Beijing Olympics!

[sibichanta]

MICHAEL PHELPS -STAR OF BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES



Other names: PHELPS II, Michael

Born: 30 June 1985

Birthplace: Baltimore (USA)

Nationality: USA

Sport: Aquatics

ATTENDANCE AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Sydney 2000

Athens 2004

AWARDS

Olympic medals:

Gold: 6

Bronze: 2

Eight swimming medals in one Olympics

When he was only 15 years old, Michael Phelps competed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, placing fifth in the 200m butterfly. The following year he broke the world record for the event, becoming, at age 15 years 9 months, the youngest male ever to set a swimming world record.

Four months later, he won his first world championship, setting another world record in the 200 butterfly. Phelps caused a sensation at the 2003 World Championships. Not only did he earn four gold medals and two silver medals, but he set four world records. In 2004, he became the first swimmer to qualify for the Olympics in six individual events. (He decided not to compete in the 200m backstroke).

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Phelps began his assault on the record books on the first day of competition, winning the 400m individual medley by 3 ½ seconds and setting a world record. The next day he added a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay, and the day after that he picked up another bronze by setting a personal record in the 200m freestyle.

On 17 August Phelps beat out Takashi Yamamoto of Japan to win the 200m butterfly and, an hour later, he swam the leadoff leg for the U.S. 4x200m freestyle relay team that held off the Australians and gained the victory. Phelps' next gold-medal victory came in the 200m individual medley, which he won by 1.64 seconds.

In the 100m butterfly, he barely out touched teammate Ian Crocker for his seventh medal. Finally, Phelps gained a gold medal in the 4x100m medley relay by swimming the preliminary heats. By so doing, he joined gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin as the only athletes to earn eight medals at a single Olympics.

[sibichanta]

Abhinav Bindra won the air rifle gold at the World shooting championship, India's first-ever in the sport, in Zagreb on Monday.

[sibichanta]

http://gallery.bizhat.com/showgallery.php/cat/2608

[sibichanta]

The Olympic rings are pictured



Movable-type printing



Opera performance



Fireworks go off

[sibichanta]

Acrobats perform in the Bird's Nest



Lang Lang plays the piano



Art performance in the Bird's Nest

[sibichanta]

Unheralded Sushil Kumar rose from obscurity to find his rightful place in the history of Indian sports when he won the bronze medal in men's 66kg freestyle category at the Beijing Olympics in Beijing.

Sushil's campaign seemed nearly over when he lost his first round battle against eventual silver medallist Andriy Stadnik but repechage provided him a ray of hope and the Indian proved simply irresistible as he beat three grapplers on the trot to win the bronze.

Down in the dumps after his opening round defeat, Sushil came up with an incredible show, beating Doug Schwab (USA), Albert Batyrov (Belarus) and finally the losing semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov (Kazakhstan) in the repechage rounds to earn his slice of history.

Sushil thus became the second Indian wrestler after K D Jadhav who won a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games to win an Olympic medal.

Incidentally, in the 2006 Doha Asian Games also, Sushil had beaten Leonid to win the bronze.

Against Leonid, Sushil grabbed early initiative by scoring two technical points that proved decisive in the end.

Though the Kazakh grappler scored one in the second period and managed to thwart Sushil, the Indian proved his superiority again in the third period and eventually prevailed 3-2 to trigger frenzied celebration among the Indians present at the Chinese Agricultural University in Beijing.

[sibichanta]

Jamaica's Usain Bolt completed his sprint double gold medal today in Beijing, winning the 200 meters in 19.30 seconds, a new world record.

Churandy Martina of the Netherlands Antilles won the silver. American Wallace Spearmon finished third but was disqualified for stepping out of his lane, so fourth-place finisher Shawn Crawford of the United States received the bronze medal. (UPDATE: Martina was also disqualified, so Crawford gets the silver and fifth-place finisher Walter Dix of the U.S. gets the bronze.)

Bolt, who previously set a new world record of 9.69 seconds in the 100 meters, is the first athlete to win both the 100 and the 200 since Carl Lewis in 1984. Bolt is only 21 years old, and track experts are nearly unanimous in saying that a good coach could improve his technique. There's every reason to believe that he will be a dominant sprinter for years to come. He has the talent to become the greatest ever.

American Michael Johnson set the previous 200-meter world record of 19.32 seconds at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a record that felt at the time like it was unbreakable. But no one knew at the time about a 9-year-old Jamaican named Usain Bolt.