Day 4: Part 2

Hello Again!  NBC pissed me off today. I watched the coverage for most of the day, and they apparently decided that they would not show the Men's Gymnastics Team final when it was on, and would only show it during Primetime.  That, of course, means that as soon as it was actually over, people on Twitter and Facebook and articles on Yahoo! promptly informed me who won before I was able to watch a single minute of it.  What is the big deal NBC? I don't understand why you couldn't show it live for people who were watching the TV AT THE TIME IT WAS HAPPENING.  I understand that covering in Primetime was necessary, but there is no need to not show it during the day as well.  That really really annoyed me.  Ok, rant over.  Now I am actually going to watch it anyways, despite the fact that I know what happened.

Today's Medal Events:

Ok, first up, since I was already ranting about it....Gymnastics

Men's Team Final: Controversy abounds with this one.  The Gold medal winners, China, earned their spot legitimately.  The US men did terribly and did not even come close to winning a medal in this event.  The British men won the first men's gymnastic medal in modern history and initially they thought it was silver.  Here's how it happened.  The last Japanese athlete had his turn on the pommel horse and did well, until the dismount.  He seemed to fall off of the horse and never seemed to achieve the required handstand position for the dismount.  He was scored as if he had missed the dismount, which he clearly did, losing .700 of a point.  This was enough of a loss that it put Japan out of the medals, Britain with the Silver and Ukraine with the Bronze.  The Japanese filed a formal complaint, saying that he did complete the dismount albeit awkwardly, and they won the appeal.  This then gave Japan the Silver, the Brits the Bronze, and knocked Ukraine out.  It isn't so bad for the Brits, they were just happy to win a medal, but that seems incredibly bogus for the Ukraine athletes.  I disagree massively with the decision, but who am I to judge, I guess.

Men's Synchronized 10m Springboard:  The Chinese team is crazy good, because they probably are machines who have done nothing but dive since they came from the womb. The Mexican pair was also fantastic.  Tom Daley, who was 14 years-old at Bejing, competes again at London for Team GB. At the end of the competition, the Chinese pair Yanquan Zhang and Yuan Cao took the Gold medal, the Mexican pair German Sanchez Sanchez and Ivan Garcia Navarro took the Silver, and our own American pair Nicholas Mccrory and David Boudia broke the US diving drought and won the Bronze.

Women's Individual Epee:  Ok, so this was a pretty crappy result and situation.  To start with: Ukraine's Yana Shemyakina won the Gold, Britta Heidemann of Germany won the Silver, Yujie Sun won the Bronze medal over Korea's A Lam Shin.  In the Semi-Final match between Britta Heidemann and A Lam Shin, Shin was winning the bout and was about to win, and with 1 second left on the clock, it malfunctioned and stopped, and the German scored a hit during that time and 'won' the match.  The Korea Federation contested the result and the rules state that the athlete has to remain on the mat during the contestation.  So this poor woman had to sit on this mat, sobbing, for half an hour while they deliberated about this, and then she still lost and was relegated to the Bronze medal match.  She, not surprisingly, lost.  There should have been no argument here.  If there was a problem with the equipment, then the management should have arranged a new match or some other fairer way of determining the winner, not this lazy 'oh well, she won' crap.  I am kind of ashamed of you IOC.

Women's Lightweight: Kaori Matsumoto of Japan won Gold, Corina Caprioriu of Romania won the Silver, and Automne Pavia of France won the Bronze.

Men's Lightweight: Mansur Isaev of Russia won the Gold, Riki Nakaya of Japan won the Silver, and Ugo Legrand of France won the Bronze.

Men's 10m Air Rifle: Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania won the Gold, Niccolo Campriani of Italy won the Silver, and Gagan Narang of India won the Bronze.

Men's 200m Freestyle: Yannick Angel of France, the anchor of the Gold medal winning Men's 4x100 free relay team, won the Gold in this event, Yang Sun of China won the Silver, and Taehwan Park of Korea won the Bronze.

Women's 100m Breaststroke: 17 year-old Coloradan Missy Franklin won her first Gold in this event and was so over-whelmed and emotional after the race and during her medal ceremony....adorable! I wish her many more medals.  Australia's Emily Seebohm won the Silver and Japan's Aya Terakawa won the Bronze.




Men's 100m Backstroke: American men go 1-2 for the second time in this event with Matt Grevers winning the Gold and Nick Thoman winning the Silver.  Grever, according to Grace, is a beautiful Adonis of a man.  Too bad his adorable fiancee was in the stands cheering him on.  Japan's Ryosuke Irie took the Bronze.

Women's 100m Breaststroke: The buzzer went off early in this race and Breeja Larson of the US jumped in early.  After a bit of confusion, they restarted the race with no punishment, but it obviously threw her off since she only came 6th.  Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania won the Gold by 8 one-hundreths of a second over America's Rebecca Soni.  Satomi Suzuki of Japan won the Bronze.

Women's 53-58kg: Xueying Li of China won the Gold, Pimsiri Sirikaew of Thailand won the Silver, and Yuliya Kalina of Ukraine won the Bronze
In Other News:

Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor play their second round match vs the Slovakian pair.  Apparently, it seems like many of the other teams did not think that it was going to be cool, so didn't have any other uniforms made other than their bikinis because a lot of the teams seem to be wearing their bikini tops over short-sleeved sports tops.  The Americans appear to have thought ahead because they have shirts that have their names and country on them.  Anyways, Walsh and May-Treanor won their match.  YAY!

Tomorrow's Medal Winning Events:

 Men's Canoe Single: No Americans in this one, but Brit David Florence competes.

Women's Synchronized 10m Platform: Again, no Americans, but Brits Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow compete.

Team Eventing Final

Individual Eventing Final: Zara Phillips goes for Gold

Men's Individual Foil: Race Imboden (That's really his name), Alexander Massialas, and Miles Chamley-Watson compete

WOMEN'S TEAM FINAL at 10:30 AM, although we probably won't be able to watch it until Primetime.......AGAIN.

Men and Women's Half Middleweight  (Geez there is a lot of Judo, and so far I have seen none of it broadcast)

Men's Skeet Shooting Final: American Vincent Hancock is leading the field after the prelims. Also, American Frank Thompson competes.

Women's 200m Freestyle: Allison Schmitt goes for another medal in these games along with teenage phenom Missy Franklin who will chase another Gold for herself.

Men's 200m Butterfly: Phelps will try to claim his first Gold in his specialty stroke at 1:49 PM along with teammate Tyler Clary.

Women's 200m Individual Medley: Ariana Kukors and Caitlin Leverenz swim for Gold against reigning champ Stephanie Rice.

And Men's 4x200m Freestyle...it doesn't tell me who is in this one for some reason and I am too tired to go searching...sorry.

  Women's 58-63 kg

Men's 62-69 kg

Here is the final medal count for the day:

China                              9                                   5                                  3            :          17

USA                                5                                   7                                  5            :          17

Japan                             1                                   4                                  6            :          11

Italy                                 2                                   4                                 2            :           8
France                             3                                   1                                 3            :           7

South Korea                   2                                   2                                  2            :          6

Russia                             2                                   0                                  3            :          5
North Korea                    3                                   0                                  1            :          4