Results for Sunday, February 26

Other than the gold-medal game in men's hockey, the last event in these Winter Games is in cross-country skiing: the men's 50-km free, mass start. (At Salt Lake City it was classic; here it's free.) I awarded the DFL in hockey earlier, so the last DFL for Torino will be awarded for this event. And it goes to 17-year-old Chinese skier Ren Long, who came in 63rd with a time of two hours, 16 minutes and 15 seconds. That's a bit more than 10 minutes behind the gold medallist -- not bad over 50 kilometres. There were 16 DNFs and three DNSes in this race; I had been wondering whether anyone could be out by being lapped in this race, but it doesn't appear to be the case from the results.

Standings to date: China adds one more last-place finish, to end up one of three countries with six. Because it has 80 athletes here, it finishes second to Romania and ahead of Japan. I'll have an entry dedicated to the final tally later today.

Programming note: I'll be wrapping up the Torino Games with a number of entries that, if all goes well, will be posted throughout the day. So even though the last-place finishes are finished, I'm not. Stick around, won't you?

Late Results for Saturday, February 25

Alpine Skiing: The men's slalom ran today, and it was brutal: a total of 41 DNFs, as well as four DNSes and five disqualifications. In other words, more athletes were unable to complete the race (50) than put in a result (47). Amidst the carnage, in 47th place was Japanese skier Yasuhiro Ikuta, 26, whose time of 2:23.28 was more than 40 seconds off the pace. But at least he finished -- although I get the impression that alpine skiing is one of those events where it's not necessarily considered better to DFL than DNF.

Bobsled: In the men's four-man bobsled, the Brazilians came last. Yes, while Jamaica may not have qualified a team, Brazil did -- presumably through continental qualification (see previous entry for bobsled qualifying rules). Anyway, the boys from Brazil are Ricardo Raschini, 38, Marcio Silva, 25, Claudinei Quireno, 35, and Edson Bindilatti, 26; their time after three runs was 2:58.94, or 5.32 seconds off the pace at that point. Teams below 20th place didn't get a fourth run. There was one DNS.

Short Track: Three finals today, so three attempts at divining the last-place finisher in an event where time matters less than place, and there's heats.

In the men's 500-metre and women's 1,000-metre events, I'm awarding the DFL to the person who puts in the slowest non-advancing time in the heats (on the basis that if you have an even slower time but advance, usually it's because someone else was disqualified, meaning they interfered, and because you invariably put in a better result in a later race).

So, in the men's 500-metre heats on Wednesday, 21-year-old Anthony Lobello of the USA had the slowest non-advancing time: 1:13.722. Most other competitors had races in the 42-44 second range, so a fall is likely here. In the women's 1,000-metre heats, also on Wednesday, Latvian skater Evita Krievāne had the slowest non-advancing time: 1:39.986. Her time, on the other hand, was only a few seconds off the pace.

The men's 5,000-metre relay, on the other hand, was easy to figure out: the German team of Thomas Bauer, 21, Andre Hartwig, 22, Arian Nachbar, 29, and Sebastian Praus, 25, finished last (er, second) in the B final.

Speed Skating: One event left -- the women's 5,000-metre, in which Katarzyna Wójcicka, 25, skating for Poland, finished 16th. Her time was 7:28.09, about 29 seconds off the pace. It's worth mentioning that this is Wójcicka's fourth event: she finished 10th in the 3,000-metre, eighth in the 1,000-metre and 11th in the 1,500-metre races. Don't for a moment think that last-place finishers are always in the back of the field; 'tain't always so.

Standings to date: With only one event still to report its last-place finisher -- the men's 50-km cross-country ski race -- we're almost there. Japan inches into second place, with as many last-place finishes as Romania but more than three times the athletes. Poland and Latvia move up the top 10, from eighth and ninth to sixth and seventh, respectively. Brazil, Germany and the USA add their second last-place finishes and move into the top 20.

Early Results for Saturday, February 25

Biathlon: The results for this morning's biathlon events are already in, so I'll report them now before the deluge of later events. In the men's 15-km mass start, 36-year-old Kyoji Suga of Japan finished 30th, 4:41.6 behind the gold medallist's time of 47:20. In the women's 12.5-km mass start, Polish skier Krystyna Pałka, 22, was also 30th, finishing 5:55 behind the gold medallist, whose time was 40:36.5.

Standings to date: Japan and Poland add another to their results; Japan moves into fourth place and Poland into eighth.

Later today: men's slalom, four-man bobsled, women's 5,000-metre speed skating, and in short track, the men's 500, women's 1,000 and men's 5,000-metre relay.

Results for Friday, February 24

Only a few events to report on today; the Games are definitely beginning to wind down. Tomorrow will be much bigger, though.

Alpine Skiing: The last women's event in alpine skiing was the giant slalom, where 22-year-old Mirella Arnhold of Brazil was 43rd with a time after two runs of 2:49.17 -- about 40 seconds off the pace. As usual, a huge number of competitors did not complete the race: 18 DNFs, three DNSes and one disqualification.

Cross-country Skiing: The big long ski on the women's side is the mass start 30-km free, which saw Romanian skier Monika Gyorgy, 23, come in 50th. Her time was 1:35:25.4, or 13 minutes behind the gold medallist. There were 11 DNFs and one DNS.

