2012 Summer Olympics, Day 7: Team USA Continues Swimming Dominance

The United States women’s Olympic basketball team continued their strong play in the group stage with an 88-61 win against the Czech Republic on Friday.

The Czech Republic team led the game 26-24 after the first quarter, but Team USA was dominant in the second and third quarters to pull away. The United States outscored the Czech Republic 46-21 over those two quarters to put the game out of reach.

On the opening day of Athletics, Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba defended her gold medal in the women’s 10,000 meters Friday night at the 2012 Summer Olympics, pulling away from her competition late and winning in dominant fashion.

Dibaba, 27, broke away with 500m remaining and furthered her lead, eventually winning in a time of 30:20.75, nearly a full six seconds ahead of the silver medal winner, Kenya’s Sally Jepkosgei Kipyego. Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot, also of Kenya, finished in 30:30.44 for the bronze medal.

Tomasz Majewski, the gold medal winner in the shot put in Beijing, has repeated as champion of the event at the London 2012 Olympics. Even though he was the defending champion, Majewski was not the clear favorite heading into the event. He had gold won before he stepped up for his final shot, then unleashed a throw that improved on his already medal-winning difference.

Majewski has not won a major competition since 2009 and finished 9th at the 2011 World Championships. He won the meet with a distance of 21.89 meters. Heading into his final shot, he had a distance of 21.87 meters. David Storl, the reigning world champion from Germany, finished in second place to take the silver medal with a distance of 21.86 meters.

After Roger Federer found his way to a final at Wimbledon after a marathon game against Juan Martin Del Potro at the 2012 Olympics on Friday, Andy Murray decided to join him and set up a rematch at the All England Club.

Murray defeated Novak Djokovic in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5, to move on to his first Olympic gold medal final in his first Olympic appearance. It’ll be a rematch of his emotional loss to Federer in the 2012 Wimbledon final, which ended in Murray giving a tearful speech to the crowd in attendance.

Florent Manaudou is the world’s fastest man in the pool after winning the 50m freestyle final at the 2012 Summer Olympics on Friday. The Frenchman surprised when he was the first to touch the wall, doing so in 21.34 seconds as he used a huge push in the final 15 meters to overtake American Cullen Jones, who won silver, finishing just 0.20 seconds behind Manaudou.

Brazil’s Cesar Cielo, the defending gold medalist, finished third (21.59).

In his final individual event ever at the Olympics, the all-time medal champion went out in fitting fashion. Michael Phelps won the men’s 100m butterfly, his third gold in London, 17th gold overall and 21st total medal.

It’s also the third consecutive win in the event for Phelps, a feat that was unprecedented ... before Phelps accomplished it in the 200m IM on Thursday. Phelps touched the wall in 51.21, just 0.23 seconds ahead of South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Russia’s Evgeny Korotyshkin, who finished tied for second (both will take home a silver medal).

In his semifinal Olympic match against Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray hit a shot he wasn’t pleased with. Afterward, he gave us this beauty of a GIF ...

“F*CKKKK”

With the pool portion of the 2012 Olympics nearly complete, Team USA just keeps winning medals. The latest: Missy Franklin’s gold in the women’s 200m backstroke.

Franklin smoked the field for gold in the 200m backstroke, winning by more than a second and setting a new world record at 2:04.06. Russia’s Anastasia Zueva finished second, 1.86 back of Franklin, and American Elizabeth Beisel came in third.

Records continue to fall at the London Velodrome and the British continue to dominate track cycling. Like in every other track cycling event thus far new world records were set on Friday in both the men’s and women’s team pursuit, both by British teams.

The British men’s team set the world record in qualifying and then topped that record in their gold medal match against the Australians with a time of 3:51.659 seconds. In the bronze medal match New Zealand topped the Russian team.

Team USA has dominated beach volleyball since it was introduced at the Olympics in 1996. But the defending champion men’s beach volleyball squad of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser fell on Friday, 21-17, 21-19 in the round of 16, to Italy’s team of Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai.

The Italians, often compared to the Rogers/Dalhausser team that won gold in Beijing, outmaneuvered and outplayed the U.S., but only marginally. Italy withstood a run late in the second set, but led from 8-7 onward in the second set, and converted its first match point.

Michael Phelps’ time at the 2012 Olympics — and, theoretically, in Olympic competition, given his repeated desire to retire after these Games — is almost done, with just the 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley relay on the way. He could finish with 22 medals, and 18 golds, or as many gold medals as any other Olympian has medals. It’s no wonder people flocked to call him “The Greatest Olympian” on Tuesday, after he snagged his 18th and 19th medals.

But it’s not just Phelps’ prolific medal production that has made him the most celebrated Olympian of the modern era. The era has helped, as the American sports media machine has whirred ever faster during Phelps’ career, and the rush to say something new or different has gotten Phelps lavished with context-free praise for doing the unprecedented.

