Beijing Medal Result

China Olympics - Overall Medal Standings

2008-08-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

China Olympics - Overall Medal Standings

CHASING THE RECORD

The greatest swimmer the world has ever seen - and the greatest Olympic athlete in history, if gold medals are anything to go by - is something of an imposter.

Elite athletes in this hypercompetitive era are supposed to be more machines than mortals, separating their oversized bodies from the rest of us by virtue of their finely calibrated physical regimen, psychological sense of superiority, and blinding compulsion to win at all costs.

So what's Michael Phelps doing hanging out in a basic Beijing dorm with five other guys, as if he weren't a waterborne multimillionaire, cheering on his fellow relay racers like they're the stars of the show, and pigging out on gargantuan breakfasts that cover the middle-American wide-load menu from fried-egg sandwiches topped with fried onions and mayo via sugared French toast to an all-you-can-eat fantasy of chocolate-chip pancakes? Doesn't he realize he's supposed to be making history?

Instead this unparalleled Olympian, this 23-year-old god who walks among us, has been living in an ultra-simplified dream world of his own improbable creation (while also competing in 17 separate races for the eight events that will define his legacy). "Eat, sleep and swim, that's all I do." The monosyllabic icon told that to the world, quite contentedly, in one of his more chatty outbursts.

For Canadians, Wayne Gretzky has long served as the supreme example of a seemingly simple and uncomplicated person who doubles as a sports genius. Phelps is his equal in casual greatness, an extraordinary athlete whose apparent ordinariness ("That's all I do") is one of the most remarkable things about him.

Sports fans feel a powerful need to connect with the objects of their affections, who are, after all, simply playing the games of our childhood. But it is one of the ironies of the modern world that as TV networks pay hundreds of millions of dollars to make these Olympic superstars seem even more up-close and personal, their single-minded devotion can make them appear more remote and unreal.

Phelps is a telling exception, and not just because his streamlined but relatively scrawny 6-foot-4, 195-pound frame looks closer to nature than to the mad scientist's lab - and that's with the 15 pounds of weight-training bulk he packed on after winning a mere six gold medals as an overwhelmed "deer-in-the-headlights" teenager at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

On the pool deck, waving those massive arms (he has a 6-foot-7 wingspan), stomping about with those flipper-like size-14 feet, or just chilling out in his headphoned way to rapper Lil Wayne - mere seconds before the race begins - Phelps definitely stands out. But only because the camera can't keep away, and can't quite reconcile the difference between his ritualized Zen-like focus (including precisely 2½ arm flaps on the starting block) and the violent physicality that's about to erupt as he sets out to swim faster than anyone has done before.

In person, he tends much closer to the norm, by choice as much as by nature's design. For the past four years before Beijing, the Baltimore native has been training with his long-time coach (and self-described "business partner") Bob Bowman in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he is widely celebrated as a high-achieving Everyman who depletes the city's eateries while kitted out in a baseball cap, hoodie and jeans.

"He doesn't try to hide who he is," says pizzeria manager Mia Donoghue, "but he also doesn't stand around and expect people to stare at him."

While the concentrated week in Beijing has been just eat/sleep/swim, the everyday Phelps is an easy-going guy who signs autographs without complaint between bites of his half-pound Angus-burgers, makes a point of watching the Baltimore Ravens games at sports bars, invites friends to play video games (Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour), listens to Garth Brooks, invariably reveals a dry-land clumsiness that is far from God-like ("He's the kind of guy who would trip over the crack walking down the sidewalk," jokes friend Scott Meinke) and resolutely avoids the kind of trouble that got him tagged with an impaired driving charge while tooling around in his sport utility vehicle after the Athens Games.

Like every other misstep in a life devoted to relentless self-improvement, even the impaired driving charge has been artfully remade into a learning experience. "I didn't have my goals locked in mind," Phelps said with the self-serving wisdom of a seasoned sports psychologist during his round of mea-culpas. "If I did, that definitely would not have happened."

Goal-setting is a key to Phelps's success, a process that has turned his simple way of life into an amazing quest shown around the world. This is a $5-million-a-year career, after all, that began when he was a mere 11 years old, the point at which he was identified as a future world-beater by Bowman, a classical musician and child-psychology student turned swim coach who mapped out for Phelps's now-divorced parents, a teacher and a state trooper, the 15-year path that would lead to Olympic glory in 2004, 2008 and 2012.

China Olympics - Overall Medal Standings

China Olympics - Olympics: Compensation now Thanou's quest after ban from Beijing??

2008-08-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

China Olympics - Olympics: Compensation now Thanou's quest after ban from Beijing??

