Entries Tagged 'Athletics' ↓

Here’s another one I should have blogged about last week but didn’t because of a tight schedule: Panama’s Irving Saladino who lived up to the hype by outjumping the competition in the men’s long jump. Congratulations, Irving.

Update: Here’s a video of Irving’s golden jump.

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Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen who won the gold medal in the javelin throw is probably the best medal biter I’ve seen in the Beijing Games. Seriously, have you seen a better practitioner of the art of Olympic medal biting than Andreas?
Congratulations to you Andreas. May you have another gold medal to bite in London 2012.

Photo source: beijing2008

Forget the overhyped Michael Phelps, the real strongman in the Beijing Olympics is American decathlon gold medalist Bryan Clay. A short visit to his website made me an instant fan. I particularly like the fact that he takes time to answer questions from his fans:

Q: Bryan, best of luck, all the Hapa Kepanis peeps worldwide are pulling for you. My query is how much of an Asian influence did your mom bring to your family, e.g. did you eat a lot of Japanese food and/or get exposed to Japanese culture?

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It does look like he is injured right from the start, so I feel more sympathetic to him now than I was in my earlier post.

Here’s another one in case the Youtube video above gets deleted.
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Argh! Liu Xiang, my favorite Olympian pulled out of the 110 meter hurdles reportedly because of a “tendon injury to the right foot“. As a fan who’s been blogging about Liu and who hoped that he will get his second Olympic gold medal, his decision to quit is very disappointing.

It would have been great to see him run despite whatever injury he sustained. After all, isn’t that what the Olympics is about — overcoming all odds and that kind of stuff? But, then again, maybe its unfair to expect him to risk his health and future well-being if only because his fans want to see him running. I’m sure his other fans also have mixed feelings about this.

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Update: Youtube deleted the previous video but this new one should work.

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Shot put may not be popular in Poland [is it popular anywhere?] but this didn’t stop Tomasz Majewski from becoming a shot putter. It paid off big time when he won the gold medal in Beijing. Time for our Polish friends to perhaps pay more attention to the sport but Tomasz isn’t optimistic.

The silver and bronze medals for this event went to Christian Cantwell of the United States and Andrei Mikhnevich of Belarus.

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Aha, Tirunesh Dibaba Kenene of Ethiopia, is a flag draper (a variation of the Olympic “art” of flag waving). She set a new Olympic record in the women’s 10,000 meter run and bagged herself a gold medal. Congratulations to you, Tirunesh.

Expect more gold medals for Ethiopia in distance running because they tend to dominate the discipline.

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Of course Olympic athletes know how to have fun. Just ask Goldie Sayers who’s posing here as a Playboy bunny. Goldie is Britain’s top javelin thrower and will compete in her second Olympics when the Beijing Games open.

Related:
Olympic Hottie of the Day: Juliana Felisberta Silva
Olympic Hottie: Yelena Isinbayeva
Olympic Hottie: Maria Sharapova

Merlene Ottey is 48 years old — 4 years older than Dara Torres — but she just might make it to her 8th Olympic Games if she manages to qualify before the qualification deadline on Wednesday. Merlene has been participating in the Olympics since 1980 representing Jamaica and Slovenia [in 2004]. She boasts of three gold medals from the World Championships but is less successful in the Olympics where she bagged three silvers and five bronzes.

Merlene will be joining our Dara Mama Club if she makes it to Beijing. Go Merlene.

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