 Strong and fast
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-20 08:30
The world's strongest man was crowned. A woman who should not be walking took a silver medal atop a bicycle. A German dark horse beat the best triath-letes in the world and Argentina set itself up for back-to-back football gold. Yesterday was a busy Olympic day with 20 medals in the offing. The world's strongest man took his crown by a single kilogram. Matthias Steiner lifted a total of 461kg to win the men's +105kg weightlifting gold. He beat Evgeny Chigishev, who managed 460kg in the last weightlifting event of these Olympics. China has won eight of the 15 weightlifting gold medals up for grabs (Page 3). Russian Andrey Silnov capped off a great season with a gold medal in the men's high jump with 2.36m (Page 5). American Shawn Johnson, 16, got the gold she had been craving on the last event of the women's gymnastics, the balance beam, with a 16.225. She beat Nastia Liukin and China's Cheng Fei.
China's Li Xiaopeng won his second gold medal of the Games in the parallel bars while compatriot Lu Chunlong won the gold on the trampoline (Page 8). A woman who, by all rights, should not be walking took the silver medal in the women's cycling sprint yesterday. Seven months ago, Australian Anna Meares broke her neck in a fall that should have kept her bedridden for life. She lost 2-0 to Britain's Victoria Pendleton. Argentina won the men's Madison race (Page 10). Germany's Jan Frodeno beat the best triathletes in the world in a dramatic finish yesterday. Frodeno passed Canada's Simon Whitfield with just meters left in the race to take the gold in 1 hr 48 min 53 sec. Frodeno, who has a relatively modest record, was nobody's favorite ahead of the race (Page 11). A Britain and an American took a gold medal each in Qingdao. The men's laser gold went to Paul Goodison, of the UK, who only had to keep Swede Ras-mus Myrgen from winning to secure a gold. American Anna Tunnicliffe took the laser radial event. She had all but secured the gold ahead of the race but her dramatic come-from-behind third place finish in the final race cemented her gold and status as No 1 in the world (Page 12). The son of Mexican immigrants took a gold for the US in the men's 55kg freestyle wrestling. Henry Cejudo beat Japanese champion Tomohiro Ma-tsunaga. In the 60kg category Russia's Mavlet Batirov beat Vasyl Fedoryshyn of Ukraine (Page 13). China beat Belarus 77-62 to make it to the women's basketball semifinals. Australia beat the Czech Republic and the US crushed South Korea at the Wukesong Basketball Arena. In the water, the US will take on Hungary in the women's water polo finals. Both teams had tough fights with the Americans downing rival Australia 9-8 and the Netherlands beating Hungary 8-7 (Page 14). China's women's volleyball team beat Russia, Cuba beat Serbia, Brazil defeated Japan and the US outplayed Italy as the winners head to the semifinals (Page 15). Argentina will try for back-to-back football gold after the men beat Brazil 3-0 in the semifinals yesterday. The 2004 champions will face Nigeria, which beat Belgium 4-1 earlier in the day (Page 16). China Daily/Agencies  (China Daily 08/20/2008 page2) |