Speed Skating: In the penultimate long-track event, the gruelling men's 10,000-metre, American skater Charles Ryan Leveille Cox, 22, was 15th. His time of 14:14.81 was quite a bit off the pace -- more than a minute thirteen behind the gold medallist and nearly half a minute behind the next-to-last-place finisher -- but keep in mind that, even as the slowest skater in that field, he skated more than six miles in less than 15 minutes. Just try to wrap your head around that for a moment. There was one disqualification.

Standings to date: To my surprise, Romania is strengthening its hold on the lead with a sixth last-place finish. Brazil has its first last-place finish -- to my surprise, they have more athletes here than Bosnia or Lithuania, countries with actual, palpable snow. And the Americans also enter the board, finally; I was wondering when they'd show up.

Late Results for Thursday, February 23

Figure Skating: In women's figure skating, 25-year-old Anastasia Gimazetdinova of Uzbekistan was 29th after the short program with 38.44 points, and did not advance to the free skate (the top 24 did).

Freestyle Skiing: Clyde Getty, the 44-year-old from Colorado who's representing his parents' country of Argentina, is getting a bit of attention at these games; he's easily the media favourite among last-place finishers in Torino. During the 1990s he was on the U.S. team, but switched to Argentina when he could no longer make the cut. This is his second Olympics. He drew notice when he face-planted on the landing one of his jumps, losing both of his skies, in the preliminaries for the men's aerials on Monday, but his age (on the high side for just about any sport except curling) and his raw enthusiasm don't hurt either. He ended up finishing 28th, incidentally, with a score of 79.88; the next-to-last-place finisher's score was 70 points higher. (He received zero points for landing on his second jump.)

Standings to date: Argentina adds a second last-place finish; Uzbekistan enters the race.

Early Results for Thursday, February 23

Biathlon: The women's 4×6-km relay ran this morning, and the team from Latvia -- comprised of Madara Līduma, 23, Anžela Brice, 35, Linda Savļaka, 22, and Gerda Krūmiņa, 21 -- came in 18th. Their time of 1:26:21.3 was 10:08.8 behind the gold-medal team, but there were five teams who were nine minutes or more back.

Curling: The finals aren't done yet -- the gold-medal game runs later today for the women, and the medal games run tomorrow for the men -- but the last-place finishers in round-robin play have already been assigned, so I might as well not wait any longer to report them. On the women's side, that's Italy; on the men's side, that's New Zealand. Each team finished 10th.

Hockey: Similarly, even though we won't know who won until Sunday, I can report that Latvia finished last -- 12th -- in men's hockey, thanks to their single point in the preliminary round.

Snowboarding: The last snowboarding event is the women's parallel giant slalom, which just wrapped up. Swedish competitor Sara Fischer, 26, did not finish one of her qualifying runs and as a result was ranked 30th in the competition.

Standings to date: Sweden finally enters the standings, in 34th place; New Zealand enters in 28th. Latvia, with two more last-place finishes, moves up to 8th place, while host country Italy defies expectations with only its second last-place finish, moving into 17th place.

Later today: men's aerials, women's figure skating.

Late Results for Wednesday, February 22

Alpine Skiing: In the women's slalom, Indian skier Neha Ahuja, 24, finished 51st. Her time after two runs was 1:56.16 -- 27 seconds behind the gold medallist. A total of 13 people were disqualified, did not finish or did not start. Here's an article celebrating her status as the first woman from India to qualify for the Winter Olympics.

Freestyle Skiing: In women's aerials, 25-year-old Australian skier Elizabeth Gardner finished 23rd in the qualification round with a score of 127.42. For comparison, the gold medallist's score in the final round was 202.55.

Short Track: Only eight teams in the women's 3,000-metre relay, and they all made the finals, so, for once, the last-place finisher is elementary: it's whoever came fourth in the B final. In this case, that's Japan, who I guess finished 7th because China was disqualified in the A final. The team members are Yuka Kamino, 25, Mika Ozawa, 20, Chikage Tanaka, 32, and Nobuko Yamada, 34.

Speed Skating: Over on the long track, Romania's Daniela Oltean, who came last in the women's 1,000-metre on Sunday, finished 35th again in the women's 1,500-metre today. Her time of 2:09.24 was nearly 14 seconds behind that of the gold medallist. It probably didn't help that she had to skate alone in her race rather than be paired against another skater.

Standings to date: Romania regains the lead, Japan moves into fifth place, and India and Australia enter the standings in 20th and 29th place, respectively.

Early Results for Wednesday, February 22

Cross-country Skiing: The men's and women's sprint events ran today; I'm assigning the DFL to the slowest time in the qualification round. The first 30 skiers qualified for the quarterfinals in each event. In the women's sprint qualification, Greek skier Panagiota Tsakiri, all of 15 years old, finished 66th with a time of 2:43.28, more than 30 seconds off the pace. The women's sprint is 1.1 km. In the men's sprint qualification, 22-year-old Edmond Khachatryan of Armenia was 80th with a time of 2:49.98, about 36½ seconds off the pace. The men's sprint is 1.3 km.

Snowboarding: In the men's parallel giant slalom, I'm going with the last-place result in the elimination round, which is less ambiguous than the qualification round. In that elimination round, Austrian boarder Alexander Maier, 31, was ranked 30th; he was disqualified on one run so a comparison of his time is meaningless. One boarder was disqualified during the qualification round.

