Good morning! Another full slate on the seventh day of Olympic glory, with finals in archery, badminton, gymnastics, judo, shooting, weightlifting and swimming. Women's football quarterfinals get underway too. And, of course, the debut of athletics at the Bird's Nest, highlighted by the shot put and women's 10000m later tonight. First, before we enter the second lopsided half of the Beijing Games, a look back at some loose ends from Day 6.

SWIMMING: The men's 50 meter freestyle race is occasionally referred to as the "glamour" event in swimming. Not much prestige in the initial Olympic quick-swim back at Saint Louis 1904, when second-place finisher J. Scott Leary (USA) claimed that gold medalist Zoltan von Halmay (HUN) had interfered with him in the water, after which a brawl ensued. The event didn't show up again at the Games until 1988.

Since then, the 50 free has occupied a very similar place as the 100 meter dash in athletics -- pretty much anybody can enter, thanks to a FINA wildcard system that grants spots to developing swimming nations. No fewer than ninety-seven aspirants lined up in heats last night. Twelve-year-old Dwayne Benjamin Didon, the youngest male competitor at these Games, is one of the top swimmers in the African archipelago nation of Seychelles. His time of 28.95 was good for 85th in this world-class field. A swimmer with a name longer than the event itself, Mohamed Lamine Alhousseini Alhassan of Niger, was 95th with a 30.90 time.

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

Results of the Day 6 competitions.

One last dispatch from Virtual Olympicland before the lights go down on Day 6.

VOLLEYBALL, BEACH: The best official term in beach volleyball -- and perhaps, the entire Olympics -- is "lucky loser." (That there is no international pop hit with that title is a situation that needs immediate rectification.) A day after beating a Russian pair in a match with serious political overtones, Georgians Natalia Uryadova and Alexandra Shiryaeva (above, and actually Brazilians who prefer to go by Saka and Rtvelo) were put in the four-team play-in tournament that consists of the four third-place teams in the three pools. After a 1-2 record in pool play, the pair was an unlucky loser today, dropping a straight-sets match to a Belgian team.

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.

There's some precipitation in the area as Day 6 continues, but that isn't affecting the competitions with roofs. Let's check in on the Games.

SWIMMING: Wii master Kosuke Kitajima scored the first-ever breaststroke double-double today, the first swimmer to sweep both races in that stroke in Olympic history, and only the third swimmer (freestylers Aleksandr Popov and Michael Phelps) to repeat any sort of double. For now, he's just glad he doesn't have to play Sonic to Phelps'' Mario.

"I'm glad he's not a breaststroke specialist. He's a great swimmer, he's got all the right characteristics, but in breaststroke I don't want to have to challenge him," Kitajima said. "He's not suitable for breaststroke. He's more of a freestyle guy."

It's early afternoon in Beijing, and the competitions continue. Let's once again try and capture a small percentage of what's going on.

FIELD HOCKEY: A stunning women's game this morning, as host China very nearly overcame the Netherlands, winners of the last two Olympic bronzes. The Chinese have never medaled in field hockey, and are here only because of their automatic qualification as hosts. Dispatching lowly Spain and South Africa (above) in preliminary shutouts showed that they weren't going to prop up the Pool A table, but today's narrow 1-0 Dutch win was unexpected indeed. Maartje Paumen scored in the 21st minute, and the orange-clads (now 3-0 in pool play) fought off a spirited home team and a deafening home crowd.