No rain in Beijing today – just a shower of records, a sprinkling of surprises and cascading gold as Day 3 athletes surpassed the amazing feats of the previous days of Beijing 2008.
The Cube was the place to be if you like to see records go a-tumbling. Count them: five swimming world records were feverishly scribbled into the notebooks of stat-freaks alongside a liberal smattering of Olympic, continental, national records and a generous dose of personal bests. Oh, and there was plenty of gold on the horizon too.
That Michael Phelps fellah was in the thick of it as expected, notching up his second gold medal of the Games in (yep, you've guessed) a new world record time, with his American colleagues in the Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay, keeping his quest to crack Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Games (Munich 1972) on track.
Australian lead-off man, Eamon Sullivan, set a world record in the opening leg of the event – however his Aussie comrades were soon left trailing in the wake of Phelps, Garret Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak, who audaciously slashed almost four seconds off the previous world record the team had only set the day before. The French team, which briefly led in the third leg, held onto silver, ahead of Australia, which claimed the bronze.
The other world records came from Kitajima Kosuke of Japan, who defended his Men's 100m Breaststroke Olympic title by fracturing his own world record in the event by clocking 58.91 seconds.
In heats, Zimbabwean Kristy Coventry cracked her own World Record (again, set yesterday) in the Women's 100m Backstroke, while Federica Pellegrini of Italy established a new world best of 1:55.45 in the Women's 200m Freestyle prelims.
Phelps broke his own Olympic record in the Men's 200m Butterfly prelims, clocking 1:53.70, while the Olympic Men's 100m Backstroke record was lowered three times in Monday's semifinals -- in heat one by Arkady Vyatchanin of Russia, and then by Australian Hayden Stoeckel and Mark Grevers of the USA.
Medal-wise, Lisbeth Trickett of Australia recorded an Oceana record to strike gold in the Women's 100m Butterfly. Christine Magnuson of the United States took silver. Jessicah Schipper of Australia won the bronze.
However the biggest surprise in the pool came in the Women's 400m Freestyle with Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain taking gold with a time of 4:03.22, pushing Katie Hoff of the United States to the silver spot. The 800m short course world champion outreached Hoff on the line. Another Briton, Joanne Jackson, won bronze.
What did you do during your school holidays, kids? Well, 14-year-old British diver, Tom Daley will surely have a better answer for his teachers than his school pals. "I competed in an Olympic diving final."
Sadly, young Mr. Daley and his Men's Synchronized 10m Platform partner, Blake Aldridge, came last as China's divers kept on course to scoop all eight diving gold medals.
Reigning world champions Lin Yue and Huo Liang took gold with 468.18 points. Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding of Germany won silver, while Dmitriy Dobroskok and Gleb Galperin of Russia earned bronze.
Surpassing the Chinese diving dynasty isn't easy – but hats off to the Republic of Korea's men's archers who claimed the Men's Team gold medal for the third Games in a row (not as good as their women's team, which yesterday claimed their sixth title in a row, but never mind lads, I'm sure you can catch up.)
The ROK team of Im Dong-Hyun, Lee Chang-Hwan and Park Kyung-Mo outscored Italy by two points in a thrilling final, while China took third place after a closely fought victory over Ukraine in the bronze medal match.
Maria Valentina Vezzali of Italy became a triple Olympic gold medalist after her third consecutive Women's Individual Foil Fencing title. The World No.1 beat Nam Hyun-hee of the Republic of Korea, who took silver, in a 6-5 bout.
On the Judo mat, another World No. 1 Elnur Mammadli of Azerbaijan needed just 13 seconds to defeat Wang Ki-chun from the Republic of Korea with an ippon to claim gold in the Men's -73kg category. Giulia Quintavalle of Italy claimed gold in the Women's -57kg class on her Olympic debut by defeating Deborah Gravenstijn from the Netherlands with a yuko.
Indian hot-shot Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the Shooting Men's 10m Air Rifle final with an incredible total score of 700.5 points. China's Zhu Qinan, gold medalist at Athens 2004, won the silver medal with 699.7. Bronze went to Finland's Henri Hakkinen, who led after the qualification round.