Standings to date: Armenia enters the standings in 20th place, Greece moves from 19th to 10th, and Austria moves from 13th to 7th.

Later today: A whole swack of women's events: 1,500-metre speed skating, slalom, aerials, and, in short track, the 3,000-metre relay.

Late Results for Monday, February 20

Figure Skating: In the ice dance competition, Ukraine's second team, Julia Golovina, 23, and Oleg Voiko, 25, finished 23rd (one team had to withdraw due to injury) with a score of 128.49. The gold medallists' score was 200.64.

Ski Jumping: The last ski jumping event -- the large hill (K120) team competition -- ran today. Wherein the Chinese team of Li Yang, 25, Yang Guang, 21, Wang Jianxun, 24, and Tian Zhandong, 22, finished 16th in the first round with a score of 206.1 -- about 70 points behind the 15th-place team and nearly 270 points behind the gold medallists -- and did not advance to the final round. (Only the top eight teams did so.)

Standings to date: Both China and Ukraine edge closer to the top with their fourth last-place finishes each.

Early Results for Monday, February 20

Alpine Skiing: As many competitors -- 41 -- failed to finish (DNF, DNS or DQ) in the men's giant slalom as actually finished the race. But, in the end, Kyrgyz skier Ivan Borisov, 26, finished 41st. His time after two runs was 3:37.10 -- more than a minute behind the gold medallist and a full half-minute behind the next-to-last finisher, and can be attributed to a very poor first run (his second run was much more in line with the rest of the field, while still last. Borisov is Kyrgyzstan's lone athlete at these Games.

In the women's Super-G, rescheduled from yesterday, Algerian skier Christelle Laura Douibi added a second last-place finish with her 51st-place time of 1:43.54 -- 11.07 seconds behind the gold medallist. There were two DNSes, two DNFs and one disqualification. We last saw Douibi finishing last in the women's downhill.

Hockey: While the medals have yet to be decided in women's hockey, I'm able to assign a last-place finish based on the outcome of the placement round game for 7th/8th place. That game is now over, and, with Switzerland beating Italy 11-0, that means host country Italy places last overall in this event.

Standings to date: Because of the automatic qualification rules for host countries, I expect them to do well in the last-place sweepstakes -- apart from entering into sports that they may not otherwise have qualified for, they've just got that many more opportunities. It says something, then, that it's taken until now for Italy to enter the standings. And, of course, because host countries send huge teams, they're at the bottom of the list with their single last-place finish.

On the other hand, because of the way I rank things, small delegations -- like those of Algeria (2) and Kyrgyzstan (1) -- tend to rank quite highly (at 7th in a three-way tie for 14th, respectively) as soon as one or two last-place finishes occur. It's magnified when the same athlete places last more than once -- which can happen at the Winter Games, where good (if not great) athletes have the opportunity to compete in multiple events in the alpine, cross-country and speed skating disciplines.

Not that the standings have any real value, but I know some of you like to chew over them.

Later today: ice dance (what? we should have known who came 24th before the Opening Ceremonies!) and team ski jumping.

Results for Sunday, February 19

Alpine Skiing: Due to bad weather, the women's Super-G has been rescheduled until tomorrow.

Bobsled: The Hungarian team of Márton Gyulai, 26, and Bertalan Pintér, 32, finished 29th in the men's two-man bobsled. Those not in the top 20 apparently did not make a fourth run; their combined time of 2:53.01 was based on three runs -- at that point they were 2.39 seconds back.

Cross-country Skiing: In the men's 4×10-kilometre relay, the Austrian team of Roland Diethart, 32, Johannes Eder, 26, Jürgen Pinter, 26, and Martin Tauber, 29, was lapped during the fourth leg, at which point their race was over; they placed 16th as a result.

Now there's a bit of news behind this last-place finish. The Austrian skiers claim that their race was "ruined" because they were subject to a raid the night before by Italian police looking for evidence of doping, along with late-night doping tests. The raid occurred because of a tip that Walter Mayer was in Torino with the Austrian athletes. Mayer had been banned by the IOC for ten years for being suspected of conducting blood transfusions at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games after equipment was found in a chalet. Despite the controversy surrounding Mayer, however, he's still head of Austria's cross-country skiing and biathlon program. If the Austrians test positive for anything, they will be stripped of their DFL according to precedent.

Speed Skating: 25-year-old Romanian skater Daniela Oltean finished 35th in the women's 1,000-metre with a time of 1:21.70. That was 5.65 seconds behind the gold medallist. There was one DNF.

Standings to date: Austria enters the standings near the back, Hungary moves into eighth place, and, due to a smaller contingent than South Korea's, Romania regains the lead.

Late Results for Saturday, February 18

Short Track Speed Skating: This is always a complicated event to report, especially when the slowest athlete in the heats nevertheless qualifies (and then puts in a faster time in the semis) and others with faster times are eliminated -- that's heats-based sport for you. So, especially in the case of the men's 1,000 metre, I've had to go with the slowest nonqualifying time in the heats (which took place on Wednesday), to wit, that of 19-year-old Russian skater Vyacheslav Kurginian. His time of 1:36.070 was not the slowest, but everyone who had a slower time qualified out of their heats and then put in a faster time in the quarterfinals, so I've had to go with Kurginian for an admittedly arbitrary DFL.

