From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
Just when the quest couldn't get any better, it did.
By the smallest unit of measurement, Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal over Milorad Cavic of Serbia in Saturday's 100-meter butterfly.
It was an incredibly dramatic race, with Phelps trailing the entire way and pulling even inside the final five meters. He won it at the touch, despite chopping his finish, by one-hundredth of a second.
For most of the final 50 meters, Phelps looked beaten by an inspired Cavic, who is a California native swimming for his parents' home country.
(After Friday's qualifying, Cavic said: "It would be good for the sport if he lost. I think it would be good for the sport and good for him." Phelps told NBC after the race that those comments fired him up.)
But Phelps inexorably reeled him in, one lunging stroke at a time, until they hit the wall together.
The naked eye could not tell. It took the scoreboard to reveal the astounding truth: Phelps had pulled it off. Again.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
U.S. swimmers had their second triple-gold morning of the Games, with Rebecca Soni pulling a huge upset, Ryan Lochte finally breaking through and Michael Phelps doing what he does.
Soni, who had heart surgery in 2006, showed a surplus of heart in blowing away Australian favorite Leisel Jones -- and her world record -- to win gold in the 200 breaststroke. That was unexpected.
Then, Lochte stepped up and beat the best backstroker in history, fellow American Aaron Peirsol, in the 200 back. Lochte broke away in the final 50 to win his first individual gold at last after chasing Phelps in Athens and Beijing. This time, Peirsol was the runner-up.
"I can't even put it into words," Lochte said after the race. "It's my first Olympic individual gold medal. I touched the wall and was like, 'Thank you, finally.' It felt good the whole way."
Then, it was back to normal for Lochte, finishing third behind Phelps and serial runner-up Laszlo Cseh in the 200 IM. Phelps once again separated himself from his rivals on the breaststroke leg, as he did in the 400 IM.
"I just wanted to step on it [in] the first 50 a little bit and try to get out to an early lead," Phelps said. "I know that was a hard double for Ryan. I knew in the first half, if I got a big enough lead, I thought I could hang on, and that's all I wanted to do."
Said Cseh of Phelps: "Michael is unbeatable."
From ESPN.com senior writer Elizabeth Merrill:
Michael Phelps said Katie Hoff "didn't look like herself." Hoff shook her head and walked away without saying anything.
The teenager Phelps affectionately calls his little sister is going home without a gold medal, wearily slumping out after a disappointing night for the Americans at the Cube. Hoff and Kate Ziegler didn't make it out of the 800-meter freestyle heats, denying the United States a medal in the event for the first time in 28 years.
Hoff qualified for five individual events and leaves Beijing with a silver and two bronzes.
"The question is always going to be if she bit off more than she could chew," U.S. women's coach Jack Bauerle said. "But the bottom line is, she was the best person in all of the events that we put her in. And we wouldn't have done it any other way.
"She went to the well for us today."
Hoff was third in her heat and finished more than eight seconds off her personal best. She ranked 11th overall, and Ziegler was 10th with a time of 8 minutes, 26.98 seconds. Ziegler was the reigning world champion in the 800 freestyle.
Later in the night, Phelps kept his hopes for a record eight gold medals in one Olympics alive by qualifying for the 100-meter butterfly. Phelps was clocked at 50.87 seconds, .11 behind Serbia's Milorad Cavic.
After Cavic touched the wall, he raised his finger in a pistol motion and fired to the crowd. A victory in Friday morning's 100 butterfly would give Phelps his sixth gold.
"I'm going to get some rest tonight," he said. "Try to get out of here as quick as I can and into bed as early as I can. Tomorrow's a big day."
It's also big for fellow American Ian Crocker, the world record holder in the event, his only race of the Games. Crocker finished 13th with a time of 51.95. The top 16 advanced. Unlike Phelps, Crocker will be well rested for Friday.
"It's been a long week of sitting around and watching," Crocker said. "Watching Phelps has been inspiring. But there are a lot of other great stories that have gone on this week, good ones and hard ones."
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
The 200-meter backstroke final is set, and as expected, it's shaping up to be an American match race between co-world record-holders Aaron Peirsol and Ryan Lochte.
The two staged the best race at the U.S. Trials last month, with Peirsol winning by .02 on the touch. They've been similarly inseparable here while qualifying well ahead of everyone else.
"That was a good, nice, controlled swim," Peirsol said of his semi. "I didn't really want to do any more."
