Almighty Eight

The Olympic has come to a phase we usually called the middle-stint. The part where you can feel the heat of victory and dismay, all blend up and mix up well in the atmosphere - okay, it's too melancholic. One week down and one week to go, this year's Beijing Olympic is full of controverises, surprises, domination and the dismays.

Okay, let's talk about controversies, surprises, domination and dismays of the Olympic Games.

#1: DOMINATIONS

The swimming pool is where you always find people doing, entering and competing multiple events, eventually the most medals you can try to grab in any Games, whether it is Olympic, Commonwealth, Asiad or Sea Games. I don't know, I estimates that you can roughly have more than 40 to 50 gold medals up for stakes from the swimming competition, add another 10 from diving, perhaps several from rhythmic swimming and 2 from the water-polo. So, the swimming pool is actually a golden pool.

Here's a story about a guy whom was bornt in destined to conquer the world. He is not Ceaser or Alexander, but he is the modern version of them. He is the conquista of his own class, a different class from the two ancient great human. He is one of the Olympic legend. He won unprecendented 8 gold medals in Beijing, a record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympic Game. What begins as a dream of capturing a perfect eight becomes a true almighty eight!

In Athens, four years ago, he won 6 golds and 2 bronze. This time, 8 gold medals for his victory in the past 8 days, 17 swims and heart-pumping finishes as well. In Beijing, he won:

• 400m individual medley - 4:03.84 (WR)
• 4 X 100m freestyle relay - 3:08.24 (WR)
• 200m freestyle - 1:42.96 (WR)
• 200m butterfly - 1:52.03 (WR)
• 4X 200m freestyle relay - 6:58.56 (WR)
• 200m individual medley - 1:54.23 (WR)
• 100m butterfly - 50.58 (OR)
• 4 X 100m medley relay - 3:29.34 (WR)

Wow, seven world records and an Olympic records to give him an astonishing 8 golds - he is the golden boy.

Another man in spotlight is Usain Bolt of Jamaica. He bested the world record earlier this year, just roughly two months before Olympic, and he done it again. He beat Richard Thompson (Trinidad and Tobago) and Walter Dix (USA), clocking 9.69 seconds (better his previous by 0.03). So you wonder where was the challenges ny Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell?

#2: CONTROVERSIES

Well, it is about him again. Michael Phelp's victory in the 100m butterfly come as a luck. He was third when he made a turn at the 50m block but at the very last stint, he powered a huge stroke to overcome the Serbian, Mirolad Cavic. He won with an Olympic time of 50:58, 0.01 faster than the Serbian. [From wikipedia: Following the race, the Serbian team protested the results, with the suggestion that the Serbian swimmer touched the wall first but without sufficient force to trigger the timing sensor. Regarding his team's protest, Čavić commented, "If it was up to me right now I would drop the protest. I'm stoked. I don't want to fight this. I am completely happy with where I am." However, Čavić also speculated, "People will be bringing this up for years and saying, 'You won that race.' If we got to do this again, I would win it." The Serbian team, however, reluctantly accepted to placing behind Phelps after reviewing the video slowed to one frame every 10-thousandth of a second. Said Branislav Jevtic, the head of Serbia's delegation: "The video says [Phelps] finished first. In my opinion, it's not right."]

#3: SURPRISES

Park Tae-Hwon won the gold medal for South Korea in the 400 metre men freestyle event. Not a record time, but he surprised everyone as he emerged as the first South Korean swimmer ever to win an Olympic Gold. He is the successor for the 400 metre freestyles king? So, he is the successor to Ian Thorpe?

#4 : DISMAY

Dismay. That's some of our Malaysian athletes had experienced.

Archery - missed the bronze medal stake at least in trio recurve event

Badminton - Wong Mei Choo failed to used her chance to drag Lu Lan into the third set during Quarter final. CTF-LWW failed to advance to QF while KKK-TBH cannot overpowered the reigning world champion Markis-Hendra even they have the strength to do so. The only survivor is Lee Chong Wei, we are waiting for him to deliver a gold!!

Cycling - Josiah and his friend failed in Keirin event, due to road blockage, they got nine and ten.