Enlarge imageBy Sean Maguire
BEIJING (Reuters) - Russia’s Larisa Ilchenko took gold on Wednesday by just over a second in the gruelling 10km women’s open water swim, a new Olympic event that lived up to its reputation for toughness.
Ilchenko, who has dominated the event since the age of 16, swept past Keri-Anna Payne and Cassie Patten in the last 100 metres of the jostling, rough and tumble contest.
Olympic organisers have introduced new formats to try to keep the Games fresh for a younger audience being seduced by extreme sports that mix counter culture attitude, pumping music and the danger of bone-crunching spills.
Television-friendly BMX biking got its first start with competitors speeding down an eight-metre (yard) ramp and flying over rolling dirt bumps clad in helmets and protective padding.
Both the women’s
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favourite, Shanaze Reade, and the eventual first seed, Frenchwoman Anne-Caroline Chausson, crashed but did well enough to take the top positions going into the eight rider races that will determine the medals.South Africa amputee Natalie du Toit has won plenty of admiration for her pluck in swimming the 10km but there was no dream ending for the 24-year-old, who lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. She finished 16th around a minute behind Ilchenko.
Swimmers kicked, pushed and tussled for position in the Olympic rowing lake. The flat water, unlike the ocean waves often faced in the marathon swimming contest, allowed a fast time of under two hours for Ilchenko, who is just 19.
The Russian win pushed them up to fourth place in the overall medals table, a far cry from when as the Soviet Union their mighty state-sponsored production line of athletes let them fight for Cold War sporting supremacy with the United States.
Now China has picked up that baton. The host’s 43 golds have given them an insurmountable lead over the Americans with 26, allowing China’s rulers to boast they now have sporting glory to match their economic might and superpower status.
Britain is in an unaccustomed third place with 16 golds, their best medal performance in a century. Success has been attributed to heavy investment in elite sports training and sets them up well for London 2012 when they have home nation advantage.
ATHLETIC DRAMA AHEAD
Britain’s 16th gold came on the athletics track when Christine Ohuruogu won the women’s 400 metres, surprising her tiring U.S. rival Sanya Richards with a surge to the line.
More drama, and likely disappointment for a struggling U.S. track and field team, should come in the final of the men’s 200 metres.
Jamaica’s Usain "Lightning" Bolt hopes to become the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win an Olympic sprint double, carrying on in style from his dazzling, world record 100m win.
"I like to enjoy what I do," said the lanky Bolt, who breezed through his 200m semi-final late on Tuesday, playing up to TV cameras and taking a look round at competitors during the race.
"You can’t be too serious in your job."
Victory again for Bolt in the Bird’s Nest at 10:20 p.m. (3:20 p.m. British time) would make him as much a face of this Games as swimmer Michael Phelps, whose unprecedented eight gold haul has put him in a category of his own in the record books.
Some commentators criticised Bolt for easing off at the end of his 100m run, saying he had the chance to knock more than three hundredths of a second off his world record.
The Jamaican’s best in the 200m is 19.67 and he will have to find a new gear to break American Michael Johnson’s 12-year-old record of 19.32 seconds.
NATIONAL PRIDE
Brazil’s women footballers will be trying to restore national pride in their final against the United States after their male counterparts were humbled by Latin American rivals Argentina.
The women were beaten in the 2004 final and are the favourites after destroying Germany 4-1 in their semi-final, although they have a reputation for stumbling at big moments.
That bodes ill after the men were dumped from their competition 3-0 in a loss that could spell the end of Dunga’s reign as coach of the Olympic team and the senior side.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who hopes to win the Olympics for Rio de Janeiro in 2016, was reported to have been enraged by his team’s lack of desire to win.
"Losing the game to Argentina in this way is really shameful," China’s Xinhua agency reported Lula saying.
Brazil, five times winner of the World Cup, have never won Olympic soccer gold and it was a measure of the importance they placed on the under-23 competition, with only three senior players on each side, that Dunga coached the Beijing squad.
In the battle of the football greats, Argentina’s Lionel Messi easily outshone former Barcelona team mate Ronaldinho, in what was almost certainly the first time two such high-profile figures have been on the same pitch at the Olympics.
(Reporting by Beijing Olympics bureau; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
