Breaking news: Usain Bolt has tested positive for a yam substance. We head into Day 9, highlighted by the women's marathon and including medal events in badminton, diving, fencing, women's gymnastics, shooting, table tennis, weightlifting, wrestling and cycling. It's also the final day of the swim meet and for the rowing regatta. First, let's wrap up Day 8.

It's a race that goes by fast enough so that spectators can easily hold their breath through the whole thing, which is why you rarely hear an audible gasp at a record-breaking performance... it's always a mass exhale, the difference between a "haaaah" and a "hooooh." And sometimes the breath doesn't come back for a while, after one witnesses something like what happened last night at the Bird's Nest. It's that lightheadedness that can contribute to laughter, tears, a confused feeling as if somehow the 23rd Century showed up a few hundred years too early. This blog felt all those things and more at 2235 China Standard Time.

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

Results of the Day 8 competitions.

World, you've just been Bolted. Jamaican sprint star Usain Bolt left the field behind in the men's 100 meter final, shaving .03 seconds off his own world record. After making various tai chi and archery moves at the start line, the 6-5 Bolt used giant strides to end the race early. He pounded his chest while crossing the finish, then posed with his golden shoes for photographers.

It was only the 11th 100 meter dash he's ever competed in.

Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago finished second, a full .2 seconds behind -- Bolt tied the largest Olympic victory margin in this event since thousandths of seconds were measured (Carl Lewis, 1984). Thompson and bronze medalist Walter Dix (USA, 9.91) both ran personal bests. It was the first Olympic 100m in which six runners clocked times under 10 seconds.

Bolt's time was .01 second behind the wind-aided 9.68 (4.1 meters/sec) that American Tyson Gay ran at the U.S. track trials in Eugene, Oregon on June 30. Gay, clearly still under the effects of a leg injury sustained during those trials, failed to qualify for tonight's final. Bolt's 9.69 tied the 1996 run by Barbados' Obadele Thompson that was nullified with the benefit of a wind that was stronger than 5 m/sec. Tonight in Beijing, the wind meter read 0.00.

Jamaican Asafa Powell, the man from whom Bolt took the WFM title earlier this year, finished fifth with a 9.95 time.

It's nearing the official halfway mark at the Games of the 29th Olympiad, which will occur overnight. First, though, we move into the evening competitions of Day 8.

SWIMMING: Eighteen-time medal-winning gymnast Larissa Latynina, still ahead of Michael Phelps by three medals, submitted her congratulations. So did silver medalist Milorad Cavic, in a blog posted hours after the 100m freestyle in which he explained Serbia's protest of the .01-second gap. A true sportsman, he.

A sweltering mid-afternoon in Beijing as the competitions continue.

BADMINTON: The passion of the shuttlecock... the thrill of the net. These were on display today in the all-Chinese women's gold medal match, which featured defending Olympic champion Zhang Ning against two-time world titlist and world No. 1 Xie Xingfang.

Zhang, who was one of the sport's elders in Athens but a virtual grandma at 33 here, used her considerable body of experience to stake out a 21-12 first-game win in which Xie fell apart late with costly misjudgments on line calls. Xie appeared to be regressing back to her much younger, mentally weak form, but she was simply reserving her energy. In the second game, Xie overwhelmed the older Zhang with her relative youthful enthusiasm (she's 27), destroying her in a 21-10 blowout.

A hot, toasty morning in China's northern capital. Among the events contested today, rounds and ribbons are available in athletics, badminton, fencing, cycling, sailing, swimming and shooting. What's going on in the Olympic city?

SWIMMING: A name this blog hasn't heard once this week is that of Don Schollander. In the late 1960's, he was considered the greatest American swimmer of all time, having won four gold medals with three world records in Tokyo 1964... including the 7-10 split of freestyle swimming, the 100m-400m double (there was no modern four-lapper until 1968). All this, on a menu that included only 10 men's events (Beijing 2008, by gigantist contrast, features 17). He added a fifth gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay at Mexico City before retiring at poolside, joking that he was so sick of water that he planned on not showering for several years.

More to the point, Schollander was the man whose legacy Mark Spitz was chasing in 1972. Passing him at five at a single Games after Munich's 4x200 freestyle relay, he wiped Schollander from the U.S. swimming record book by taking seven of the available 15 men's gold medals in the pool. It took 36 years for his mark to be met -- but tonight, Michael Phelps matched Spitz with his seventh gold medal at this meet in a thrilling .01-second touch-out against Serbian Milo Cavic. (NBC is reporting that Serbia has since filed a protest, but it's clear that Phelps' stroke timing was impeccable.)