The Olympics are the ultimate in sporting grandeur -- athletes with perfectly chiseled bodies in peak performance. Let's take one last bite out of Day 7 before we head into the Middle Weekend.

CYCLING: Great Britain's "awesome" track cyclists dominated the competition in the team sprint, avenging two straight World Championship losses to France. Bradley Wiggins and Wendy Houvenaghel also dominated the individual pursuit qualifiers. "So wonderfully, violently superior was the performance of the British cyclists throughout the afternoon that you almost felt sorry for the other countries," wrote the BBC's Tom Fordyce afterwards. Combined with Welsh road racer Nicole Cooke's win on Day 1, the Brits are reclaiming an Olympic cycling legacy misplaced somewhere between London 1908 and lately.

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

Results of the Day 7 competitions.

The final competitions are wrapping up on this clear, smog-free Beijing night. One last transmission from Swifter Higher HQ before Day 7 turns to 8.

ATHLETICS: From the looks of the BOB feed from the Bird's Nest, there isn't a single available seat for the first night of track and field -- there are people sitting in aisles even as the women's 10,000 meter runners lap and lap and lap the track. A wonderful development after a week of 60 percent capacity stadiums that were supposedly sold out. The first anthem was played within the past hour, as Polish university student Tomasz Majewski won a surprising men's shot put gold with a heave of 21.51 meters (70.57 feet).

Darkness descends on Beijing as the first athletics evening session gets under way. What else is going on?

BASEBALL: Cuba and the United States had only met five times in Olympic play, and few games were close. Today's 5-4 win for Cuba was the first one-run game between the two (Cuba leads the series 5-1), as well as the first extra-inning affair. It was also the first in the series to be played under controversial new rules. If games go to 11 innings, managers are given the option of resetting their lineup to whatever spot they want, and place the previous two batters in the lineup on first and second. It's a wrinkle designed to speed games up, but today's game displayed the subtle danger that presents.

"How wonderful Olympic brings out the human beautiful side!!!" Here's what's happening as Day 7 kisses your soul and makes you feel good all over.

GYMNASTICS: Perpetually pink-clad Nastia Liukin (above) isn't only an fascinating historical character (she's the daughter of two Soviet gymnasts), she becomes the third American all-around women's champion at an odd time in Russia-U.S. relations. Now that she's become the third corner of an all-American gymnastics pantheon with Carly Patterson and Mary Lou Retton, what's next?

Do you see that? That is track and field, friends. On a clear, cold morning, no less. Hammer throws, women's 800m heats and men's 100m qualifiers highlight a morning session at the Bird's Nest that has become quite well-attended as the morning wears on. This blog is enjoying the little hammer-fetching robots. What else is new?

ATHLETICS: The gamesmanship, played out in milliseconds, is already beginning. Usain Bolt of Jamaica won the first 100m heat at the Beijing Games in a cool 10.20, and countryman Asafa Powell followed in the second with a 10.16. American Tyson Gay, who ran a wind-aided world's best at the U.S. trials, took Heat 5 in 10.22. A total of 40 runners moved on to the next round (tonight at 8 p.m. local time), which will consist of the top three from each heat and the next 10 best times. The Beijing 2008 Lead Boot award goes to Shanahan Sanitoa of American Samoa, who ran a 12.60 to finish last among the 80 runners entered.