Isn’t it interesting that almost half of the gold medal harvest of the United States is produced (or co-produced) by Michael Phelps? Here’s the merman celebrating after winning his seventh gold medal in the men’s 100 meters butterfly.

Photo source: beijing 2008

China’s answer to the U.S. victories in the Olympic swimming pool on Day 7 came from weightlifting, judo, and the badminton duo of Yu Yang and Du Jing who beat South Korea’s Lee Hyo-jung and Lee Kyung-won to pocket the gold, China’s 26th overall, in women’s badminton doubles.

So what’s the gold medal race like at the end of Day 7? It’s China with 26 golds and the U.S. with 14 golds.

Photo: xinhua via beijing2008

Tong Wen sure deserves to be lifted by her coaches after winning the gold, China’s 25th, in women’s judo, 85 kg category.

Photo source: xinhua/beijing2008

Chinese athletes do rule weightlifting, no? They grabbed eight of the 11 gold medals awarded so far. Here’s China’s Lu Yong celebrating after winning gold medal number 24 for China. Lu tied with Andrei Rybakou of Belarus as both lifted 394 kilos but he was awarded the gold because he registered a lighter body weight during the weigh-in.

Armenia’s Tigran Varban Martirosyan won the bronze medal for this event (weightlifting, 85 kg category).

Photo credit: gettyimages via beijing2008

I didn’t realize that accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is also into Olympic “crystal ball gazing” but, apparently, it is. The firm foresees China emerging as the overall Olympic champion with one more medal than the United States: China (88) vs. U.S. (87)

It also predicted that Russia will drop to third place with 79 medals followed by Germany (43), Australia (41), Japan (34), France (30), Italy (29), Britain (28) and South Korea (27). More at Yahoo.

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