Blog Posts From Active.com 2008 Olympics Tagged With gold_medal

Men's Gymnastics Gold Up For Grabs

Active Sara — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:11:16 GMT

The Men’s team final will take place tonight, the third day of Artistic Gymnastics competition, as eight teams will compete for the gold. In qualifications, China finished with 373.600 points, followed by Japan at 369.500 and Russia with 365.425, just .225 ahead of the Americans.

The favorite to win tonight is China, who dominated the qualification stage, but defending champion, Japan, will not go down without a fight. Japan delivered a decent performance at the qualification stage, and has the potential to get much better scores tonight.

Russia’s performance tonight may depend on whether or not Konstantin Pluzhnikov is able to participate. Pluzhnikov fell off the rings at the end of the session, landing on the back of his neck. He walked off the podum, then lay down on the sidelines as trainers diagnosed his injury. Pluzhnikov did walk off on his own at the end of the competition, but his status is still up in the air.

Although the Hamm brothers will not be competing in the Olympics this year, don’t count the U.S. out just yet. Sasha Artemev, who joined the squad Thursday night, and Raj Bhavsar are the Hamm brothers replacements, and both performed well the other night.

The 2004 Athens runner-up, who finished sixth in the qualifications, lacks experience, but not heart. The United States, led by fist-pumping Jonathan Horton, who went wild the other night during competition upon seeing a U.S. flag, knows they have a lot to prove and will do whatever it takes to not let everyone back home down.

Does the U.S. have enough heart to medal? Will anyone be able to overpower China? Who do you think will take home the gold tonight?

Lezak eats France's trash talk for dinner

mike@active — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:57:09 GMT

SPOILER ALERT: the US won the 4x100 meter freestyle swimming event! Team USA out-touched its French counterpart by the slimmest of margins (.08 seconds to be exact)

!http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-9526-5231/lezak300.jpg|style=float:left; margin:0 .8em|alt=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-9526-5231/lezak300.jpg|class=jive-image|src=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-9526-5231/lezak300.jpg!

I am fairly confident in saying that, even this early in the Beijing Olympics, the men's 4x100 freestyle relay will go down as the most memorable race of this olympics. Heck, maybe even in the entire history of the Olympics.

The French team was heavily favored to win behind their world-record holding anchor Alain Bernard. Australia was expected to snag the silver, with the US team following with the bronze. Alain Bernard, the French team's trash talking star, proclaimed, "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for." The humble US team brushed it off as friendly banter.

It seems that Team USA also took the French team's words, let them marinade overnight, grilled them up and feasted on them for a pre-race carbo-load.

As much as I'd love to go into the finite details of this race, the video speaks for itself (watch the race here ). Don't worry if you missed it or don't have the right plug-in, it'll be replayed for decades to come.

My sole purpose in writing this post is not to dictate the race or analyze the details, but rather to give credit where credit is due. This was not Michael Phelps' race, despite his near record split time. This was not Garrett Weber-Gale's race, nor was it Cullen Jones' race, who became only the second African-American to win a gold in swimming (a grand accomplishment on its own!).

This race will forever belong to 32-year-old Jason Lezak, who picked the best possible time to swim <u>faster than any human being has ever swam 100 meters</u>. He did so head-to-head against the 100 meter freestyle world-record holder (at the time).

You tell me...was this the most exciting event you've seen in ANY Olympics? If not, what is?</p>

World's Greatest Athlete: USA Decathlon Trials Day 2

Coach Corey — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:28:39 GMT

Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, and Tom Pappas qualify for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team

EUGENE, Ore.- Bryan Clay built a foundation for a run at a gold medal in Beijing when he won the decathlon Monday night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials with the highest point total in the world this season. Clay made his second straight Olympics with a personal-record score of 8,832 points. That marked the best score by an American in 16 years, the best in the world in four years, and beat Dan O'Brien's Olympic Trials record.

"From the get-go, I said, 'This is what I'm going to do, these are the marks I'm going to put up,' " Clay said. "I don't care if it's headwinds, tailwinds. I don't care how I'm feeling. I'm going to make it happen today, and that's what I did."

Bryan Clay 1st Place - 8,832 Trey Hardee 2nd Place - 8,534 Tom Pappas 3rd Place - 8,511

Pappas, 31, used a first place in the pole vault (17-0¼ ) and a second place in discus to become the first U.S. decathlete to qualify for three Olympics. Hardee won the hurdles and was third in the javelin.

"Yesterday I wasn't disciplined enough. I never got in a rhythm," Clay said. "I went home last night, talked with my coaches and made the decision in my head that I was going to come out and make this happen. No matter what."

Clay was disappointed with his results during Sunday's opening events that left him with a narrow lead over Hardee, the 2006 NCAA champion, and Pappas, the 2003 world champion. But Clay found his form quickly Monday with a solid race in the 110-meter hurdles. He had the best marks in discus and javelin and cleared 16 feet, 4¾ inches in the pole vault. He needed to run the 1,500 in 4 minutes, 53 seconds to notch his personal best. He finished in 4:50.97.

On the fourth day of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Clay won the classic event of Jim Thorpe and Rafer Johnson and Bruce Jenner and Dan O'Brien with a lifetime best 8,832 points, a bit short of O'Brien's American record 8,891 but still the highest score by an American in 16 years. Among Americans, only O'Brien, with two performances, has ever scored more than Clay, whose performance Sunday and Monday equals the 11th highest score in the history of the decathlon. Clay was followed on the U.S. Olympic team by Trey Hardee with a lifetime best 8,534 and Tom Pappas with 8,511. Pappas became the first man to make three Olympic teams in the decathlon.

"I think there's tons of room for improvement," said Clay, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist and '05 world champion. "This showed that mentally I am a very tough competitor. I am ready to break the world record. It's a matter of time. If everything is aligned ... and I can put all 10 events together, I can score really high."

The world record of 9,026 points is held by Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic, the first man to crack the 9,000-point barrier. Sebrle set his record in 2001 and is not thought to be a 9,000-point man any longer. Clay will go to the Beijing Olympics in August as the favorite to win the gold medal.

Feel free to come back to the Active.com 2008 Olympics Blog for a full series of Decathlon posts, by Coach Corey, leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. The count down is on as were only 53 days away from finding out WHO will be the "World's Greatest Athlete"!