WHAT YOU MISSED LAST NIGHT:
Poor Alicia Sacramone. The 20-year-old stalwart of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team suffered a pair of crucial miscues in the final two stages of the team competition in Beijing last night as the Americans lost their ballyhooed showdown with the host Chinese. Sacramone, out of Massachusetts and Brown University, fell off the balance beam and took a tumble (the bad kind) during her floor exercise that cost the U.S. a chance at gold.
Team USA established an early five-tenths lead on the Chinese in evening’s first event, the vault, with both teams trailing the Russians through that rotation. China took over first on the second apparatus, the uneven bars, despite a huge number turned in by graceful American Nastia Liukin. In the third rotation, Team China leader Cheng Fei fell off the balance beam to open the door for the U.S., but Sacramone also lost her, uh, balance to give those points back. Shawn Johnson delivered a super-solid routine as the last American on the beam to keep the deficit to a single point entering the final rotation, the floor exercise. But Sacramone, first up on the mat, had another few errors to all but dash the U.S. hopes for gold.
She fell over backwards during a tumbling pass for a major deduction and also lost points for stepping out of bounds. Liukin and Johnson also stepped out of bounds in their exercises and the Americans settled for silver.
Don’t forget, however, that according to NBC analyst Tim Daggett, China entered the night with a 2.1-point advantage based on the degree of difficulty of its routines. By that calculus, China, with a 2.375-point margin of victory, barely out-performed the U.S. in terms of execution.
For China it was the second team gold in as many nights, following the men’s squad’s victory Monday night. Meanwhile, accusations continue to fly that a number of the tiny Chinese gymnasts are under the minimum age of 16.
It was business as usual in the pool for Michael Phelps, who won two more gold medals last night to bump his Beijing tally to five (in five tries) and his career total to 11, the most in history.
Phelps appeared almost distressed following his victory in the 200-meter butterfly, perhaps because he didn’t break the world record by enough. He shaved .06 seconds off his previous standard in the event, and tossed his cap and goggles onto the pool deck afterwards with a measure of disgust. He said afterwards that those goggles were leaking and impaired his vision over the final 100 meters. The new world record of 1:42.03 was shy of his expectations of a time in the1:41 range.
Later, Phelps led off the 4×200 freestyle relay team that won in almost comical fashion (as in, the second-place team wasn’t on the screen), becoming the first to break the seven-minute barrier and giving Phelps yet another world record.
A grueling night yielded no more medals for American Katie Hoff. Hoff finished fourth in the 200-meter freestyle and returned less than an hour later for the 200 IM, in which she was out-sprinted by teammate Natalie Coughlin for the bronze.
The men’s 100-meter freestyle world record continues to fall at a ridiculous rate. Australian Eamon Sullivan lowered France’s Alain Bernard mark of 47.50 to 47.24 with his opening leg of the 4×100 relay on Sunday night. Bernard snatched it back in the first semifinal of the 100 free last night (47.20), then Sullivan promptly reclaimed it in the second semi (47.05). American relay hero Jason Lezak also qualified for tonight’s final.
The U.S. women’s basketball team had little trouble with Mali this morning, dashing off a 97-41 win. Lisa Leslie was a perfect 7-for-7 from the floor and finished with a game-high 16 points . . . The Davey Johnson-led American baseball team claimed a late lead in the top of the ninth inning but gave it back in the bottom half to drop its opening game to South Korea, 8-7. . . Not all bad news on the diamond: The U.S. softball team received another no-hitter this one a 13-strikeout gem by Cat Osterman to beat Australia, 3-0. . . Freddy Adu and the U.S. men’s soccer team were eliminated from the tournament after losing 2-1 to Nigeria this morning . . . American gold medal-contending boxer Rau’shee Warren was a surprise loser yesterday in flyweight action.
WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT:A night without a Michael Phelps final! Oh no!
Don’t worry, there’s still plenty Olympics on the tube tonight.
Phelps, for his part, will swim in qualifying for tomorrow night’s 200-meter IM final.
Relay buddy Jason Lezak will go for a second gold of these Olympics in the men’s 100-meter freestyle, but as the sixth-fastest qualifier he’ll be fortunate just to medal (NBC, 10:49 p.m.).
Katie Hoff anchors the U.S. in the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay, which should be a close one. The U.S., France, Italy, and China are all jousting for spots on the medal stand (11:32 p.m.).
The men’s individual all-around will be decided in gymnastics (11:00 p.m.). China’s Yang Wei is the favorite and Americans Jonathan Horton and Alexander Armetev, the two heroes of Monday night’s bronze-medal showing for the U.S., could play spoiler.
Jonesing for some old-fashioned hardball but sick of the Mets and Yanks? The U.S. baseball team plays the Netherlands during USA’s late-night coverage (2 a.m.).
And the Redeem Team, led by Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, meets Greece, the team that eliminated it from the world championships two years ago at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning on USA.