Lochte did not stop to talk to reporters since he had the 200 IM semis later in the morning.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
Already some wild plot twists this morning at the Water Cube. In the women's 100-meter freestyle semifinals, world-record holder Libby Trickett of Australia advanced to the final only because of the disqualification of Chinese swimmer Pang Jiaying for a false start.
It was a huge break for Trickett, who finished fourth in her heat behind winner Natalie Coughlin of the U.S. Pang won the second heat, but her result was nullified by the false start, a bitter blow for a Chinese contingent that is having a strong meet.
Immediately prior to that event, Japan's Kosuke Kitajima repeated as 200 breaststroke champion, adding that to the 100 breast gold he won earlier this week. American Scott Spann qualified third for the final but could not keep pace, finishing fifth.
From ESPN The Magazine's Luke Cyphers:
Right now, Jeremy Wariner is boring.
He's saying little. He's not doing much.
So, he just might be ready to defend his 400-meter Olympic track title.
Wariner spent the early part of the year working on marketing opportunities that have eluded him in the four years since his Athens victory, opening up to the media and showing more of his personality.
But at a news conference Wednesday, Wariner was only too glad to cede the podium time to fellow American Bernard Lagat, the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runner. And when he got the chance to speak, he often was a man of few words.
Asked whether he'd been watching Michael Phelps, and whether he and Phelps were friends, Wariner offered: "I've never met Michael Phelps. I haven't watched any events. I've just been getting ready for my events."
He has a reason to concentrate: Teammate LaShawn Merritt beat Wariner twice this summer, including at the Olympic trials. Wariner has defeated Merritt twice since, and his agent, Michael Johnson, says he's learned from it.
"He made a small mistake in his first loss in Berlin, and there were articles coming out saying, 'Is LaShawn taking over?'" Johnson said. "And Jeremy was reading that, and making adjustments to his race that he didn't need to make. He definitely made an adjustment at the trials that had me all over him about it, and his coach Michael Ford, too. It was like, 'What was that? Why did you do that?'"
Wariner admitted Wednesday that he had changed his race strategy by letting Merritt get too far out in front in the early part of the trials race instead of pushing himself harder through the first 200 meters. "The loss at the trials did a lot for me," he says. "I know how hard LaShawn's working, and it's made me work harder, staying focused."
And not much fun at parties, apparently.
Wariner did enjoy the Opening Ceremony, which he had missed in Athens. Other than that, he's been all business. Which is a good thing, according to his manager, Deon Minor.
"Michael [Johnson] and I were watching him during the press conference, and we both said he's ready," Minor said. "When he's ready to run, I don't even hear from him. I've barely seen him all week. He's just staying at the village and training. That's when you know."
Wariner proclaimed himself ready for his heats, which start Monday and conclude Thursday. "My legs are fresh, and I'll be ready for Monday."
Not exactly bulletin-board material. Then again, Wariner is at his sharpest when he's at his dullest.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
If we write anything about a swimmer at night Beijing time, it's probably not good news. It means something unexpectedly bad happened in a preliminary heat.
Amanda Beard, you are the unfortunate subject of tonight's blog update.
Beard, the former Olympic champion and Olympic record-holder in the 200-meter breaststroke, bombed out of the prelims Wednesday, failing to advance to the 16-woman semifinals field.
Beard swam the 200 in 2 minutes, 27.70 seconds -- more than 2.5 seconds slower than her entry time and nearly 4.5 seconds slower than her Olympic record time in Athens four years ago. Beard was seeded ninth coming into this competition.
That most likely ends Beard's long and distinguished career. She'd retired before to model -- appearing in Playboy and serving as a spokesmodel for GoDaddy.com. Her comeback ended with a surprise spot on the U.S. team after a big swim in the Olympic trials last month, but she couldn't swim back to that time here.
On the positive side for America, fellow breaststroker Rebecca Soni broke Beard's record in her prelim swim and qualified fastest for the semifinals. It continues a strong meet for Soni, who got a silver medal in the 100 breaststroke earlier this week.
From ESPN.com Olympics editor Joy Russo:
It wouldn't be an Olympics without some kind of outrageous story.
I mean, the Games did give us Tonya and Nancy.
And so it was that news leaked in the past few days that we were fooled during the Opening Ceremony. We thought 9-year-old Lin Miaoke was singing "Ode to the Motherland" to us and the 91,000 people gathered at the Bird's Nest on Friday. She was adorable. She's been in ads.