The disgraced Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou yesterday said she would not appeal against the IOC's decision banning her from the Beijing Games, after the IOC's executive board ruled that the Sydney 100m silver medallist had brought the Olympic movement into disrepute. She has also been barred from attending the Games in any capacity. Thanou had been entered to compete in the 100m in Beijing.

One of Thanou's lawyers, Nikos Kollias, said the sprinter would not file an appeal. "We will not appeal her participation in the Games. What matters now is Katerina's compensation," said Kollias.

Thanou fled from the Athens Olympic Village on the eve of the Games four years ago after drug testers arrived to see her and her team-mate Kostas Kenteris, overshadowing the start of their home Olympics.

"The executive board took the decision this morning to declare Ms Thanou ineligible to compete in the Beijing Games, and ... also took the decision in their own right to send a firm signal of the moral case that this has brought the Olympic movement into disrepute," said the IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies yesterday.

Thanou and Kenteris were expected to be among the stars of the Athens Games, but their controversial exit from the Olympic Village, and their subsequent claim that they had been injured in a motorcycle accident that meant they were hospitalised beyond the reach of dope testers, was a national scandal.

"These events resulted in a scandalous saga that overshadowed the Athens Games and brought the Olympic movement and the IOC into disrepute," said Davies. She said she was unaware whether the Hellenic Olympic Commission would appeal the decision.

The IOC's disciplinary case against Thanou had been in abeyance since Athens, but as soon as she declared her intention to run in Beijing a hearing was fixed. The disciplinary commission met on Thursday and passed its recommendations to the executive board yesterday.

Thanou has already said she will sue the IOC and its president, Jacques Rogge, if she is not officially awarded the gold medal from the Sydney Games as a result of Marion Jones being stripped of the gold following her admission that she used drugs. In a statement, Thanou said the IOC's decision was "arbitrary and illegal".

"It is these totalitarian practices and decisions that bring the sporting spirit and the Olympic ideal that my country gave birth to into disrepute," Thanou said.

China Olympics -Compensation now Thanou's quest after ban from Beijing??

China Olympics - Stick to decision!! Thanou will not appeal IOC decision???

2008-08-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

China Olympics - Stick to decision!! Thanou will not appeal IOC decision???

Katerina Thanou attacked the "totalitarian" International Olympic Committee on Sunday after the Greek sprinter was banned from the Beijing Games.

Thanou issued a statement harshly criticizing a "prearranged mockery of a decision."

"Since they have not succeeded in breaking my spirit ...the masks fell and we came to this arbitrary and illegal decision that tramples on any notion of justice and equity," Thanou said. "It is these totalitarian practices and decisions that bring the sporting spirit and the Olympic ideal that my country gave birth to into disrepute."

Thanou said she will continue competing.

Earlier, a lawyer for Thanou said she will not appeal the decision but was likely to seek compensation for not being allowed to take part.

"We will go to court as soon as possible," Nikos Kollias told The Associated Press, without elaborating.

Kollias also accused the IOC of timing its decision to prevent Thanou from lodging an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"The way the whole thing was manipulated, there is no time. We would have to seek an injunction against the events taking place and Katerina certainly did not want that," Kollias said.

The IOC said that Thanou's role in a drug-testing cover-up four years ago in Athens had brought the Olympic movement into disrepute.

Thanou and fellow Greek sprinter Kostas Kenteris missed doping tests on the eve of the 2004 opening ceremony, and claimed later they were injured in a motorcycle accident. Both eventually withdrew from the games and were banned by the IAAF, the governing body for world track and field.

China Olympics - Stick to decision!! Thanou will not appeal IOC decision???

China Olympics - Katerina Thanou banned from Olympics after drugs scandal???

2008-08-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Ekaterini Thanou

On her return to international competition at the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England, she was booed by the crowds before finishing 6th in the final.

Following the revelations about Marion Jones's use of steroids, Thanou, who finished 2nd behind Jones in the 100m at Sydney 2000, is in line to be awarded the American's gold medal. Due to Thanou's own tainted record the IOC have been reviewing their legal options to punish Jones without rewarding Thanou. Certain circles have applauded this approach while others have been harshly critical.

Thanou was provisionally selected by the Hellenic Olympic Committee to compete at the 2008 Olympics in Bejing. However, as she had not achieved the Olympic 'A' standard (11.32 seconds), if another Greek woman had achieved this, she would have been forced off of the team.

However, all of this became moot on August 09, 2008, when the executive board of the IOC decided to bar Thanou from competing under rule 23.2.1 of the Olympic charter. This rule allows the banning of athletes who are thought to be guilty of improper conduct or bringing the games into disrepute.