In the women's 1,500 metre, it was a good deal more straightforward: Chinese skater Cheng Xiaolei, 24, had the slowest time in the heats: 2:50.017.

Ski Jumping: In the individual large hill (K120) event, Canadian Graeme Gorham, 18, finished 50th with a score of 61.1 and did not advance past the first round. Here's a profile of Gorham from the Sun media chain. [I made an error in these results; see correction.]

Speed Skating: In the men's 1,000-metre, Chinese skater Lu Zhuo, 25, finished 38th with a time of 1:12.69 -- less that four seconds off the gold-medal pace. It's marked as a reskate in the results; presumably something happened the first time around that resulted in the skater he was paired against being disqualified and him being allowed a do-over.

Standings to date: The law of averages almost requires that large teams -- like Russia's and Canada's -- will have multiple last-place finishes: your team has more depth, and there are more opportunities for things to go awry. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for medium-sized teams like China's -- and there aren't many countries with more than 80 athletes. Anyway, the upshot of this is that Russia takes the lead -- briefly held since this morning by Chile -- with four last-place finishes despite its large contingent. China is now sixth, and Canada -- with one of the largest delegations here -- is at the back of the single-last-place-finisher pack.

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.

Late Results for Friday, February 17

Alpine Skiing: The downhill portion of the women's combined event has been postponed until tomorrow due to bad weather.

Skeleton: In the men's event, 41-year-old Patrick Antaki, representing Lebanon, finished 27th with a combined time of 2:04.44 -- about 8½ seconds behind the gold medallist.

Standings to date: Antaki is one of only three Lebanese athletes, so his last-place finish puts Lebanon into 12th place behind Algeria.

Early Results for Friday, February 17

Cross-country Skiing: In case you're wondering, no, the skiers from Brazil, Kenya and Ethiopia did not finish last in the men's 15-kilometre classical, though they were in the back of the pack. No, the last-place finisher was 48-year-old Prawat Nagvajara, the lone athlete from Thailand at these Games. He finished 97th; his time was 1:07:15.9, more than 29 minutes behind the gold medallist. (More on Professor Nagvajara in a moment.) Only two skiers were more than 20 minutes back; another eleven skiers were more than 10 minutes back; there were two DNFs. It looks like this event may be one of the more open ones at the Winter Games (see the qualifying rules); many of the athletes who are the sole representatives of their countries were in this race.

Snowboarding: The finals for the women's snowboard cross have not yet been run, but I'm already able to assign a last-place finish in this event based on the qualification runs. 25-year-old French boarder Julie Pomagalski was disqualified on her second run and had to make do with her first-run time of 1:36.32, which was 8.47 seconds behind the leader and left her in 23rd place; the top 16 advanced.

Standings to date: Thailand is now the first country to have as many last-place finishes as athletes; France enters the top ten.

Later today: men's skeleton; women's alpine combined.

Late Results for Thursday, February 16

Figure Skating: Of 30 skaters to enter the men's singles competition, 24 qualified for the free skate. Of the six that didn't make it out of the short program, 27-year-old Han Jong In of North Korea was 30th with a score of 42.11. Qualifying skaters had between 55 and 90 points.

Skeleton: Of 15 athletes entered in the women's skeleton, Polish sledder Monika Wołowiec, who turned 30 on Tuesday, finished 15th with a combined time after two runs of 2:05.30 -- about 5½ seconds behind the gold medallist. Wołowiec currently lives and trains in Park City, Utah; here's an article about her from the local paper, The Park Record.

Speed Skating: The team pursuit finals for both men and women ran today. Only eight teams were in each event, and all teams made it to a final of some sort. The last-place finishers will be the ones who placed second in the D final. On the women's side, that was China; on the men's side, that was Japan.

Standings to date: China and North Korea enter the standings, Poland moves into sixth place and Japan moves into eighth. Romania still leads, followed by South Korea and Russia. Remember that the standings can be found via the sidebar at right.

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.

Results for Wednesday, February 15

Alpine Skiing: Algeria sent two athletes to Torino; one of them, Christelle Laura Douibi, 20, finished 40th in the women's downhill today. Her time of 2:09.68 was 13.19 seconds behind the gold medallist's time. There was one DNS and four DNFs.

Freestyle Skiing: In men's moguls, Russian skier Vitaly Glushchenko, 28, finished 35th in the qualifying round, with a total score of 12.75, and did not advance to the final; the gold medallist's score in the final was 26.77.

Luge: A pair of 18-year-olds from Romania, Cosmin Chetroiu and Ionuţ Ţăran, finished 18th in the luge doubles; their time after two runs was 1:39.593, about five seconds behind the gold medallists. Three teams did not finish.

Nordic Combined: The remainder of the team event has been postponed until tomorrow. Bad weather.

Short Track Speed Skating: The women's 500-metre final was run today, but the heats were run on Sunday. The slowest heat time was put in by Hungarian skater Rózsa Darázs, whose time of 1:10.558 was considerably behind the rest -- the gold medallist's time in the final, for example, was 0:44.345. The 18-year-old Darázs was Hungary's flag-bearer during the Opening Ceremonies; I haven't been able to find any news that indicated a fall or crash, but it's almost certainly something along those lines.

