The swim must go on for Israel's Alon Mandel -- despite the sudden death of his father.
The Israeli swimmer competed in the men’s 100m butterfly yesterday, just one week after his father fell from a ladder he was using to erect a flag in support of his son.
Earlier this week, the 19-year-old set an Israeli record of 1:59.27 in the 200m butterfly competition.
Strike three for doper
A Chinese Taipei baseball player has struck out in a random drug test.
Third baseman Chang Tai-shan did not suit up for Wednesday's opener against the Netherlands after failing the test.
The International Olympic Committee suspended him pending an analysis of the urine sample, which was performed outside the Olympic period.
The stars are falling
The Olympic tennis tournament has been thrown into further disarray with top seeds falling in both the men’s and women’s quarter finals.
Men’s world number one, and top seed, Roger Federer was beaten 6-4, 7-6 by the US’s James Blake who in nine previous matches has only taken one set off the Swiss maestro.
The Williams sisters also crashed out, with Venus losing to China’s Li Na and 4th seeded sister Serena going down to No 5 seed, Russian Elena Dementieva.
Wave of discontent
All is not fair in love and Olympic competition for Irina Konstantinova Bontemps and husband Julien Bontemps.
The couple are both competing at the Olympic sailing competition but for different countries: Irina for Bulgaria and Julien for France.
Irina is the only woman competing for Bulgaria in women’s windsurfing and hopes to finish in the top 10 whilst her husband, currently ranked fourth in men’s windsurfing and is striving for his first medal.
Games recap
Korean champs conquered
Zhang Juanjuan won China’s first ever Olympic archery title, breaking South Korea’s 24-year winning streak.
The two-time Olympian defeated all three South Korean competitors, including a 110-109 win against No. 1 seed Park Sung-Hyun.
South Korea has won the women’s archery gold at every Olympics since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Down to a double yuko
Mongolia claimed its first ever Olympic title last night in the men's 100kg judo.
Mongolian Tuvshinbayar Naidan beat Kazakhstan's Askhat Zhitkeyev in the hard-fought battle at the University of Science and Technology Gymnasium near the Olympic Green.
Naidan, who upset Japan's 2004 Olympic champion Keiji Suzuki in his opening bout, scored two yuko points to seal his victory.
Completing the tournament, Movlud Miraliyev from Azerbaijan and Henk Grol from the Netherlands both took bronze.
Fast-paced duel for gold
The Ukraine won its first gold in the women’s team saber fencing competition at the National Fencing Hall yesterday.
Ukraine’s Olga Kharlan and China’s Bao Yingying duked it out in the last fight, hitting each other simultaneously several times, causing the match to pause for review.
The final score was 45-44, awarding China the silver medal. Nearby, the United States trumped France 45-38 for the bronze.
（英語點津 Helen 編輯）
" style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 120px" title="">Meghan Peters is a foreign language expert at China Daily’s Web site. A recent graduate from the University of Washington in Seattle, Meghan has written for The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Seattle Weekly, where she also worked on various multimedia projects.
" style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 120px" title="">Meghan Peters is a foreign language expert at China Daily’s Web site. A recent graduate from the University of Washington in Seattle, Meghan has written for The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Seattle Weekly, where she also worked on various multimedia projects.