So, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing are over. The last events were held on Sunday. All that remained was the grand closing ceremony at the Birds Nest Stadium in Beijing with thousands of fireworks exploding in the sky. The Chinese invented fireworks, and the Chinese, predictably in a way, came out the overall winners in the numbers of medals won at these games. The Russian national team came in third, following the hosts of the games, and, then, the Americans.
Russia’s total medal tally was 23 golds, 21 silvers, and 28 bronze, 72 medals in all. This is a result one can be proud of. Great Britain also did extremely well, and it was only two days before the end with a final spurt of medals that the Russian team managed to nudge them out of third place. A boxer brought in Russia’s last medal of the games on Sunday. It was a gold, and the man who won it was a lightweight in the 60 kilo (132 pounds) category, Aleksei Tishchenko, who beat his French opponent Daqouda Sow, eleven to nine. That was Aleksei’s second gold. The first one came in Athens four years ago.
In some of their victories, the Russians surprised themselves. In women’s handball, for example, they got the silver, losing only to Norway. Team member Irina Bliznova said, “There was no Russian women’s handball at the Olympics for 16 years. So, this was a really great result for us”. Their trainer, Yevgeny Trefilov, commented, “In the final we displayed handball of the Twentieth Century. The Norwegians… of the Twenty-First”.
The Russians also surprised themselves in the women’s 4 x 400 metres relay, getting the silver. Hot favourites were the Americans with the famous Sania Richards clinching the “home run” in the final lap as she, indeed, did. Next, the Jamaican four were touted to come in. But, it was the Russian girls who got the silver, and not the bronze. Another surprise came in the same event 4 x 400 metres relay, but, amongst the men. Maksim Dyldin, Vyacheslav Frolov, Anton Kokorin, and Denis Alekseyev went into the games as clear outsiders, not even expecting to get into the finals. No Russian relay team over this distance had won anything since the 1980s. Yet, here they were, with a bronze, behind the Americans and the fearsome four from the Bahama Islands, who came in just a nose ahead.
In the closing stages of the games, Anna Chicherova won a bronze in the women’s high jump. Although she had to fight for that medal very hard, in general any medal for Russian women in the high jump does not come as a real surprise. They excel at that. As for the women’s pole-vault event, any medal that is NOT a gold would be a sensational surprise, as Yelena Isinbayeva once again proved herself the greatest pole-vaulter among the ladies of our times. She’s got so many Olympic and World championship medals and so many world records (she set her latest one in Beijing) that we’ve lost count.
24 August 2008
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=31565&cid=63&p=24.08.2008 (in English)
