The afternoon sun gently bakes the venues on this day before the day before the end. Day 14 is a unique one at the Games, and please indulge this blog as it explores one of the Final Friday's key components: classifications.

Nobody saw fit to distribute an easy-to-understand comprehensive guide to Olympic structure. Television is too busy selling the athletes who will star in the post-Games advertisements to spend time explaining how this thing really works.

In the most simplistic terms possible, the International Olympic Committee is in the bubble business. Lots of governments want the IOC to build their temporary world inside their countries and cities, because recent history indicates that the Olympics are good for the local economy (or in the case of China, a fine way to show national strength). So they make elaborate presentations, promise and build full sets of stadia. Seven years after the site selection, the bubble encases the venues (expiration date: 16 days from first use), and the IOC diligently guards its contents against drugs, politics and ads. As best it can, anyway.

What goes on inside the bubble is left to the sports federations, which run their competitions as they see fit. The IOC is too busy attempting to keep nastiness out to run a beach volleyball tournament or an BMX race, and besides, they know who the experts are. All the IOC asks in return for bubble citizenship is that federations play nice and stay globally relevant... sorry, softball and baseball.

Because every sport is free to run its business with different methods and different rules, each eliminates aspirants in different ways.

One of the most notable things about these "Teen Days" of the Games is the way team sports go about constructing their final tables. In football and basketball, for instance, you simply go home if you don't make the quarterfinals. Many sports keep going for another round, offering games for placement. Indeed, Day 14 is filthy with classification matches.

When there's a medal on the line, there's no need to invent motivation. Not the case in a game like the early-morning 11th place faceoff in the men's water polo tournament, with hapless hosts China and historically inept Canada, which became the first water polo shutout in 32 years with a 12-0 pool-play loss to Montenegro. Neither team had won a game yet, so something good had to happen. The Canadians stayed afloat, edging China 8-7 in front of what the CBC referred to as a "roaring crowd."

Over at the National Indoor Stadium, the men's handball tournament is in its final stages of figuring itself out, with considerably less enthusiasm in the seats. The evening slate might feature the two exciting semifinals (Iceland-Spain and France-Croatia), but those with a ticket to the noon session got to see the fifth and seventh place matches.

It was the chance to say a final goodbye to Denmark, this blog's favorite team, which squandered a late two-goal lead to Russia and lost 28-27. As in many games in this tournament, the Danes wasted golden opportunities with untimely physical play, taking five two-minute penalties. Legendary coach Ulrik Wilbek contorted his face into so many pained expressions that the neutral BOB international feed was able to present a 60-second compilation after the match. Denmark finishes the campaign 2-3-2, in sixth place.

At the temporary field hockey venue on the Olympic Green, the 11-12 and 5-6 games closed out the women's classification. South Africa won the right to say they didn't finish last by beating New Zealand's Black Sticks 4-1 (right). In the second game, another of this blog's watchlist teams, the red-and-white lionesses of Great Britain. The Australian "Hockeyroos," in sharp decline since golds in 1996 and 2000, played an angry and attacking style, scoring goals in both halves in their Beijing finish.

After an apparent equalizer was disallowed in the 46th minute after a video review, Alex Danson (above) and Great Britain (2-2-2) was sapped of their will to continue. And when the game was over, there were tears on the pitch from the joint English and Irish squad. Not from relief, but because they wanted to win something, anything. Just another Olympic team whose will to win far outstripped its ability to.

Photo credit: Getty Images