Late Results for Friday, August 15

Athletics: In the men's shot put, where either a top-12 finish or a minimum throw of 20.4 metres was needed to qualify for the final, the shortest throw came in group B of the qualifying round: Chang Ming-Huang, 26, representing Chinese Taipei -- i.e., Taiwan -- had a best throw of 17.43 metres. The gold medallist's best throw in the final was 21.51 metres. Four shot putters had no mark in the qualifying round, and there was one DNS. Isabel Checha of Spain, 26, finished 29th in the women's 10,000 metre. There were two DNFs and one DNS. Checha's time was 33:17.88; the gold medallist's time was 29:44.66.

Cycling: In the qualifying round of the men's team sprint, the Polish team of Maciej Bielecki, 21, Kamil Kuczynski, 23, and Łukasz Kwiatkowski, 26, were relegated -- i.e., pushed to last place, something akin to but not as severe as a disqualification -- after Kuczynski fell. As a result, they finished 13th.

Weightlifting: In the women's 75 kg, 20-year-old Elizabeth Poblete of Chile finished 12th with a score of 197; the gold medallist's final score was 282. And in the men's 85 kg, where there were five DNF, the Seychelles added their second DFL with Terrence Dixie, 24, putting up a score of 255; the gold medallist's score was 394.

Standings to date: The Seychelles and Poland add their second last-place finishes, moving into 7th and 11th place, respectively; Chile, Taiwan and Spain get their first DFLs.

Early Results for Saturday, February 18

Alpine Skiing: In the men's Super G, Albanian skier Erjon Tola, 19, was 56th. His time of 1:44.27 was 13.62 seconds behind the gold medallist. There were seven DNFs. Tola is Albania's only athlete at these Games.

In the women's combined, another 15-year-old: Chilean Noelle Barahona finished 30th; her total combined time of 3:26.62 was 35½ seconds behind the gold medallist. A total of 15 skiers either were disqualified, did not start or did not finish before or during one of the event's three runs. Here's a Reuters profile of Miss Barahona.

Biathlon: In the women's 10-kilometre pursuit, 14 competitors were disqualified by being lapped, and there were two DNSes and three DNFs. But of the 41 athletes who were able to cross the finish line, Nina Lemesh, 32, of Ukraine finished 41st with a time seven minutes and five seconds behind the gold medallist. Lemesh won at least one World Cup biathlon event back in 1998.

On the men's side, Latvian skier Kristaps Lībietis, 23, was 56th in the 12.5-kilometre pursuit; he was eight minutes, ten seconds behind the gold medallist. There were three DNSes and one DNF.

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's 4×5-kilometre relay, the team from Estonia was 17th with a time of 1:00:24.4 -- about 5½ minutes behind the gold medallists. The team was comprised of Tatjana Mannima, 25; Piret Pormeister, 20; Kaili Sirge, 22; and Silja Suija, 31.

Standings to date: With three last-place finishes and a small contingent, Chile moves into the lead. Ukraine adds a third last-place finish to move into fourth, Estonia adds a second last-place finish to move into seventh, and Albania and Latvia joins the race in 11th and 24th place, respectively.

Later today: men's 1,000-metre speed skating, individual large-hill ski jumping, and men's 1,000-metre and women's 1,500-metre short track speed skating.

Early Results for Thursday, February 16

Biathlon: Chilean competitor Veronica Isbej adds another last-place finish (see previous entry) with her 83rd-place result in the women's 7.5-km sprint. She had a total of four faults -- not by any means the worst result in shooting -- and a final time of 33:52, which was 11:20.6 behind the gold medallist. There was one DNS. There's some coverage of Isbej's previous last-place finish in the Chilean media here and here, if you read Spanish (I don't).

(Note: Multiple last-place finishes by an athlete simply means that they're tough, courageous and qualified enough to enter more than one event. Kudos to them that are even capable of finishing last more than once.)

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's 10-kilometre classical, 20-year-old Vedrana Vučićević of Bosnia-Herzegovina finished 70th with a time of 42:45.8 -- nearly 15 minutes behind the gold medallist and nearly nine minutes behind the 69th-place finisher. There was one disqualification (Beckie!) and one DNF.

Nordic Combined: In the team event, the Russian team of Ivan Fesenko, Anton Kamenev, Dimitry Matveev and Sergej Maslennikov, sixth after jumping, were less successful in the cross-country ski relay and finished ninth. Two teams withdrew during the jumping portion.

Snowboarding: In the men's snowboard cross -- it's basically motocross on snowboards, quite neat actually -- there are heats, just like short track. Once you get into the 1/8-finals the events don't appear to be timed, but, after the two qualifying runs, German boarder Alex Kupprion, 27, had the slowest combined time: 1:24.66 -- 4.73 seconds behind the leader after the qualifying round. Kupprion was in 36th position; the top 32 advanced to the 1/8-finals.

Standings to date: Russia moves into third place, Chile moves into fifth, and Bosnia and Germany join the race.

Later today: women's skeleton, women's and men's team pursuit in speed skating, and men's figure skating.

Early Results for Monday, February 13

Biathlon: In the women's 15-km individual event, 29-year-old Veronica Isbej of Chile finished 82nd with a time of 1:14:55.3 seconds -- about 25½ minutes behind the gold medallist.

Snowboarding: 18-year-old Japanese boarder Melo Imai finished 34th in the women's halfpipe event with a score of 1.4 in the preliminaries -- presumably as a result of a fall -- and did not advance.

Standings to date: Based on the size of their delegations, Chile and Japan enter the standings in fourth and thirteenth place, respectively.

Later today: men's 500-metre speed skating; pairs figure skating.