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The Best And Worst Of The Beijing Olympics

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 25, 2008

Best 1-2 Punch

U.S. women's gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson won nine medals between them, then hid them in various places in the room they shared in Beijing. Liukin won gold in the all-around and Johnson won gold in her last chance, on the balance beam.

Worst Relay

A tie between the U.S. men's and women's 4x100 track teams, both of whom dropped the baton on the same night in the preliminaries of their races, forfeiting any chance at medals.

Worst Feeling

Dremiel Byers, the Greco-Roman wrestler, was upset in the quarterfinals. He was angry with himself after the match for not trying hard enough.

Said Byers: "You should walk off that mat with your soul gasping for air. I walked off and I wasn't tired. And if I'm not tired, that's a problem. Wrestlers say that the most honest thing you'll ever do after a match is go back to your room and look at yourself in the mirror. I don't have to go that far to know this: I dropped the ball today."

Best Team Recovery

Russia's Maria Sharapova pulled out of women's tennis before the Games because of an injury. Russia entered a new player to replace her and still won gold, silver and bronze in the competition.

Weirdest Silver Medal

Sprinter Shawn Crawford finished fourth in the 200-meter dash. Within 90 minutes, he had been moved up to second place because the second- and third-place finishers had both been disqualified for running out of their lanes, and he wasn't too happy about it.

"I didn't cross the line in second," Crawford said. "And if I don't cross the line in second, I don't care if people are disqualified or not. I didn't deserve a medal."

Weirdest Way To Get Gold Twice

U.S. beach volleyballer Kerri Walsh lost her wedding ring during a match when she tried to block a spike and it flew off. A slew of helpful Chinese volunteers used metal detectors to track the ring down in the sand. Walsh not only got her golden ring back, she also won gold with Misty May-Treanor in the final a week later.

Best 3 Olympic Sports Americans Never Watch

Badminton, team handball and field hockey.

Charlotte Observer

Best Decision

A trailing Michael Phelps consciously deciding to do a choppy half-stroke in the last meter of the 100-meter butterfly. Phelps windmilled his arms to the wall while Serbia's Milorad Cavic tried to glide in, and Phelps ended up winning by .01 of a second for his seventh of eight gold medals.

Best Relay

The 4x100 men's swim team. Jason Lezak's astonishing final leg overtook France for the gold and made Phelps scream so loudly you could hear him all over China.

Best Big Idea

Cullen Jones, a former standout in college, hopes to use the publicity generated by his gold medal to get more minority kids swimming.

Best 19.30 Seconds

Usain Bolt in the 200-meter dash. It was even better than his record in the 100 meters, because Bolt beat Michael Johnson's 12-year-old record in the 200, erased his own personal best by nearly four-tenths of a second and ran all the way to the finish without showboating.

Worst Suspicions

Because track and field has had so many high-profile athletes test positive for performance-enhancing drugs, there have been whispers here that Usain Bolt must be using something illegal. Crawford has heard those whispers and doesn't believe them.

Said Crawford: "It's like our sport has been plagued with doping, people cheating, so any time a record is broken or a fast time is run, people automatically assume that somebody is on drugs. It takes away from the sport. It makes me think that people don't believe in hard work anymore."

Best Opportunists

The U.S. women's soccer team. Outplayed for most of the game by Brazil, the Americans scored the game's lone goal in overtime and held on for a 1-0 victory. Lamented Brazilian star Marta: "On the one shot they had, they scored."

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