Two of America’s most famous tennis players will square off for a gold medal in the women’s singles final of the 2012 Olympics. Only one of them is American: Serena Williams, who eviscerated women’s No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, 6-1, 6-2 on Friday to advance to the gold medal final.

Williams thrashed Azarenka on her first serve, winning 31 of 35 points, and crushed her on the return, allowing the Belarussian to win just over half of her points on first serve and breaking four times. Williams also cranked up her serve, which yielded 16 aces and four in the decisive game, including a second serve ace on match point.

As Day 7 of the 2012 Summer Olympics rolls on, China has picked up two more medals to add to their count. China’s Dong Dong was able to pick up a gold medal in the Men’s Trampoline with a winning score of 62.99. Dong wasn’t the only one to medal for China in the event as Chunlong Lu also picked up the bronze medal with a score of 61.319.

China aded two more medals in Badminton, as both Chinese team’s in the Mixed Doubles made the gold medal round, securing the gold and silver medal for China. Another bronze medal was added for China with Xiaoxiang Dai taking third place in Men’s Individual Archery.

Roger Federer was pushed to the brink by Juan Martin del Potro before finally winning 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 19-17 and advancing to his first ever Olympic singles gold medal match.

Remember that longest match in Olympic history that just happened on Tuesday between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic? Well this one was longer. It wasn’t more games, but it took more time, four hours and 25 minutes to be precise. Four hours and 25 minutes of Kobe Bryant clapping.

If you’re not watching the trampoline events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, well ... what the hell is wrong with you? This is basically the best thing you could have ever hoped for when you were eight years old. With the advent of trampoline, we’re only a few years away from “The Carpet Is Lava” as an Olympic event. Plus, it’s one of the most GIF-able events in the whole dang ‘lympics.

First of all, French trampolinist Gregoire Pennes demonstrates that the thing you did messing around on your rich friend’s trampoline and thinking you were a genius for doing it is now an acceptable transition move.

Two shooting medals were awarded today in London, and two nations got themselves their first medals of the 2012 Games in Belarus and Cuba, including some world record performances.

First up was the men’s 50m prone rifle. Sergey Martynov tied a world record by shooting perfect 10s on all 60 of his shots in qualifications, then set a finals world record by scoring a 105.5 on 10 shots, which are ranked not simply as 10s but also graded by how close the shot is to the exact center of the circle. Second was Lionel Cox of Belgium, followed by Rajmond Debevec of Slovenia.

On Thursday, Gabby Douglas took home the gold medal in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition. It was an historic victory, not least of which because Douglas became not only the first African-American woman to win the gold, but the first woman of color to ever medal in the individual competition for America. Unfortunately, her moment in prime time was followed by some less-than-ideal imagery.

Right after NBC aired footage of Douglas receiving her gold medal, Bob Costas had some inspiring words for aspiring African-American gymnasts and Olympians. It would have been far more poignant if they hadn’t then immediately cut to a commercial for their new show Animal Practice, featuring a gymnast monkey.

The Bryan Brothers will bring some sort of neckwear back to the United States after a 6-4, 6-4 victory over the French pairing of Julian Benneteau and Richard Gasquet, giving the No. 1 seeded doubles squad a chance to bring home gold for America.

For the second straight day, the duo advanced without losing a game on service: however, today, their dominance was more complete, as the Bryans didn’t face a single break point and also broke serve twice, which they could not do the day before against Israel’s Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich, when they needed two tiebreakers to win. They won a ridiculous 29 of 32 points on first serve and quickly moved on in straight sets.

After the IOC prodded Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Committee to end its policy of male-only participation, a female athlete has finally competed for the nation: Wojdan Shaherkani took to the judo mat Friday in the 78kg+ weight division.

Although Shaherkani’s match lasted only 1:12 -- she lost to Puerto Rico’s Melissa Mojica by ippon -- that’s all the time she needed to make history. She wore a head covering -- “enough of a compromise to adhere to regulations of both the Islamic community and judo’s governing bodies,” NBC says. This was the result of some debate -- at first she wanted to compete without one, then said she would withdraw if not allowed to, but eventually competed in some form of head covering.

Day 7 at the 2012 Summer Olympics offers another full day of medals (22 in all). And it also offers a bit of a unique juxtaposition. As swimming begins to conclude with its penultimate day, one of the Summer Games’ most anticipated sports, track and field, opens its competition.

Friday will be Michael Phelps’ final time ever swimming for an individual medal at the Olympic Games (he says there is no way he is going to Rio in 2016, despite his mother’s pleadings. Of course, he also said he was never again going to swim the 400m IM after Beijing).

Four events had finals today at Eton Dorney, and Great Britain continued its excellence in the lake. The host nation earned its second rowing gold as well as a bronze, while New Zealand added its second and third rowing golds of the games.

The UK earned a victory going away in the women’s double sculls, with a team of Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger beating the competition by nearly three seconds. Great Britain now has more medals in rowing than any other nation -- with six -- and more medals in rowing than in any other event. The two gold medals they have is also more than any other sport.