Olympics: The Great Haul of China
by Bodog Sports | Aug 19 2008
Team Great Britain have experienced a stunning Beijing Olympics thus far to give us real hope that the renewal in London in 2012 could see us actually top the medal table. That won’t happen this summer with China and USA dominating proceedings but Britain’s current haul of 16 golds, nine silver and eight bronze medals is currently good enough for third place.
One of the highlights of the Games to date, outside of Team GB of course, is unquestionably
Usain Bolt’s incredulous world record breaking 100m dash. Records are supposed to be broken by fractions of seconds and short heads aren’t they? But to witness the Jamaican flyer start to celebrate with 25m left and still notch a jaw-dropping time of 9.69 seconds will linger long in the memory.
To say he made it look easy is putting it mildly; he actually won the race with one shoe lace undone. His pre-race preparation consisted of a lie-in until 11am, chicken nuggets for breakfast, back to sleep for a couple of hours, before eating some more nuggets!
on the Beijing Olympics 2008Heaven knows what the 21-year-old, who has only run ten competitive 100m races in his life, is capable of in the future. That’s as long as he takes it easy on the nuggets! Take it as read that Bodog will have all the betting whenever Bolt is in action on the track.
Pushing Bolt for legendary status has been the feats of that half man, half dolphin
Michael Phelps who has claimed eight gold medals in the pool. The Minnesota Missile has broken Mark
Spitz's record of seven gold medals at one Games to become the most successful Olympian of all time. That’s ‘successful’ not ‘greatest’. American broadcasters seem to have forgotten there are a lot more swimming events for Phelps to win than your average competitor in another field.
But let’s give him his dues; Phelps swam 17 times over nine days and set world records in seven finals. In total he won the 400m medley, 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly, 4x100m free relay, 4x200m free relay, 200m medley, 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley. That’s pretty special.
Britain’s current gold haul is the best in 100 years and much of the credit must go to the cyclists who have so far won twelve medals on the track - seven of which have been gold. Powerhouse
Chris Hoy has now won four golds at the Games to make him the most successful Scottish Olympian ever.
on Chris Hoy to win BBC Sports Personality of the YearIn the pool
Rebecca Adlington became the first British swimmer to win two golds at the same Olympics for a century - the last person to do that was a chap called
Henry Taylor in 1908. Adlington won gold in the 400m and 800m freestyle. Her huge winning margin of over six seconds in the 800m was good enough to set a new world-record of 8 minutes 14.1 seconds.
She’s only 19 and there’s a lot more to come in four years time. Roll on London!
on Rebecca Adlington to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year