But no, the girl who actually sang the song was 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who, according to the ceremony's chief music director, wasn't cute enough and was too chubby for prime time.
Lin Miaoke now joins a distinguished list of exposed lip-synchers.
Milli Vanilli (We all know "Girl You Know It's True" is just bad either way; its Grammy award was as bad as Jethro Tull's was.)
Ashlee Simpson (As far as we know, Miaoke wasn't suffering from acid reflux.)
50 Cent (an unfortunate moment in BET Awards history)
Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan (I'm shocked; you?)
You get the idea.
But to try and right this ship, I'd like to remind all of you of the bigger child star of that night.
He didn't lip-synch. His adorable face, full of wonder and bravery, said it all. He stood tall (yes, he did) next to Yao Ming as the NBA and Chinese hoops star carried his home country's flag during the parade of nations. He didn't fake it when he said, "Thank you, thank you very much," when he was interviewed by NBC during its tape-delayed telecast Friday night.
He is Lin Hao, a 9-year old survivor of the Sichuan earthquake. His school building collapsed as he was walking down a hallway. He was injured, but he managed to free himself, then helped two of his friends to safety. (Twenty of his 30 classmates died in the quake.)
He lost both of his parents, but he and his two sisters hiked about seven hours before finding help in Du Jiang Yan.
Lin Hao is China's ode to the motherland.
From ESPN.com Olympics editor Joy Russo:
Michael Phelps said words couldn't describe how he felt now that he is the most decorated gold medalist in Olympic history.
One thing he did get out to NBC's Andrea Kremer after he helped the U.S. men's 4x200 freestyle relay team win gold was ... he could have ran faster in his first race, a gold-medal, world-record setting race in the 200 butterfly.
He said he could have gone faster. Hmm. A very scary thought given that the man has only gone 5-for-5 in these Games, setting world records in every race. But there was a reason for his "slow" fly race.
Those darn goggles.
If you watched Phelps at the end of the 200 fly, he immediately took off his goggles and water poured out of them. He told Kremer that as soon as he went into the water, his goggles filled with water and he swam the race with water in his eyes.
But, like Tim Gunn, Phelps made it work, winning the race and finishing in 1:52.03.
Phelps rubbed his eyes and said, "I can't see anything," as he climbed out of the pool.
It basically amounted to swatting a fly as Phelps came back an hour later to swim the lead leg in the 4x200 freestyle relay. You know what happened next.
For those of you living under a rock, here's where Phelps stands: 5-for-5 so far, now just three golds away from breaking Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
About 31 hours after Jason Lezak etched his name into Olympic lore, he returned to the pool looking very mortal.
An admittedly weary Lezak qualified 11th for the semifinals of the 100-meter freestyle. He struggled in finishing fourth in his heat and endured a few tense moments in the two subsequent heats as he waited to make sure he had qualified in the top 16.
"I was a little tired," said Lezak, whose 48.33-second 100 was well off his Olympic trials time of 47.58 and a far cry from the preposterous 46.06 relay split he swam Monday morning to electrify a nation.
That was the come-from-behind anchor leg that won gold for the U.S. by .08 seconds in the 4x100 free relay and kept Michael Phelps' hopes for eight gold medals alive. Lezak became an instant household name after overhauling world-record holder Alain Bernard, but it clearly took its toll on the 32-year-old.
Lezak acknowledged he didn't get much sleep the night after that swim, but he wasn't outwardly disappointed in this effort. By simply advancing to the next round, he kept his medal hopes alive. "I just wanted to make semifinals," he said.
The man Lezak outswam for the gold, Bernard, qualified fourth at 47.85. Bernard, who said before the 4x100 free relay that his French team would "smash" the Americans, said he had no regrets about the race.
"I got the impression that we went as fast as we could, [.08 seconds] is nothing," Bernard said. "It's an exceptional time. Not everyone leaves the Games with a silver medal around the neck."
Garrett Weber-Gale, another member of the U.S. relay team, qualified eighth for the semifinals in the 100 free. He also seemed drained the day after the relay.
"[Monday] was very emotional for me," Weber-Gale said. "It has been a pretty tiring day coming off that high in the morning. I got into the pool today to cool myself down from the record and excitement."
From ESPN bureau producer Justine Gubar:
Monday was my first bad food day in Beijing, primarily because one of our cameraman, in the name of American food, made me go to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch.