Satu Makela-Nummela of Finland took the Women's Trap title despite missing four targets in the final round. Slovakia's Zuzana Stefecekova, who had tied with Makela-Nummela after the qualification round, took silver. Corey Cogdell of the United States, won a four-way shoot-off between the other finalists to take bronze.
It was Chen and Zhang to the double as China hoisted the gold medals in the day's two weightlifting finals. Chen Yanqing set a new Olympic record to retain her Women's 58 kilogram crown by lifting a total weight of 244kg. Then Zhang Xiangxiang won his first Olympic gold medal by lifting 319kg in the Men's 62 kilogram final.
Away from the medals there was a smattering of surprises.
The biggest shocks came in the tennis tournament with home favorite Li Na of China defeating Women's No. 3 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, while in the Men's Singles, Great Britain's Andy Murray, seeded No. 6 and fresh from victory in the Cincinnati Masters, lost 7-6(5), 6-4 to World No. 77 Lu Yen-hsun of Chinese Taipei.
All the other seeds progressed in the Men's and Women's singles. Although, soon-to-be crowned Men's World No.1, Rafael Nadal of Spain, dropped a set against Potito Starace of Italy, before winning by 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.
In the Badminton qualification rounds, the shocks were positively seismic. In the Women's Doubles quarterfinals, World No. 8 pair Maeda Miyuki and Suetsuna Satoko of Japan stunned World No. 1 duo, Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen of China 8-21, 23-21, 21-14, while in the Men's Singles round of 32, World No. 10 Lee Hyun-il of the Republic of Korea knocked out World No. 6 Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark. In the Women's Singles round of 16, World No. 15 Saina Nehwal of India beat sixth seed Wang Chen of Hong Kong, and Maria Kristin Yulianti of Indonesia, ranked World No. 21, ousted fourth seed Tine Rasmussen of Denmark.
There were eyebrows raised in Rowing too, which featured re-scheduled Men's and Women's Eights heats. The US Women's crew justified their status as pre-regatta favorites with an emphatic win to put them into Sunday's (August 17) final, where they will meet three-time consecutive defending champions Romania.
However, Great Britain delivered an upset to the Men's US team by beating them, while the Canadians were untroubled in advancing into Sunday's final.
Germany leads the Equestrian Eventing competition by a slender margin ahead of early leaders Australia after Monday's Cross-Country phase. The German team, for who Hinrich Romeike heads the Individual rankings, has an overall lead of 158.10 points, with Australia less than one jumping penalty behind on 162. Great Britain is third on 173.70, Italy fourth on 127.40 and Sweden in fifth position at 200.50.
The competition concludes tomorrow with the Jumping event and Team and Individual medals on the line/at stake.
The Olympic Women's Basketball tournament continued with World No. 3 Russia pulling away from Asian champion Republic of Korea in the last minute for a 77-72 win in their preliminary round, the group A match. Belarus and Australia also recorded convincing wins.
In group B, the US demolished China 108-63 (to show anything their men's team could do the evening before, the girls could do even better). And there were more comfortable wins for the Czech Republic and Spain.
In the Women's Volleyball tournament, Cuba cruised to a 25-15, 26-24, 25-17 straight sets win over an uninspiring USA side and is now in top spot in pool A.
Brazil are on top in pool B after gaining revenge for their defeat against Russia in Athens 2004 by beating their old rivals 25-14, 25-14, 25-16. Serbia, second and Italy, third, enjoyed easy straight-sets wins over Algeria and Kazakhstan and now have two victories each. Kazakhstan, Russia and Algeria are winless and will vie for the fourth quarterfinal spot in the pool.
Favorites in the Women's Water Polo tournament, the United States, beat Olympic newcomers China in a 12-11 nail-biter in the group A preliminary round opening game. Italy achieved a narrow one-goal win over Russia, 9-8, in the other group A game. In group B, Australia beat Greece 8-6, and Hungary defeated the Netherlands 11-9.
Those are the highlights of a record breaking, legend making, Day 3 of Beijing 2008.
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