Standings to date: Additional last-place finishes move Romania and Russia up the standings, Romania into first place -- overtaking South Korea! -- and Russia into fifth. Algeria, with only two athletes at these Games (more on small delegations from Runner-Up) slides into sixth.

Late Results for Tuesday, February 14

Alpine Skiing: With a total of three DNSes, 19 DNFs, and three DQs, I'm amazed that anyone managed to finish the men's combined. But 35 of them did, and in 35th place was Romanian skier Florentin-Daniel Nicolae, who we last saw finishing last in the men's downhill (see previous entry). He wasn't dead last in either the downhill or the slalom portions, but those who were behind him in the downhill were ahead of him in the slalom, and vice versa. His total combined time was 3:31.89 -- 22.54 seconds behind the gold medallist.

Luge: In the women's event, which saw a total of five DNFs (due to crashes during a run) and one DNS, Argentine sledder Michelle Despain -- a 21-year-old dual citizen from Utah -- finished 24th with a time, after four runs, of 3:27.141 -- just over 19 seconds behind the gold medallist.

Speed Skating: In the women's 500-metre event, Yulia Nemaya, 28, of Russia finished 29th, thanks to a fall during her second race; she had been in 19th place after her first race. Her total time was 112.39 seconds, or nearly 36 seconds behind the gold medallist and nearly 32 seconds behind the next-to-last-place finisher. In other words, that fall cost her more than half a minute. There was one disqualification.

Standings to date: Russia and Argentina enter the standings, and Romania, by adding its second last-place finish, moves into third place behind South Korea and Turkey.

Early Results for Tuesday, February 14

Biathlon: Karolis Zlatkauskas of Lithuania, who turns 21 on Sunday, finished 90th in the men's 10-kilometre sprint with a time of 34:33.8, which is 8:22.2 behind the gold medallist.

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's team sprint (two women, three 1.1-km laps each), the slowest heat time came in the first semifinal, where the Ukrainian team of Marina Malets Lisogor, 22, and Tatiana Zavalij, 24, came eighth with a time of 19:14.1; the gold medal pair's time in the final was 16:36.9.

And in the men's team sprint (two men, three 1.3-km laps each), Turkish skiers Sabahattin Oglago -- who came last in the 30-km pursuit (see previous entry) -- and Muhammet Kizilarslan, 19, finished last in their semifinal with a time of 19:46.5; the gold medallists' time in the final was 17:02.9.

Standings to date: Turkey and Ukraine are giving South Korea a run for its money: they now have two last-place finishes each. Lithuania joins the board.

Later today: Women's luge, women's 500-metre speed skating, and the men's combined event in alpine skiing.

Late Results for Monday, February 13

Speed Skating: The men's 500-metre competition consists of two races, with the final score being the sum of both runs. South Korean skater Kwon Sun Chun, 22, fell during his first race and ended up finishing 37th, with a combined time of 94.79 seconds. That's 25 seconds behind the gold medallist, and nearly seven seconds behind the next-to-last-place finisher, who fell during the second race.

Figure Skating: The North Korean pairs team, in last place after the short program, withdrew after an injury during practice. That left the field open for Bulgarians Rumiana Spassova and Stanimir Todorov, who finished 19th in the pairs event with a combined score of 111.25. For comparison, the gold medalllists' total score was 204.48.

Standings to date: South Korea's lead strengthens with a third last-place finish -- will anyone be able to catch them? Bulgaria joins the standings, where, except for South Korea, every country has only one last-place finish. But the Olympics are still young; we've only completed day three.

(Post corrected. I mistakenly identified Ukrainians Andrei Bekh and Julia Beloglazova as the last-place finishers in pairs figure skating; they only finished last in the free skate. Thanks to Electric Landlady in the comments for the correction.)

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.

Late Results for Sunday, February 12

Speed Skating: 24-year-old Nataliya Rybakova of Kazakhstan finished 28th in the women's 3000 metre event. Her time of 4:38.76 was 36½ seconds behind the gold medallist and 12 seconds behind the next-to-last-place finisher.

Luge: An extremely slow third run put Mark Hatton, 32, of Great Britain in 35th place in the men's single competition. Compare his combined time of 4:12.899 (after four runs) with the gold medallist's time of 3:26.088. Two other competitors had runs in excess of a minute. It turns out that you need to complete all four runs to finish; a spill on the fourth run created the event's lone DNF despite three clean previous runs.

Ski Jumping: Estonian ski jumper Jaan Jüris, 28, received a score of 88.5 in the preliminary round of the individual normal hill event and, like everyone else not in the top 30, did not advance to the final round. He finished 50th overall; the gold medallist's score after two rounds was 266.5, or 131.0 and 135.5 on each jump, respectively. [I made an error in these results; see correction.]

Short Track Speed Skating is a little trickier to report on because it's based on heats rather than times: it frequently occurs that a winning time in one heat is slower than the slowest time in another. Your time, in other words, doesn't matter insofar as the standings are concerned. So I'm making an executive decision to post the slowest time overall, whether it comes in the heats, semis or finals. (If nothing else, they record world-record times in this sport, don't they?) Anyway, that's a long enough prologue to some actual results, to wit, those from the men's 1,500-metre individual event (results: heats, semis, finals), where 23-year-old French skater Jean-Charles Mattei had the slowest time -- 2:43.543, well back of other results. Though I didn't see his race, that time suggests to me that he crashed, got up and finished, or something along those lines -- I've seen that sort of thing happen often enough in short track.

