It's the beginning of another exciting day of competition in Beijing. Softball and wrestling enter their first day, and there will be medals distributed in canoe/kayak, synchronized diving, men's sabre fencing, judo, shooting, wrestling, gymnastics, weightlifting, and four swimming finals. First, though, let's wrap up some of the storylines from Day 3. And reflect again on the above image, already burned into the collective Olympic memory.

DIVING: It's hard enough keeping up with all the winners, but there have been a number of spectacular flameouts. One is the British pair of Blake Aldridge and Tom Daley in yesterday's 10m platform synchro competition. Daley, just 14 years old, has been tabbed as a future superstar in England, but the two finished dead-last after a truly remarkable mismatched dive in the third round. After the competition, Aldridge's composure took leave as he openly blamed his wunderkind partner for the failure.

"Unfortunately it's a partnership, you both have to be on the top of your game. I wasn't on top of my game but Tom was nowhere near the top of his."

Results of the Day 3 competitions.

At the close of each day of competition, this blog will present the standings of all active team sports.

Evening sessions continue all across the Olympic venues, here's a quick recap of various events around the rings.

FENCING: An absolutely stunning, heartstopping women's foil tournament just wrapped up. With sinewy cat-like dexterity, Italy's Valentina Vezzali scored a touch with just :04 remaining to defeat South Korean upstart Naim Hyun-Hee 6-5 in a defensive battle of a gold medal match. Matches are first-to-15 or nine minutes long, and this one took every last second to decide. It was Vezzali's third consecutive Olympic championship, and definitely the hardest-won.

Afternoon into evening on Day 3, let's take a quick glimpse at some of what's happening out there.

SHOOTING: As mentioned in this space, India has had a rough Games, from shoddy dress at the Opening Ceremony to early eliminations in nearly every sport it had entered. That was, until No. 17 ranked Abhinav Bindra staged a come-from-behind rally in the final rounds of the men's air rifle to claim gold by eight tenths of a point, beating out Zhu Qinan (CHN), the Olympic champion in the event. Two years ago, he won a surprise world championship by overcoming a severe back injury.

As this blog attempts to figure out why some winners insist on biting their medals for the cameras, here's a morning roundup on this third day of the Beijing Games.

SWIMMING: In the first toe-tingling, arm hair-raising, holy-wow moment of the 2008 Olympics, the United States men's 4x100 relay team slipped by overwhelming favorite France by .08 seconds in 3:08.24. Perhaps the most exciting swimming race ever, even. Remember the 2000 freestyle relay, when it was such a big deal that both the Australians and Americans broke the world record? The top five relay teams broke the previous WR time of 3:12.23, including the Italians and Swedes who finished out of the medals. Canada finished sixth, just .03 off the world record time. The whole race looked like a fast-forwarded videotape.