More musings from the Beijing Olympics. No NASCAR again etc etc

Gone in 9.69 seconds

In the two days since the last of my Olympic musings the Blue Riband athletics event has come and gone. It's the 100m metres. I'm not really sure the "Blue Riband" label is warranted, true it's the event that will most likely grab the headlines and live long in the memories of those that watch, but surely the "Blue Riband" of Athletics should be the epic decathlon, two days of great all round athletes, rather than 10 seconds of greased-whippet running. Anyway - rant over.

The 100m metres needed a positive storyline, after all the pre-games press inches have been very negative - drug related and negative. And from the off it looked like it was going to get one. The Jamaican World Record holder Usain Bolt, the man whose time he beat, Asafa Powell, and the reigning Olympic champion, Tyson ####, all competing against each other on the biggest stage. This was going to be good.

And the preliminary rounds didn't disappoint, with all three through to the semi-finals, but while Tyson #### struggled through his round, Usain Bolt seemed to be barely breaking sweat. There are times watching sport on TV when you find yourself almost involuntarily yelling at the TV, and so I found myself yelling "He's jogging, he's bloody jogging" (needless to say his jog is faster than I could run in even the most optimistic of my dreams) as he started slowing down seemingly 2/3rds of the way into the race, still winning my an insane margin.

But things went off the rails in the semis - ####, lacking 100% fitness was beaten into the final, and while two other Americans - Walter Dix and Darvis Patten - made it through to the final it made the way clear for an almost uncontested Jamaican 1-2 between Bolt and Powell, with Michael Frater threatening to add a third Jamaican to to the podium.

The final. About 10 seconds of the most explosive sport you can get. When you say 10 seconds it sounds very quick, but it always seems to last double that as commentators scream analysis and runners move back and forth for the duration of the race. There was an air of expectation. If Usain Bolt can win by that distance easing down long before the end, what could he do it he was pushed. We may never know. Because, in fairness he wasn't, he again felt able to start his arm-waving celebration a good 10metres before the end, and while Bolt ran a new World Record time of 9.69 seconds, Michael Johnson, commentating for British TV estimated he could have run 9.65 - a truly epic time. While Bolt was wheeling away on a lap of honour (which presumably also smashed a few world records) it was only then that TV cameras cut to the silver medallist celebrating, but not Powell, as the world expected but Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago, and then the bronze, Walter Dix. In the various replays it showed Powell finishing 6th, in a historic race that saw the highest number of finallists run under 10 seconds in Olympic history, with Powell being the last of the six.

"I won by this much?" L-R - Thompson (Trinidad & Tobago), Bolt (Jamaica), Patten (USA), Frater (Jamaica) - (Photo: New York Times)

When the man who until very recently held the world record only finishes sixth, what does that say about a sport? That it moves as fast as it races.

Now pray no-one tests positive.

Phelps rumbles on

Ah, the unstoppable juggernaut that is Michael Phelps, but today a suprising new chapter was added to his ever expanding saga. He won (but it was really, really, really close) - see the venerable Lisa Horne's analysis for more.

I first heard of this through the article linked above (damn these time differences making everything happen at 3am) and at first wonder just how close it would need to be for the human eye to start telling you that someone who finished second had won. Now, a bunch of hours on I've seen the race, and to tell you honestly I still think Phelps finished second. Be it my eyes, camera angles of the quirks of physis that affect light going through water, but I could swear that the Serb gets the touch. To hear that the Serbian team's protest was rejected after the judges reviewed TV footage. I don't know what footage they were watching (or indeed how big the TV was) but I want it.

  How?!? Phelps (top) outreaches his Serbian opponent, although it doesn't look like it here (Photo - BBC.co.uk)

Of course, I would never doubt the Olympic judges, or the battery of electric timing wizardry they point at the walls of swimming pool, but I'm a natural born cynic and with the Chinese with a little slice of history on their patch in site the window for a conspiracy is at least half open.

Union Jack Underpants

In sport there are few days when you can stand up and be proud to be British, today was one of those few. So indulge me. (for this section "we" = "Britain")

In what the (very unbiased) British media was dubbing Super Saturday Britain won 9 medals.

• Rebecca Adlington won a second gold medal in the 800m Freestyle swimming, beating the World Record by a Phelps-esque 2 second and making her the most sucessful British female swimmer ever (for an island nation you'd think we'd be better at swimming).

• The Mens coxless 4 took Britain's 3rd consequetive gold medal in the event, apparently another one that is labelled a "Blue Riband" event, although that might just be because we'd just won it. Two other crews won bronze in their races.

• At the track cycling we took 5 medals. Chris Newton got Bronze in the moderately sensible Points Race, before Chris Hoy and Ross Edgar got gold and silver respectively in the entirely unhinged PIzza-delivery-bike-following insanity of Keirin. Meanwhile in sensible events Bradley Wiggins and Steven Burke got gold and bronze in the 4k pursuit.

Aside from being entirely biased, this section does have a point. How does 9 medals (4 golds, 1 silver and 4 bronzes) in a single Olympic day compare to all time records.

I have no idea whether any stat for this exists, but surely 9 medals is a pretty sound benchmark.

                                      Nope, I have no shame