Day Five: Phelpomania

Submitted by Rick Eyre on August 14 2008, 12:31 pm

Eleven gold medals in his Olympic career. Five in these Games to date. Someone stop him. Please.

More Golden Steph for Australia.

And a special mention to Alain Bernard, who regained his world record in the 100 freestyle for five minutes today. He won the first semi-final in 47.20 seconds. Eamon Sullivan won the second in 47.05.

Meanwhile, a Japanese professor warns of the potential long-term damage from wearing the Speedo LZR swimsuit. Not to mention the mental anguish every time the zipper breaks.

More on Togo's Benjamin Boukpeti, with the IOC reporting that he is, quite remarkably, the first African to compete in canoeing in the Olympics.

A victory for Georgia over Russia, albeit in the women's sandvolley. Christine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas defeated Natalie Uryadova and Alexandra Shirayeva 10-21, 22-20, 15-12. Not quite so dignified a scene as at the shooting on Sunday. Of course, it should be noted that Santanna and Chagas are both Brazilian-born, and indeed still live there. Will they be part of the inevitable ticker-tape parade through the streets of Tbilisi?

And harking back yet again to Sunday's women's 10 metre air pistol. Never mind my quip about gold medallist Guo Wenjun looking for photo-ops, Reuters reports that she hasn't seen her father for nine years. Maybe he'll surface now.

Honkbal Heaven began on Wednesday and I'll deal with this separately. But in closing, fifty countries have won medals by stumps on Day Five, and that in itself is heartening news.