Beijing Olympics 2008, by the lucky numbers Count
Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing Ceremonies Revealed: Count along with us as we look back on the 29th Summer Olympic Games…Beijing Olympics 2008, by the lucky numbers Count
1: The fraction of a second, as logged by Omega timers, that Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly gold ahead of Serbia’s Milorad Cavic.
2: Gold medals lost on the final of his 10 shots in the last two Olympics by American shooter Matt Emmons. In Athens, he shot the wrong target; here, his gun fired before he was ready.
3: Medals won the Lopez siblings of Sugar Land, Texas, the first set of three to compete for the U.S. in the same Olympics since 1906. They bring home a silver and two bronze in taekwondo.
4: Consecutive golds won by Lisa Leslie, the first basketball Olympian to accomplish the feat. The U.S. beat Australia 92-65, completing Leslie’s Olympic career.
5: U.S. softball players who retired following their loss to Japan in the gold medal game, the first time they will leave an Olympics without gold. Softball (and baseball, where the U.S. won bronze) are not scheduled for any future Olympics.
6: Athletes caught violating doping rules. That’s .005 percent of the 11,000 competitors here. Twenty-six were busted in Athens.
7: Diving gold medals won by the Chinese. They missed sweeping all eight when Australia’s Matthew Mitcham earned four perfect 10s on the final dive of the Games, passing Zhou Luxin on the 10-meter platform.
8: Gold medals in these Games for Michael Phelps. He captured the headlines until …
9.69: Usain Bolt obliterated the world record in the men’s 100-meter final. How fast might he have run if he hadn’t gone completely Deion in the final 20 meters?
10: Times the U.S. and Brazil met at these Games with a gold medal at stake. The U.S. won in swimming (Phelps again), women’s soccer, men’s indoor and beach volleyball. The bigger Olympic tests for the countries will come on October 2, 2009, when the IOC awards the 2016 Summer Games. Chicago and Rio (along with Tokyo and Madrid) are finalists.
11: Margin of victory by the U.S. men’s basketball team over Spain, 118-107, to secure the gold on Sunday, the culmination of a rebuilding process that started with the fallout from the bronze the U.S. won in Athens.
12.80: Time Chinese hurdler and national hero Liu Xiang ran in practice a week before he withdrew from the Olympics because of injury, causing many in this country to publicly weep. Dayron Robles of Cuba won the gold in 12.93 seconds.
13: Points scored by Riley Salmon in the U.S. men’s volleyball team’s gold medal match. Its inspired 8-0 run through these Olympics came on the heels of coach Hugh McCutcheon’s father-in-law being killed by a lone Chinese assailant.
14: Alleged age of some Chinese gymnasts, including gold medal winner He Kexin. Olympic rules for gymnastics require competitors be 16 or older in the year of competition.
15: More gold medals won by China than the U.S. (51-36). The Chinese won 19 more than in 2004 at Athens. The U.S. won the overall medal count. Welcome to the future of Olympic competition.
16.650: The highest score (on the uneven bars) by the U.S.’s Nastia Liukin in winning gold in the women’s all-around. Woe the passing of the perfect 10 in gymnastics.
17: Age of Dara Torres, now 41, when she won her first gold medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay at the ‘84 Games in Los Angeles. She also won gold here. Her team’s winning time in L.A.: 3:43.43. And here: 3:33.76. Those 10 seconds aren’t all on Speedo’s LZR swimsuit.
18: Age of Becca Ward, the U.S. bronze medalist in women’s sabre. Best of all, she was worst of the three U.S. fencers. Sada Jacobson got the silver and Mariel Zagunis won the gold for a U.S. medal sweep.
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Beijing 2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony
19: Gold medals won by Britain, its best showing since the 1908 Games in London. The momentum should serve them well for the 2012 Games…in London.
20: Percentage drop in the air pollution index, as reported by Chinese state-controlled media, compared to the same time in 2007. Independent testing by the BBC often showed higher levels of pollutants but all confirmed the air was better during the Games than just before they started.
21: The magic number that made Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh repeat gold medalists in women’s beach volleyball. After beating China 21-18, 21-18, May-Treanor and Walsh have won 108 straight matches.
22: Points scored by South Dakota native Becky Hammon in a bronze medal win in women’s basketball for Russia. Hammon became a naturalized citizen of the country, where she plays professionally when she’s not playing for the WNBA in San Antonio.
23: Track and field medals won by the U.S., including seven gold. Those numbers are on pace with the team’s performance in Athens. How many might they have won with a healthy Tyson Gay and relay teams who could hold onto the baton?
24: World records set in the pole vault by Russia’s Yelena Isinbaeva after clearing 5.05 meters (16 feet 6? inches). Isinbaeva, the diva of Olympic pole vaulting, openly disdains her competition, including her nearest challenger, American Jenninfer Stuczynski. But Isinbaeva backed up the talk.
25: World swimming records set in the Water Cube, the fastest pool ever built.
26.2: Miles covered by Kenya’s Sammy Wanjiru in 2:06:32 to win gold in Sunday’s men’s marathon, breaking the Olympic record. Said Amby Burfoot, the 1968 Boston Marathon champion: “It was the best marathon performance ever, given the stakes and the conditions, with heat and bright sun.”
27: The position the country of Georgia finished among 81 medal winning nations. It won three gold medals. Georgia is emblematic of the spirit if the Olympics. Even though the country is at war and under attack, athletes from judo, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling can bring some sense of much-needed pride and relief to their country.
28: National share (with a 16.5 rating) garnered by NBC for its Olympic broadcasts. Total viewership is on track to surpass Atlanta’s 1996 Games, the last Summer Games on U.S. soil.
29: Beijing’s Summer Games. They set new standards in organization and technical execution. Running a nearly flawless Olympics over two weeks is amazing. But the unresolved issues of human rights and environmental responsibility will cloud the memories of these Games like the Beijing sky.
Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing Ceremonies Revealed: Count along with us as we look back on the 29th Summer Olympic Games…Beijing Olympics 2008, by the lucky numbers Count
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