Here’s something I should have blogged about earlier but haven’t. Well, it’s better late than never. This dude, dear readers, is South Korean Sa Jae-hyouk who crashed China’s party in the weightlifting competitions when he won the gold medal in the 77 kilogram category. China’s Li Hongli and Armenia’s Gevorg Davtyan settled for the silver and bronze respectively.

Photo credit: gettyimages via beijing2008

Judo gold medalist Elnur Mammadli of Azerbaijan should be our ultimate Olympic idol. Why? Because he did everything we have been monitoring in this blog, you know, the grand old traditions of Olympic medal biting, Olympic flag waving, and Olympic arms raising. He is our three-in-one gold medalist. Go Elnur!

By the way, for those of you interested about how much money Olympians make, Elnur will be receiving AZN 100,000 and NOC–AZN 50,000 from the Azerbaijan National Olympic Committee as a reward for his gold medal victory. The amount should be about US$ 123,777 if my calculation is correct.
Photo source: beijing 2008

Emo-haired German fencer Benjamin Kliebrink won a gold medal for himself and for Germany and, following the good old tradition of Olympic medal-biting, promptly bit the medal. Kliebrink beat Japanese Ota Yuki for the gold, in case you are wondering.

Here’s Benjamim celebrating his victory. I must say that the photographer deserves a medal of his own for shooting a picture that resembles a baroque painting by Caravaggio.

Germany Related:
Germany’s Alexander Grimm: Finally, an Olympic Gold Medal Biter

Photo credit: Vladimir Rys via Beijing2008

Hah. Didn’t I tell you earlier that the art of medal biting lives on in the Olympics? Here’s the China’s synchronized divers Kai Qin and Wang Feng. Kai is biting his gold to test if it is authentic.

Seems like the Chinese divers are really going to win all the golds in diving, no?

Photo source: Nick Laham/Beijing2008

I’m sure Germany‘s Alexander Grimm, gold medalist in the Olympic Kayak K1, isn’t the first one to bite his gold medal in Beijing but this is the first photo I saw of a medal biter. It’s good to know that the good old tradition of Olympic medal biting is alive and well and won’t go the way of the dodo.

But why do athletes bite their medals? Apparently to test their authenticity. The good guys at Slate Magazine will tell you however that the Olympic gold medals aren’t really made of gold but are made of gold-plated silver.

Photo source: shaun botterill/beijing2008