After lunch, we stopped at Starbucks, so coffee placated me a bit. Yes, they are everywhere. Dinner was a bad tuna fish sandwich, scarfed down in the lobby of a hotel while waiting for interviews with the U.S. women's basketball team, coming back from their blowout of China.
Since ESPN is a nonrights holder, we can't do interviews at the location of the game, or in any venue, so we have arranged to meet athletes at their hotels. Both the women's and men's basketball teams are staying at a posh downtown hotel that is locked down like Langley. We had to be on an approved list to get in and produce our passports for verification.
Once we got in, we had to sit in the lobby and wait. Kobe Bryant walked by us, as did other men's hoopsters. They had been at the arena watching the game as well. While they were at the arena, others weren't. For a USA-China match, I was stunned at the number of empty seats. "Sell out" must be like "fog" in the Beijing Games' vocab list.
Back to food. So, finally, the women's team shows up and I've never seen an athlete make such a beeline to a camera. Sue Bird was gracious in her interview, but she was also hungry and wanted to get to dinner. We could relate. I asked her three questions, which she answered with poise and intelligence, and then she ran off for dinner, which I am sure was better than my tuna fish sandwich.
From ESPN.com bureau producer Arty Berko:
No doubt the best way to see and experience this city is on a bike, away from the Olympic Green.
Just two blocks away from the venues, you would barely know the Olympics are even going on, which is a great break from the grind. Biking is fun and great exercise, but very hard work here -- you really have to pay close attention to what you are doing and fight the urge to look around while riding.
I stay on main city streets, which tend to have bike lanes, but they can be jammed with bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, cars, carts pedestrians buses, you name it. Almost everyone rides in the same direction as traffic, but not everyone. Today, I turned my head for a second, and when I looked back, I was eye to eye with an older women (had to be in her 70s, at least) coming right at me riding an ancient-looking three-wheeled bike/cart that was loaded with produce.
I swerved to avoid her and thought of that kid race car driver in the Geico commercial (you know, Warren Wallace) steering that remote-controlled boat into the wall. I also learned the hard way that bus mirrors tend to be large and they hurt. One large intersection had "traffic wardens," guys with whistles and flags, who try to control the dozens of bikes that stop at red lights at intersections. The problem is I saw very few people obeying them -- it still seemed to be everyone for themselves. Must be rough on the traffic wardens' egos, kind of like the cafeteria ladies in grade school.
One other tip: When you're stopped at a red light and in the middle of a large pack of riders and the light changes, don't dart to the lead of the pack like it was a time trial. The lead guy has a much greater chance of getting picked off by that car/motorcycle/bus/cart coming the other way.
From ESPN reporter George Smith:
After the U.S. win over China, Chris Bosh told us he was surprised by the intensity of the atmosphere when he got to the court before the game. "You could feel the buzz inside the arena," he said.
It was an amazing atmosphere. A packed, bright and loud arena. Former President George H.W. Bush and current President George W. Bush were on hand with some of their family members. Actress Glenn Close in the crowd, just a few rows in front of me.
Dwight Howard said the younger Bush briefly met with the team before the game and told them to get the W for W.
By the end of the third quarter, the game was all but over. Since ESPN is not allowed to take cameras into venues, we had to take off to meet the team away from the arena to get postgame interviews. The 26-point lead seemed safe.
The last image as I walked away: Glenn Close sipping on a brew.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
American swimming flexed its muscle here Tuesday morning, showing the world that it's more than just Michael Phelps and his relay buddies.
Within roughly 16 minutes, the United States won three gold medals, a silver and two bronze, a three-race avalanche that helped wash away the sting of some earlier disappointments in these Games.
After Phelps dusted the field in the 200-meter freestyle in world-record time, fellow Olympic veterans Natalie Coughlin and Aaron Peirsol followed with golds in the backstroke.
That onslaught was buttressed by a silver medal in the men's 100 back by Matt Grevers, and bronzes from Peter Vanderkaay in the 200 free and Margaret Hoelzer in the 100 back.
Maybe the adrenaline from Jason Lezak's epic swim Monday in the 4x100 relay carried over to his teammates.
From ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde:
Just arrived at the Main Press Center (MPC) for the morning walk to the Water Cube, and there's a tank parked out front. Now there's a reassuring sight.
I haven't been anywhere other than venues or the MPC in days, so I don't know whether the security/military presence has been heightened around the rest of the city since the attack on the Bachman family.
But when heavy military fighting equipment shows up, it's just a little unsettling.