On home soil, China continues to set the pace in the Gold Medal race. The USA leads the overall tally with 67 total medals but China has a staggering 37 Gold's with 14 silver and bronze.
It's not a huge surprise to see China leading the way, but it's quite extraordinary that they 'only' have 14 of each of the minor placings. An interesting stat that I caught on Saturday whilst watching the 'ladies' weight-lifting(no, I don't love sport that much, but I was channel surfing when I heard it) is that apparently China has one-million female weight lifters ! If that's true, I can only imagine how many basketballer's, football players and other, better known sports players they must have. In 20 years time, they might just be favourite to win everything !
Great Britain is currently in third place with 12 Gold Medals and 27 overall, followed by Australia who has 11 Gold's, but 33 overall medals.
Next in fifth place is Germany(9 Gold, 22 overall), followed by South Korea(8, 22), Japan(8,20) and the Russian Federation(7,32).
Michael Phelps completed his perfect Olympics on Saturday when he picked up his 8th Gold Medal. This achievement by Phelps is staggering and will be nigh on impossible to even match, let alone beat. At only 23, Phelps could still add to his bucket of Gold in London in 2012.
Ominous signs from the USA on the basketball court. In what was billed as the 'acid test' when they took on reigning World Champions Spain on Saturday, the redeem team handed out a 119-82 thumping. Once again it was a suffocating defense from the American's and Spain had no answer - emphasized by the USA forcing Spain into 28 turnovers ! On form, it's hard to see any team taking the Gold from the USA here.
The Jamaican women backed up country-men Usain Bolt's incredible 100m on Saturday when they went 1,2 & 3 in the ladies race. Shelly-Ann Fraser crossed the line in 10.78 with a dead heat at 10.98 between Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart. Jamaica comes across as a country of laid-back party people, but man, can they RUN ! Speaking of Bolt, he's an absolute certainty to win the 200m on Wednesday night and waltzed into his semi-final in 20.29 seconds. As with the 100m heats, he took his foot off the gas - which is fine - but let's just hope he guns it the whole way and sets an amazing record that he's truly capable of. I'm tipping he could run this in sub 19 seconds. As explosive as his 100m run was, he robbed us - and himself - of something even more impressive than his 9.69 run.
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