Day 2

First full day of Competition! YAY!  I say yay a lot when I am discussing the Olympics, by the way.  Here is what the London 2012 medals look like.  I still hate that logo in the middle and I really hate that they put it on the medals, but who am I to judge what appears to me to be bad graphic design.

and now to discuss the first athletes who were awarded those medals today.


Today's Medal Winning Sports

Men's Team Archery:  Italy wins Gold, the US wins Silver, South Korea wins Bronze.

Men's Road Race: Alexandra Vinokurov of Kazakhstan wins Gold, Rigoberto Uran Uran of Columbia wins Silver, and Alexander Kristoff of Norway wins Bronze.  The British team who led the peleton the entire race failed to medal and Bradley Wiggins, the recent winner of the Tour de France, came 103rd.  Bummer.

Women's Foil: Italy swept the medals with Elisa di Francisca taking Gold, Arianna Errigo taking Silver, and Valentina Vezzali taking Bronze

Women's Extra Lightweight: Alina Dumitru of Romania takes the Gold, Sarah Menezes of Brazil takes the Silver, and Eva Csernoviczki of Hungary takes the Bronze

Men's Extra Lightweight: Arsen Galstyan of Russia takes the Gold, Hiroaki Hiraoka of Japan takes the Silver, and Sofiane Milous of France takes the Bronze.

Women's 10M Air Rifle: Siling Yi of China won the Gold, Sylwia Bogacka of Poland won the Silver, and Dan Yu of China won the Bronze.  Eight-month pregnant Malaysian shooter Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi qualified 34th.
 Pregnant Malaysian Shooter Competes at 10-meter Air Rifle

Men's 10M Air Pistol: Jongoh Jin of Korea takes the Gold, Luca Tesconi of Italy takes the Silver, and Andrija Zlatic of Serbia takes the Bronze

MARQUEE EVENT! Michael Phelps vs. Ryan Lochte in the 400-meter Individual Medley.  Michael Phelps only qualified in the 8th spot and had to compete this race from Lane 8.  No one has ever won Gold from Lane 8....and neither did Michael Phelps. Phelps came 4th.  Ryan Lochte won the gold medal, Thiago Pereira of Brazil won Silver, and Kosuke Hagino of Japan won Bronze.  I am kind of shocked that Phelps didn't even medal and apparently so was he judging by his interview after the race.  I don't think being on the edge of the field helped him because he couldn't see the people he was competing with. 

Men's 400 Freestyle: Yang Sun of China wins the Gold, Taehwan Park takes the Silver, and American Peter Vanderkaay takes the Bronze. YAY!  Winnetka, Illinois native Conor Dwyer came in 5th place.




Women's 400-meter IM  Ye Shiwen of China won the Gold with a World Record time of 4:28.43, American Elizabeth Beisel won the Silver, Xuanxu Li of China won Bronze. The defending gold medal champ from Bejing Aussie Stephanie Rice came 6th.




An exciting Women's 4x100m Final finished with the Australians winning Gold, the Netherlands finishing with the Silver, and our Americans won the Bronze with 17 year-old phenom Missy Franklin anchoring the team.

Women's Under 48kg: Mingjuan Wang of China takes Gold, Hiromi Miyake of Japan takes Silver, Chun Hwa Ryang of North Korea takes Bronze.


In Other News

Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor beat Australia's Cook and Hinchley in the opening round of Beach Volleyball.  I love them.  This is their third time going for gold.  Apparently, Kerri Walsh was originally going to come to the Olympics with another athlete because Misty said she was done competing.  Misty later decided that she had to come back one more time, and the poor other girl got the boot.  Sad for her, but I love these two together so I am glad that they are back.  Because it is cool in London, the Australians have these weird uniforms where their bikini tops are over white short-sleeved shirts.  It just looks weird but I am glad that it deters all of the people who were just going to watch this for the girls jumping around in bikinis.

The Men's gymnastic teams completed their qualification round with the top 8 teams moving on to compete for the team medal.  US men have the highest score at the end of the day. The final is on Monday night.  Repeat Olympian Johnathon Horton overheard saying to his teammate Brian Orosco "Congratulations, you just finished your first day at the Olympics."  A nice sentiment for all of the athletes to think about.  You just completed a day at the Olympics and it doesn't matter if you medal or not, that's a huge accomplishment.


At the end of the day, here is the overall medal count:

 China:                     4                            0                           2           :     6
 Italy :                     2                            2                           1           :     5
 United States:        1                            2                           2           :     5
 Brazil:                    1                            1                            1           :     3
 South Korea:          1                            1                           1           :     3
 Japan:                    0                            2                            1           :     3

Tomorrow's Medal Events:

Women's Team Final at 12:01 PM

Women's Road Race at 6:00 AM  I highly recommend this if you can check in throughout.  It's really nice to see all of the fans watching along the route and cheering on the riders.  Also, people wrote messages in chalk on the road which I think is really nice. 

Diving starts tomorrow!! The women will medal in the Synchronized 3m Springboard.  I love diving, partially because it terrifies me, kind of like gymnastics.  At least with swimming and running, I am like 'Ok. I can do that, just not nearly as well as these people' but with diving I am saying 'nope, could never do that in a million years.'  That is much of the allure of the Olympics for me; watching people do things I could never hope to replicate and just sitting there on my sofa in awe. Oh yeah, back to the point.  This will happen at 9:00AM

Men's Individual Sabre goes for Gold tomorrow.  That is awesome to watch! Men with big swords slashing at each other.  Good times! Medal event at 1:10PM

Women and Men's Half-Lightweight medal events happen at 10:00AM CST

Women's 10m Air Pistol at 5:45 AM and Women's Skeet at 8:00 AM

Women's 100m Butterfly final is at 1:30 PM CST: Americans Dana Vollmer and Claire Donahue compete

 Men's 100m Breaststroke final is at 2:11 PM: Americans Eric Shanteau and Brendan Hansen compete

Women's 400m Freestyle is at 2:18 PM: Allison Schmitt and Chloe Sutton compete

Men's 4x100m Freestyle is at 3:00 PM. I don't know who is in that yet

Women's 48-53kg at 9:30 AM

Men's under 56kg at 1:00 PM

Also, Round 1 of Women's and Men's Singles and Doubles Tennis starts.  COLOR at Wimbledon.....Blasphemy! Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Canoe/Kayak, Equestrian, Field Hockey, Gymnastics, Handball, Rowing, Sailing, Soccer, Table Tennis, Volleyball, and Waterpolo all compete tomorrow.

Also, this picture of the Queen when the British team came into the Olympic Stadium last night

Oh dear!  Maybe you should be a bit more attentive to what is going on and maybe SMILE ONCE IN A WHILE.  Geez, you would think that someone is forcing her to be here against her will.  I mean...I know I am technically a subject and everything and am not supposed to say bad things against the Queen, but COME ON!  Also, KATE MIDDLETON SIGHTING!  I love her.