It's raining in Beijing this early afternoon, and it's having an effect on tennis and beach volleyball, especially. The women's cycling road race starts in a few hours, we'll see if it's postponed or goes on as planned.
SHOOTING: Wenjun Guo of China won the 10m air pistol for women with an Olympic record performance. But just hours after Russian newspaper Pravda reported that Georgia was pulling out of the Games, Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze earned a bronze medal. Salukvadze once competed for the Soviet Union and won two medals: gold in the sporting pistol and silver in this event back at Seoul 1988. It was the 13th medal since Georgia became independent, and will hopefully mean that the athletes are staying despite the state of war in their home country.
SWIMMING: In what may end up being the most repetitive sentence fragment at the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps won a gold medal. The American swimmer (pictured, above, before the mustache came off) , going for eight of them, blew out his own world record in the 400m individual medley with a 4:03.84 swim. Then, during the anthem, the music stopped early.
Other Watercube winners included Aussie Olympic newcomer Stephanie Rice in the women's 400 IM, who set the day's second world record (4:29.45). She reclaimed the WR from American Katie Hoff, who took bronze. Tae-Hwan Park of South Korea won gold in the 400m free after a DQ at Athens. The Netherlands won the 4x100 meter freestyle relay in 3:33.76.
WATER POLO: The men's tournament begins today. In the early session, Canada made its return to the Games in the sport since Montreal 1976, when it automatically qualified as host. Spain gave the Canadians a rude hellooo, winning 16-6.
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Australia, among other nations, is advising its athletes to wear team colors at all times out in public after the murder of the US Olympic volleyball coach's father-in-law yesterday.
Athletics doesn't start until next week, but doping scandals have kept track and field in the news. It just came down that Katerina Thanou did not get permission from the IOC to compete for Greece, even though she qualified and her two-year ban is up. She was a central figure in the drug brouhaha at the Athens Games that included missed tests and an alleged staged motorcycle crash as an alibi.
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