China Olympics - Katerina Thanou banned from Olympics after drugs scandal???

Katerina Thanou will not compete in Beijing after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused the Greek sprinter entry to the athletics competition for bringing the Olympic Games into disrepute.

The IOC’s executive board today ruled her ineligible to compete after the “scandalous saga” that overshadowed the start of the previous Games in 2004. Thanou and compatriot Kostas Kenteris missed a drugs test of the eve of the Athens Games after claiming to have been involved in a motorcycle accident.

It was the third time both athletes had missed a test, resulting in an automatic two-year ban by the IAAF.

The decision to deny Thanou accreditation was taken on the recommendation of the IOC’s disciplinary commission. This allows temporary ineligibility as a sanction. But the IOC went a step further by invoking another rule in its Olympic Charter that gives it the power to refuse any athlete at its discretion.

The IOC said the move to use this power signalled the strength of its feeling against Thanou’s behaviour that was of “very serious prejudice to the Olympic Movement” and raise “significant moral considerations”.

The decision may lead to a messy legal battle. Thanou, who qualified for the Beijing Games, had threatened to sue Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, if she was denied permission to participate.

She is also demanding that she be awarded Marion Jones’ gold medal after the American was stripped of her Olympic title for drug use. Thanou finished second behind her in Sydney 2000.

China Olympics - Katerina Thanou banned from Olympics after drugs scandal???

China Olympics-Medal Result as at 11.08.2008

2008-08-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

China Olympics-Top 10 Medal Result as at 11.08.2008

Ekaterini (Katerina) Thanou (Greek: Αικατερίνη (Κατερίνα) Θάνου, IPA: [ekateˈrini ˈθanu], born February 1, 1975) is a Greek sprinter.

Thanou won the silver medal in the women's 100 m at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. With Marion Jones admitting to steroid use prior to and during the Sydney Olympics and having her gold medal withdrawn by the International Olympic Committee, Thanou may have her silver medal upgraded to gold despite her own controversial past.

In 2002 she won the 100 m gold medal at the European Championships in Munich.

Katerina Thanou to sue IOC - Beijing Olympics 2008

The IOC has clearly had enough of Thanou but the decision by the disciplinary commission is not the end of the affair.

The fear is that it could lead to the case that began on the eve of the last Games in Athens stretching on and even beyond the next Olympics in London.

The IOC ban, using rule 45.2 of the Olympic Charter, came on the grounds that Thanou had brought the Olympic movement into disrepute before the Athen Games.

That was when she and her training partner, Kostas Kenteris, missed a drug test and claimed later that they had been admitted to hospital in Athens after suffering injuries in a motorbike accident as they tried to return to the Olympic village.

Both athletes were disciplined and surrendered their accreditation.

In a scathing report that accompanied the decision, the IOC maintained that Thanou’s behaviour included "pretending she had a traffic accident” and "causing six medical doctors to hospitalise her for five days in order to avoid IOC controls”.

It resulted in, the IOC said, "a scandalous saga which cast a most negative shadow over the 2004 Olympic Games at the time of their opening ceremony.”

As a result, the IOC took up the option of looking again at her eligibility that it highlighted back in 2004 and refused to ratify the sprinter’s accreditation to compete in Beijing, even though she had qualified and has been training with the Greek team.

According to the IOC, the prejudice caused by Thanou had been "most serious”.

The 33 year-old Thanou, who later accepted a two-year ban for missing drug tests, was invited to address the disciplinary commission in person last week but declined.

She called her ban a "prearranged mockery of a decision.”

She added: "It is these totalitarian practices and decisions that bring the sporting spirit and the Olympic ideal that my country gave birth to into disrepute."

The Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has a presence in Beijing, was poised to hear an appeal from the sprinter but that will not happen.

Instead, her British-based lawyer, Dr Gregory Ioannidis said she will take legal action against the IOC at a time and place still to be decided.

Dr Ioannidis said: "The IOC decision is completely unfair. They do not respect the law.

"This is the wrong message to send to society. This decision has been taken with no legal basis and with no legal merits.”

In a statement, he added: “It is simply unfair and discriminatory to allow specific athletes with admission and bans for the use of prohibited substances to participate in the Olympics, but not Ms Thanou.”

Dr Ioannidis ended his statement by saying: "This situation must now come to an end and those responsible for such a decision must come to the understanding that there are rules and laws that need to be followed.

“We have accepted and respected decisions by courts and they have to do the same.

“The time has now come where the public opinion must discover all the facts and the whole truth.”

That is set to be in court and the saga will continue.

China Olympics-Top 10 Medal Result as at 11.08.2008