olympic committees filed a final appeal of the 49er class race from last weekend, the one in which Denmark borrowed a boat from the eliminated Croatians and sailed to gold after their mast broke. The race officials accepted the boat change, but the two organizations want the medal tally to be rewritten: Spain, Germany, Italy. The last word will come down on Friday after a closed-door hearing. In the meantime, Spain won the two-man Tornado catamaran on the final day of a chaotic yachting regatta. In the Tornado race, the Germans capsized and the Greeks didn't make it to the finish line.
Just outside the comfy confines of temporary Olympia, the International Olympic Committee criticized China for not allowing protesters to use the three "zones" it previously promised. There were 77 applications, but each was summarily dismissed -- or in some cases, police arrested those who wanted to use the areas. Both the IOC and China will go their separate ways next week, neither one the wiser, but what's virtually assured is that no more Olympic Games will occur in this country for a very, very long time.
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