Standings to date: Nothing earth-shattering to report; just a bunch of countries putting their first last-place finishes on the board. South Korea still leads for the moment.

Early Results for Sunday, February 12

Alpine Skiing: Romanian skier Florentin-Daniel Nicolae, 25, finished 53rd in the men's downhill this morning. With a time of 2:00.93, he was 12 seconds behind the gold medallist and a bit more than a second behind the next-to-last finisher. There were two DNFs.

Cross-country Skiing: Two pursuit races ran this morning. The explanatory book for cross-country skiing at Torino (1.5 MB PDF file) explains how pursuit works:

The pursuit competition comprises two parts for which one medal is awarded (in the past there were two medals for each part of the pursuit). The first part of the men’s pursuit competition will be a 15 km mass start Classical Technique race. After the 15 km, the athletes come to the stadium, change their skis and the ski poles in allocated boxes as quickly as possible whilst the clock is still running and continue the competition with 15 km in Free Technique. The first athlete to cross the finish line after the second part of competition is the winner. The first part of the ladies' pursuit competition will be a 7.5 km mass start Classical Technique race. After the 7.5 km, the athletes come to the stadium, change their skis and the ski poles in allocated boxes as quickly as possible whilst the clock is still running and continue the competition with 7.5 km in Free Technique. The first athlete to cross the finish line in the second part of the competition is the winner.

In the women's 15-km pursuit, 26-year-old Maja Kezele of Croatia finished 64th with a total time of 51:36.3, which was 8:47.6 behind the gold medallist and nearly 20 seconds behind the skiier finishing 63rd. There were three DNFs. Later, in the men's 30-km pursuit, Turkish skier Sabahattin Oglago, 22, finished 66th with a total time of 1:28:03.8 -- more than 11 minutes behind the gold medallist and 45 seconds behind the next-to-last skier. There was one DNS and a whopping 10 DNFs.

Snowboarding: In the men's halfpipe (not the water pipe, silly), Polish snowboarder Mateusz Ligocki, 24, finished 44th in the preliminary round and did not advance. I don't know what happened; his score of 4.0 is quite low compared with the 30s and 40s in the final round.

Standings to date: Turkey's small Olympic delegation (seven athletes by the numbers available to me) means that their single last-place finish puts them in third place.

Results for Saturday, February 11

Biathlon: In the men's 20-km individual event, Stavros Christoforidis, 31, of Greece, finished 88th with a time of 1:13:13.3, nearly 19 minutes behind the gold medallist. Christoforidis, ranked 43rd on the Nations Cup circuit, apparently didn't shoot well, receiving a total of 11 penalties. There was one DNS.

Nordic Combined: The Individual Gundersen event works like this: your score from two ski jumps determines how far behind the leader you start in the 15-km cross-country ski race. An athlete who's a strong skier but a weak jumper would start further behind but catch up during the race, and vice versa. It all takes place in a single day, and your result is determined by the race result. After two jumps, Ukrainian Volodymyr Trachuk, 21, was last with a score of 140. As a result he started 8:10 behind the leader, and remained at the end of the pack, finishing 48th with a time of 43:45.2, just over 12 minutes behind the gold medallist. There was one DNS before the second jump, and one DNF during the race.

Speed Skating: South Korean Yeo Sang Yeop, 21, finished 28th in the men's 5,000-metre event with a time of 6:58.13 -- 43½ seconds behind the gold medallist.

Freestyle Skiing: In women's moguls -- the official sport of reconstructive knee surgeons everywhere -- Yoon Chae Rin finished 30th in the preliminary round with a relatively low score of 7.07 (out of 30; the gold medallist got 26.67 in the preliminary round and 26.50 in the final). But here's the impressive part: Yoon is only 15 years old.

Standings to date: These four results open our last-place standings for the Torino Winter Games -- and, so far, South Korea has opened an early lead with two last-place finishes. But I expect that this will change in fairly short order.

Results for the Men's Marathon

Now that the race is over, I don't think the last-place finisher is likely to make any headlines. For one thing, most of the media attention is going to be focused on the bizarre attack on Vanderlei Lima by a disturbed former priest from Ireland who wanted to prepare for the Second Coming. For another, the results were closer than you might expect, with the last-place finish less than 40 minutes behind the first. Marcel Matanin of Slovakia finished 81st with a time of 2:50:26; the winner's time was 2:10:55. This was a difficult race, with lots of elevation changes and in hot and humid conditions. As was the case with the women's marathon, there were a lot of DNFs -- 20 in all. But as one of the CBC commentators pointed out during their live coverage, "99.9 per cent of the population could not keep pace for one kilometre." Finishing is an achievement. Being able to complete even a portion of this race under these conditions is an achievement.

Results for Sunday, August 29

Rhythmic Gymnastics: In the qualifying rounds for the individual all-around, Wania Monteiro of Cape Verde finished 24th with a score of 71.900; qualifiers for the final had scores of 95.925 or more. She had fairly low technical marks but otherwise didn't do all that badly, from what I can tell.

