Broken record
Phelps 2 for 2 as relay team sets mark
BEIJING – If Michael Phelps indeed wins seven (or eight) gold medals and gets his $1 million bonus from Speedo, he’ll need to spend a chunk on his buddy Jason Lezak.
Lezak dove in for the last lap of the 400-meter freestyle relay second to world-record holder Alain Bernard of France. He was still trailing with about 20 meters to go, but somehow zoomed to the wall first – 0.08 ahead of Bernard and making Phelps 2 for 2 in his pursuit of Mark Spitz’s record medal haul.
Phelps threw his arms up and began hollering with the joy of a lottery winner. He sort of is, considering the odds the Americans faced, from Phelps finishing his leadoff lap in second place to Lezak trailing Bernard after the final turn and considering the history – and big bucks – on the line.
The Americans finished in 3:08.24, lowering by 3.99 seconds the world record set the night before by their qualifying crew.
Katie Hoff knows exactly how bummed the French are.
She built a big lead in the 400 freestyle, but touched 0.07 after Britain’s Rebecca Adlington. After two of her five individual races, Hoff has a silver and a bronze – the amount she expected, but not necessarily the right color.
With Christine Magnuson taking silver in the 100-meter butterfly, the United States regained the lead and some breathing room over China in the overall medals race.
Tied at eight when Day 3 began Monday morning in Beijing, the U.S. tally is up to 11. China is still leading in golds, 6-3.
The other big morning news from China – besides clearer skies, bringing no rain and less smog — was that Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno was kicked out after testing positive for EPO. She is the first athlete to fail a drug test during the official Olympic doping control period.
The International Olympic Committee said Monday that Moreno was tested in the athletes’ village July 31 and left China later that day before learning the result. The IOC expelled Moreno from the games and asked cycling’s world governing body to follow up for any further sanctions. She was supposed to race in the individual time trial.
Swimming
Lezak’s lap took only 46.06, which would have shattered Bernard’s world record of 47.50. And, to think, at 32, Lezak is the oldest male on the U.S. Olympic team.
Kudos also go to the guys who swam the middle two laps, Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones. Jones was the only swimmer who also was part of the record-setting prelim foursome.
Something amazing seems to happen every time Phelps is in the water: an Olympic record in his first swim, a world record in his first final and, now, Lezak’s big kick.
Well, Phelps also has finished fourth in two 200 freestyle heats. But don’t judge him by those. They were merely time he had to put in to get to the finals Tuesday morning. And now, that’ll be his bid for his third gold medal of these games. It also would be the ninth gold of his career, tying the record held by Spitz and Carl Lewis.
Volleyball
Among the most dramatic moments for Americans on Sunday came from a first-round men’s volleyball match against an unheralded foe.
The U.S. team took the court against Venezuela with heavy hearts and a fill-in coach, as Hugh McCutcheon left to be with his wife following an attack at a Beijing tourist site that killed her father and critically wounded her mother.
The Americans huddled, arms linked, then bowed their heads for a moment of silence for Todd and Barbara Bachman, McCutcheon’s in-laws and the parents of Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman, a member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team.
The men then went out and won their first two games. To claim the match, all they had to do was win one of the next three.
It took all three, but they got it.
Women’s gymnastics
China was not up to its usual standards. Neither were the Americans. Then again, it was only qualifying. The finals Wednesday surely will be different.
The U.S. squad was limited because Samantha Peszek sprained her left ankle in warm-ups. That left them with only four competitors on floor, vault and balance beam, meaning every score had to count. World champion Shawn Johnson dazzled on the balance beam but the overall effort left something to be desired. Chellsie Memmel fell from the uneven bars and Nastia Liukin fell on the landing in her specialty, the uneven bars.
“We got the nerves out and the mistakes out,” Johnson said.
China won the first subdivision, although most of the passion came from the audience. Their coach said their performance “was about 70 percent” of what it could be, although it was still good enough for the top score.
Soccer
The U.S. team gave up a free kick in the third minute of injury time to settle for a 2-2 tie against the Netherlands. China lost 2-0 to Belgium; the Chinese, who haven’t scored in the tournament, must beat leader Brazil in its last group match to have a chance of advancing.
Ronaldinho scored two second-half goals Sunday to lead Brazil into the quarterfinals with a 5-0 rout over New Zealand. Argentina advanced to the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory over Australia.