It's turned into less of an Olympic day than it set out to be. Softball and baseball games are postponed due to rain, sailing races couldn't be contested thanks to a lack of wind, rowing was thundered out, and the two sets of canoe/kayak medals scheduled to be distributed today are on hold until Day 7. But the Games carry on...
ARCHERY: It'll go down in Chinese sports history as one of the nation's greatest upsets, especially because it came at the expense of a key Asian rival. The six-Olympiad South Korean lock on the women's individual title was broken by Beijing resident Zhang Juan Juan, who beat three South Korean champions and survived a back-and-forth final match with defending gold medalist Sung-Hyun Park to claim gold.
Zhang opened the gold medal match with a 10-point bullseye, but followed it up with a wide miss that earned just seven points. Park surged ahead with two straight 10's and hit five total bullseyes in the 12-round final, but paid dearly for a number of eights. Zhang rebounded from her bad arrow in the second end and, while only hitting the gold circle four times, did not score less than a nine the rest of the way. Zhang won by the slimmest possible margin, 110-109.
WATER POLO: The Canadian men's team have scaled historic lows in Beijing, losing a match to Montenegro 12-0 Tuesday to become the first team in 32 years to be shut out in Olympic play. In today's action against Australia, three players fouled out and coach Dragan Jovanovic was involved in a bizarre sequence in which he was ejected from the game with a red card. Minutes later, he returned from the locker room to continue coaching. It took nearly an entire quarter for officials to notice, but he was once again asked to leave. He'll miss the final game of the group stage on Saturday.
"It shows they don't agree on the red card," Jovanovic said. "When I was doing a little more than I was supposed to, they said, 'OK, you can't stay here. You've got to go.' It's ridiculous, but whatever."
Perhaps the Canadians should just grow mustaches. The Croatian team, ranked No. 1 in the world and seeking its first-ever Olympic gold medal, have all grown facial hair for good luck. All three of their matches so far have been impressive romps, and they're razor-sharp headed into the Games' middle weekend. Do you see what this blog did there?
"We came to an idea to do something special, that will be only ours," said Croatia's Maro Jokovic. "And we agreed because we are a team, we fight for each other and we die for each other, and we wanted to do something not so usual among other teams."
JUDO: Tuvshinbayar Naidan earned Mongolia its first Olympic gold medal ever in the heavyweight (over 100kg/220 lbs.) class. Mongolia first sent a contingent to the Games in 1964, and earned 15 medals (five silver, 10 bronze). Before Naidan's victory over Azerbaijan's Askhat Zhitkeyev, no country had as many non-gold medals at the Summer Olympics without a championship. Next on the wait list are Ghana, Namibia, Moldova and Lebanon, which each have four medals with no gold.
HANDBALL: All hail the mighty Denmark men's team, which earned its first 2008 Olympic win with a 25-24 thriller over Russia. This blog's favorite handballers, which feel the need to make everything exciting, were down by two goals with five minutes remaining, rallied the tie, lost the lead, then pulled out a victory with 17 seconds to go on a Joachim Rietveld Boldsen heave. Denmark (1-1-1) is just over the elimination line in Group B, and will face Iceland on Saturday.
In a moment that Juan Antonio Samaranch probably wouldn't have had, sitting IOC president Jacques Rogge told reporters that American swimmer Michael Phelps is the "icon of the Games." "The quest to have more medals than [Mark] Spitz will be something very important," he said. "And he's keeping the attention of the public. He is a great athlete." Does this little boy look like he's going to grow up to be a superhero?
Reuters blogger Phuma Macanda looks at the early exits from the Beijing Games by many African athletes. The track and field events haven't started yet, in which nations like Kenya are traditionally strong, but athletes from that continent lag behind with six total medals.
The daily press briefing turned testy when English news reporter Alex Thomson grilled the IOC's communications director about broken promises in regards to press freedoms at the Games. It's just a simple yes-or-no question... are you embarrassed? Chinese media officials grabbed the microphone away from him.
In sad news, two of the van passengers involved in yesterday's shuttle bus crash near the rowing venue have died from their injuries. A BOCOG spokesman said an investigation showed that the van broke traffic rules and caused the accident.
Photo credit: Xinhua
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