Handball: The medal finals were held today. In the women's 9/10 classification match Thursday, Greece lost to Angola 38-23 and finished 10th; they were 0-4 in the preliminaries. Egypt lost 30-24 to Slovenia in the men's 11/12 classification match and finished 12th; they were 0-5 in the preliminaries.

Volleyball: In men's volleyball, Australia won fewer sets than Tunisia, so while they both finished the prelims with 0-5 records and are ranked tied for 11th, I'm awarding the last-place finish to Australia.

Water Polo: Egypt was 0-5 in the preliminary round of men's water polo and on Friday lost the 11/12 classification match to Kazakhstan 15-7, so they finished 12th.

Standings to date: Cape Verde is the 103rd (and possibly final) country to make the standings. Thanks to last-place finishes in team sports for which it was able to qualify, Egypt makes a last-minute dash for the "top", Australia slips into second place and Greece -- which, as host country, was able to enter a number of team events that it might not otherwise qualify for -- solidifies its lead with 13 last-place finishes, five more than Australia.

All that's left now is the marathon, which is in progress now.

Results for Saturday, August 28

Athletics: Women's high jump: Australia's Petrina Price and one other athlete cleared 1.80 metres, but she finishes last because she took more attempts to do it. The winner's final height was 2.06 metres. Women's 1,500 metre: Sumaira Zahoor of Pakistan had the slowest heat time of 4:49.33, about five seconds behind the next-slowest time; the winner's time in the final was 3:57.90. Men's javelin: Edi Ponos of Croatia -- his best throw was 71.43 metres; the winner's best in the final was 86.50 metres. Men's 800 metre: Cornelius Sibe of Surinam had a heat time of 2:00.06, the only result above two minutes; the winner's final time was 1:44.45. Men's 5,000-metre: Sergiy Lebid of Ukraine with a heat time of 14:10.23; the winner's final time was 13:14.39. There was one DNF. Men's 4×100-metre relay: The only result above 39 seconds came from the relay team from Russia: 39.19 seconds, which they put in in the heats. The winner's final time was 38.07 seconds. Doesn't that seem close to you? Women's 4×400-metre relay: Greece had a bad run in the final, finishing at 3:45.70, but they did make it there; the slowest heat time was put in by Senegal at 3:35.18. The fastest final time was 3:19.01. Men's 4×400-metre relay: Spain had, at 3:05.03, the slowest heat time; the winning final time was 2:55.91. And that's it for track and field except for one event -- the marathon today.

Basketball: On the women's side, South Korea finished 12th with an 0-6 record. It was the same result for Angola on the men's side: they too finished 0-6 and 12th.

Canoe/Kayak (Flatwater Racing): Men's 500-metre K1: For some reason the Athens 2004 site isn't covering the results of heat four, where Steven Ferguson (see previous entries: New Zealand Kayaking Controversy, Steven Ferguson Update) finished last with the slowest time of 2:06.937. He had to work at it to finish last, though, because the next slowest kayaker was only four seconds ahead of him, and though that kayaker was a good 15 seconds behind everyone else, he qualified for the semifinal. Ferguson was the only one not to do so -- which is, of course, what he wanted. Men's 500-metre C1: This one's tricky, because everybody made it out of the prelims and posted different results in the semis -- i.e., the person with the slowest time in the prelims was not the same as the one slowest in the semis. To square this circle, I'm going to go to the slowest semifinal time, which was put in by Emanuel Horvaticek of Croatia and which was the slowest time overall: 2:06.347. Women's 500-metre K1: Thi Cach Doan of Vietnam had the slowest heat time, 2:06.126, but Indonesia's Sarce Aronggear was the only competitor not to advance from the prelims, so the last-place finish goes to her rather than Thi. (I'm really having to split hairs in these events!) Men's 500-metre K2: The Chinese twosome of Yijun Yin and Lei Wang had the slowest time in the prelims, made the semis, and finished last there. They were about eight seconds behind the winner in each case. Men's 500-metre C2: Americans Jordan Malloch and Nathan Johnson finished last in the repechage here, too. Women's 500-metre K2: Paula Harvey and Susan Tegg of Australia also finished last in their repechage.

Cycling: In the men's mountain bike event, Emmanouil Kotoulas of Greece placed 45th, three laps back, with no time recorded. There were five DNFs.

Diving: In the prelims for the men's 10-metre platform, Andras Hajnal of Hungary finished 33rd with a score of 305.79 -- 207.27 points behind the leader in the preliminaries (who went on to win silver). No diving accidents, just low marks.

Football: Serbia-Montenegro finished 16th.

Rhythmic Gymnastics: Poland finished 10th in the group all-around qualification with a total score of 41.775; qualifiers had scores of between 44.600 and 49.875.

Sailing: In the tornado class, Mauricio Santa Cruz Oliveira and Joao Carlos Jordao finished 17th with 172 total points and 155 net points -- the winners had 48 and 34 points, respectively. And in the star class, Mark Mansfield and Killian Collins finished 17th (142 total, 125 net; the winners had 60 total, 42 net).

Volleyball: Kenya was 0-5 and had less good results than the other 0-5 team, so instead of awarding an 11th-place tie to both, I'm assigning the last-place finish to Kenya.

Standings to date: More than half the countries at these Games now have at least one last-place finish. Australia moves into third place and China moves past Uzbekistan and France to make the top five.

