American Athletes wake up , A hockey Innovation , Anticipating another Bolt Blake 1-2
With barely 3-4 days of action left
in the Olympics, the Americans would
have been getting seriously worried about their track and field performances. Comprehensively
outsprinted by the Jamaicans (men and women) , for the first time ever they
failed to produce a finalist in the men’s 400 m , a fact which generated
outrage from the greatest ever over that distance – Michael Johnson.
That was till yesterdays, that is –
last night the Americans awoke from their slumber to set Olympic park ablaze
with gold medals in the Women’s 200 m (Allyson Felix) , Mens 110 m hurdles
(Aries Merrit) and the Women’s long jump (Brittney Reese). To add to this ,
Lashida Demus almost pipped Russian Natalya Antiyuch to the finish the women’s
400 m hurdles , with the Russian holding on by a few hundredths of a second. The
natural order of things is likely to be restored on Thursday if the semi-final
performances of Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake in the Men’s 200 m were any
indication. Bolt pretty much cruised the last 80m and still managed a time of
20.17s – all sure shot markers that this event might see the first track and
field world record in these games.
A Hockey Novelty : Hockey
introduced a new method to break a deadlock in knock out games. Abandoning the
old penalty stroke tie-breaker, the new system requires a player to dribble the
ball from outside the scoring area and attempt to beat the goalkeeper within 8
seconds. The women’s semi final between Holland and New Zealand made history as
the first Olympic game to be decided by this system with the Dutch pulling off a
3-2 victory after the game was tied at 2-2 with a scoreless extra-time. The
method did create a bit of chaos, but still seems a better option as a
tie-breaker as it gives more opportunity to showcase skills (both scoring and
goalkeeping) – Perhaps football should try this sometime.
Images of the Day :
Nicolas Batum loses
it (France) against Juan Carlos Navarro (Spain) in the mens basket ball quarter
finals
Lee Daehoon of South Korea on the
receiving end against Jose Gonzalez (Spain) in the men’s Taekwondo.
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