On the second-to-last full night of competition at the Beijing Olympics, semifinals are taking place in men's basketball, volleyball, handball and baseball. Six golds are up for grabs at the Bird's Nest. What else happened today?

ATHLETICS: As this blog has noted in the past, the reasonable human threshold for distance running is about 20 miles, and the marathon is taxing enough -- world-class runners can span the 26.2-mile distance in around two hours. But until the eight-hour Ironman triathlon is added as an Olympic event (virtually unlikely), the longest Olympic endurance events are a pair of races that ease the pressure of running with slight modifications. In the cycling road race, a grueling six-hour affair won this year by Samuel Sanchez (ESP), at least you get a seat and some wheels. And then there's the 50km race walk.

Sure, it looks silly and everything, but there are very few people who can do anything for three and a half hours in a row, other than reading, typing at a computer or sleeping. Today, Alex Schwazer of Italy smashed the Olympic record by covering the 31-mile distance in 3:37:09. Australian Jared Tallent, for his part, earned silver less than a week after bronzing in the 20km. That's 43 miles, roughly the distance between Washington, DC and Baltimore, all while shaking his booty like a dance champion.

Tallent only bent his knee once, and Olympic titlist Schwazer was called for a single infraction for having both feet off the ground at the same time. In the tradition of this blog, a tribute to the five racewalkers who were removed from the race with three fouls: Artur Brzozowski of Poland, Italy's Diego Cafagna, Irishman Colin Griffin, Darius Skarnulis of Lithuania and El Salvador's Salvador Mira. You were in a hurry, but the rules are there for your own protection.

Earlier, Carl Lewis was approached at Beijing Silk Market by the AP and was asked about the accomplishments of Jamaican Usain Bolt, the first sprinter since Lewis to achieve the 100-200 double. It's a reasonable enough question, but the 10-time Olympic medalist provided a reminder that for some people, national teams aren't the only ones competing at the Games.

"He's a Puma guy. I really can't say anything...I said something the other day and the Nike people saw it and they weren't happy. "

CANOE/KAYAK: Hungarian canoeist Gyorgy Kolonics was one of the great figures in his sport -- in a long and distinguished career of nearly two decades, he won 15 world championships as well as gold medals at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 (in the C-2 and C-1 sprints) and was known for explosive finishes. He was training for the Beijing Olympics when he collapsed and died in his boat on July 15. He was 36.

The initial cause of death was listed as arterial plaque, but in such a high-profile case, things became more complicated. His trainer accused Hungary's National Ambulance Service of arriving a half-hour late to the scene and failing to have a defibrillator. The service fired back, claiming that Kolonics was wearing muscular-fatigue bandages (similar to the ones seen around these Games) that shut off his body's "stop" signal during a hard training session.

Amidst all this, the Hungarian Olympic team had less than a month to prepare for the Olympics. Kolonics' C-2 partner Gyorgy Kozmann, who won world championships with Kolonics at the 500 meter distance in 2006 and 2007, initially refused to go before relenting and taking on new boatmate Tamas Kiss for the 1000 meter event. Brothers Mihaly and Matyas Safran took over duties in the C-2 sprint.

Today was the C-2 1000m race. Wearing black armbands, Kozmann and Kiss got off to an awful start, splitting in sixth after the first quarter of the race. They fell back even further, only leading the Chinese and Polish boats at the halfway point. But with an enormous push, the pair came up the field to finish the race in 3:40.258. They barely edged out the Romanians for bronze, by less than a tenth of a second.

There was another dangerous moment in the final. The silver medal-winning German boat of Thomasz Wylenzek and Christian Gille led nearly the entire race, but Belarus caught them at the line. After the race, Wylenzek lost consciousness and was sped to a local hospital. He was given IV fluids but missed the medal ceremony.

Photo credit; Getty Images