Day 6: More gold, more records for China
Thursday, 14th August 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
As of 6:45 pm Beijing time, China held its lead in the gold medal race, with 22, well ahead of second-place Team USA's 10 golds. South Korea, Italy and Germany were tied for third with six golds each.In terms of overall medals won, China retook the lead from the US, with 34 medals compared to the Americans' 33. South Korea and Australia were tied for third with a total of 16 medals each.
Yang Wei wins men's individual gymnastics competition
Yang Wei (杨威), who took gymnastics gold with his teammates on August 12, won the men's individual competition today. Although Yang is known for his consistent performance across all six disciplines, he came close to disaster in the last, the horizontal bar. Close to losing his grip, he held on to bring China its first men's all-round gold since Li Xiaoshuang 李小双 at the Atlanta games in 1996.
Chinese women swim into the record books
In the swimming pool, Liu Zige (刘子歌) won gold with a world record time of two minutes 04.18 seconds in the women's 200m butterfly. Her teammate Jiao Liuyang (焦刘洋) from Harbin took silver, also beating the previous world record. The ousted world record holder, Jessicah Schipper of Australia, took bronze.
Fourth shooting gold for China
Du Li (杜丽), having unsuccessfully defended her Olympic title in the 10 meter air rifle competition on August 9, today took gold in the 50 meter rifle three positions (prone, standing, kneeling) event. She did it in style too, with a new Olympic record of 690.3 points.
Zhang Juanjuan pulls off archery upset
27th-seeded Zhang Juanjuan (张娟娟) outshot top seed Park Sung-hyun of South Korea for a surprise win in archery's women's individual competition Thursday. Zhang scored 110 of a possible 120 points with Park taking the silver with 109 and her South Korean teammate Yun Ok-hee winning bronze.
Yang Wei image: The Australian
Liu Zige image: french.peopledaily.com.cn
Du Li image: 2008.sina.com.cn
Tags: Du Li, Jiao Liuyang, Li Xiaoshuang, Liu Zige, Yang Wei
China's women swimmers challenging US, Australia dominance
Thursday, 14th August 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (2)
Chinese women are having a great morning in the pool, notching two silvers, a gold and a new world record. China only won two swimming medals in the 2004 Olympics.
Gold medallist Liu Zige
Liu Zige (刘子歌) won gold and Jiao Liuyang won silver in the women's 200 meters butterfly competition, in a rare 1-2 finish for Chinese swimmers. Liu swam a 2:04.18, a new world record and Jiao a 2:04.72.
China went on to win silver in another women's event, the 4 X 200 meters freestyle relay, with a time of 7:45.93. Gold went to Australia, and silver to the United States. Among the men, China's Wu Peng failed to medal in the 200 meter butterfly final, coming in more than two seconds behind bronze medal winner Takeshi Matsuda of Japan.
It should come as no surprise that China is having breakthroughs in the pool at this Olympics. Swimming offers 84 medals, making it a good target for China's effort to lead the gold and overall medal counts. The Chinese Swimming Association keeps its athletes out of most major international competition, so their best times were largely unknown before the games.
Unfortunately, this leads to some suspicion in the swimming world as to whether the athletes are clean. China has had some history with doping scandals, with positive tests after the team stormed the 1994 FINA World Championships, and with backstroker Ouyang Kunpeng failing a drug test earlier this year.
In the other pool, Ying Tung Natatorium, China's women's water polo team pulled off a major upset, beating a strong Russian team, 13-11. China had given reigning world champions the United States a scare two days before, losing by only one point, 12-11.
Image: Chinese Swimming Association
Tags: Beijing Olympics, doping, Jiao Liuyang, Liu Zige, Ouyang Kunpeng, swimming, water polo, Ying Tung Natatorium