Aug
17th
Sun
17th
Olympics highlights, Day 8
Top highlights:
1) Seeing Phelps complete his perfect run, swimming the decisive leg in the 4x100 medley relay. It’s possible to argue that there are other athletic feats comparable to Phelps’ performance in the last eight days; it’s very difficult to argue that there any feat clearly superior to his.
2) A breathtaking sprint by Usain Bolt in the men’s 100m, breaking the world record by 0.03 seconds (a significant, if not huge, improvement), even though he slowed down in the last stride. The hand-waving and chest-thumping might have added a hundredth of a second or two to his time - but the clear deceleration on his last stride probably added several hundredths. Could he have gone under 9.6?
Other highlights & notes:
- The oldest female marathon champion in Olympic history (admittedly, a relatively small sample, since the women’s marathon has only been around since 1984); also, a gutsy run by hard-luck-in-the-Olympics Radcliffe, only eight weeks removed from a femur stress fracture, and an incredibly close battle for silver vs. bronze.
- The conclusion of Dara Torres’ remarkable journey, only 0.01 seconds away from winning the women’s 50m freestyle.
- A sweep for Russia in the women’s singles tennis tournament.
- Continued dominance by the British track cycling team.
- US men’s basketball smothering Spain in surprising fashion. I hope they see Spain again in the final (remember, Spain was taken to OT by China), and I hope to see a better game then.
