Days 1-2 Olympic update

Lochte golden, Phelps falls flat

- Michael Phelps finished fourth in the 400m individual medley on Saturday, while U.S. teammate Ryan Lochte finished first by a long ways. Lochte, who many think is the best swimmer in the world right now, (He does too, and is quoted as saying "This is my time") had a massive coming out party winning the race by three and a half seconds.
- The next day Phelps and Lochte, along with Nathan Adrian and Cullen Jones took silver in the 4x100 freestyle relay. Phelps swam the fastest leg of the relay for the Americans and the second fastest throughout the race.
- That race was the rematch to the dramatic 4x100 freestyle in Beijing in 2008 between the US and France, when Jason Lezak overcame a large deficit to win the race for the Americans by this much. This time Lochte lost a full second to the anchor swimmer for France, Yannick Agnel, and ended up losing by almost half a second.


American wins medal for 5th straight Olympics



- While the Olympic sport of shooting doesn't quite rival swimming, track or gymnastics in popularity or prestige, it nonetheless can boast the single greatest Olympic champion in U.S. history.  Kimberly Rhode became the first American ever to win individual medals in five straight Olympics, after a dazzling performance Sunday.
- Rhode won the women's skeet shooting Sunday, setting the Olympic record with 99 points, meaning that she missed once in 100 shots.  (Afterwards, she deadpanned, "I don't know what happened on that one.  It gives me something to shoot for next time.")  She was eight targets better than silver medalist Wei Ning of China and nine better than Slovakia's Danka Bartekova, who won a shootout for the bronze.
- Rhode won gold as a teenager in 1996, took bronze (while still a teen) in 2000 at Sydney, re-claimed the gold at Athens in 2004, and won a silver at Beijing in 2008.  Since the physical limitations of shooting are less than other sports, she could conceivably compete for another 5-6 Olympics, and it certainly didn't hurt that she was only 13 in 1996 when she won gold, the youngest U.S. Olympic athlete that year.  She doesn't have time to think about future Olympics yet though, as more shooting events remain for her in the coming days.


Overall Olympic update

- The Spanish men's soccer team was shockingly eliminated after failing to score a single goal in a pair of 1-0 defeats.  The team doesn't have many players from its string of 3 straight major championships, but nonetheless was expected to compete with Brazil for the gold medal.  They have a chance to score a goal at least in their last game against Morocco but will not advance regardless of the result.
- U.S. gymnast Jordan Wieber failed to qualify for the all-around event final.  She was the gold medal favorite and didn't perform poorly, finishing 4th overall in qualifying.  But because two of her American teammates finished in the top 3, and only two athletes per country are allowed in the finals, she was left on the outside looking in.
- The Chinese team leads the overall medal count after the first weekend with 12, including 6 golds. The US contingent is second with 11, including 3 golds and Italy is third with 7 medals.
 - There will be 17 more medal events on Monday, and 15 awarded on Tuesday, with the most medals being given out in Judo.