Results for Friday, August 27

Athletics: Men's 50-km walk: Janos Toth of Hungary finished 41st with a time of 4:29:33, nearly 51 minutes behind the winning time of 3:38:46 and a bit more than 9 minutes behind finisher number 40. There were eight DNFs and five DQs for breaking into a run. Men's pole vault: Several vaulters only cleared the opening height of 5.30 metres and no more, but the last-place finish goes, in a tie, to Kim Yoo-Suk (pun not intended) of Korea and Marios Evaggelou of Greece, because they only cleared 5.30 metres on their third attempt. The winner cleared 5.95 metres in the final. Five vaulters received no mark. Women's long jump: Svetlana Pessova of Turkmenistan's best jump in the prelims was 5.64 metres; the winner's best jump in the final was 7.07 metres. Two jumpers received no mark. Women's javelin: Samoan Patsy Selafina Akeli had a best throw of 45.93 metres; the winner's best final throw was 71.53 metres. One athlete received no mark. Men's 110-metre hurdles: Edy Jakariya of Indonesia had the slowest heat time of 14.11 seconds; the winner's final time was 12.91 seconds. Women's 10,000 metre: Natalia Cherches (mais elle ne le trouve pas) of Moldova finished 27th with a time of 34:04.97; the winner's time was 30:24.36. Four DNFs (including Paula Radcliffe, since some of you are probably wondering). Women's 4×100 relay: Greece widens its lead with a reasonably respectable (it seems to me) 44.45-second result in the prelims; the winning time in the final was 41.73 seconds, and there were three DNFs, two in the heats and one in the final.

Canoe/Kayak (Flatwater Racing): I'm guessing that wind was a factor in these events, because in many cases the slowest times were in the final -- everyone, including the winners, was slower. In many cases I'm going to have to go to place rather than time. Men's 1,000-metre K1: Tony Lespoir (Seychelles) had the slowest time in the prelims at 4:17.128, at least half a minute behind anyone else; the winner's final time was 3:25.897. Men's 1,000-metre C1: Paddling for Croatia, Emanuel Horvaticek's time of 4:27.115 was just marginally slower than the next-slowest preliminary result, but both of them were well back; the winner's time in the final was 3:46.201. Women's 500-metre K4: The foursome from the United States were the only team not to advance to the final. Men's 1,000-metre K2: Danila Turchin and Michail Tarasov (Uzbekistan) were the only team not to advance from the first round. Men's 1,000-metre C2: Jordan Malloch and Nathan Johnson (United States) finished last in the repechage. Men's 1,000-metre K4: The foursome from Uzbekistan did not make it out of the repechage. (I'm not sure they call it a repechage, but it functions as one: top finishers in the prelims get a bye to the final, where the bottom end competes in a semifinal where one or more may be eliminated.)

Cycling: In the women's mountain bike event, Cypriot Elina Sofocleous finished 24th. No time was recorded; she was two laps back. Six riders did not finish.

Equestrian: Argentina's Federico Sztyrle finished 77th; he and his horsie, "Who Knows Lilly", retired after the first qualifier.

Field Hockey: After an 0-5 record in the pool matches and losses to South Africa and Argentina in the classification round, Egypt finished 12th in men's field hockey. George Brink wrote in with the following commentary about Egypt's feat in qualifying for the Games:

The automatic qualifiers for the Games are the Continental Champions so while the other game features the European Champions and the Oceania Champions the last place game had the Pan American Champions, Argentina, and the African Champions, Egypt, in it. Egypt won the African Championships as a complete surprise by beating African powerhouse South Africa so it would have been difficult to get a decent bet on them coming last in the Games. Egypt happily fulfilled expectations by losing the 11th/12th place playoff to Argentina, who for most were complete surprise contenders for this position. Still congratulations to Egypt for getting to their first Olympic Games ever.

Indeed.

Modern Pentathlon: Thanks to a DNF in the equestrian portion, Federica Foghetti of Italy finished 32nd with 4,228 points and was 5:05 behind the winner, who had 5,448 points. Due to the horsey problems in both modern pentathlon events, competitors will be given a choice of mounts in 2008: (1) horse; (2) camel; (3) yak; and (4) Komodo dragon -- cloned velociraptors are not likely to be ready by that time.

Synchronized Swimming: Only eight entrants in the team synchronized swimming event, and Greece finished eighth; their score of 92.750 was 6.751 points behind that of the winners.

Standings to date: What can I say? Greece, Greece and more Greece: Greece's lead widens with three more last-place finishes, eleven overall. The United States and Uzbekistan, with two more last-place finishes each from the canoe/kayak events, take third and fourth places. Croatia, Indonesia and the Seychelles make their first appearances. And Samoa joins Brunei and Somalia in the 100 per cent club -- with as many last-place finishes as athletes.

Results for Thursday, August 26

Athletics: Men's long jump: Gregor Cankar of Slovenia had the shortest best jump in the qualifyings at 7.32 metres; the winner's final jump was 8.59 metres. One athlete received no mark. Men's 400-metre hurdles: Ibrahim Tondi of Niger had the slowest heat time of 52.62 seconds; the winner's final time was 47.63 seconds. One athlete was disqualified for running outside his lane. Men's 200 metre: Russel Roman of Palau narrowly edged out a Japanese runner for the slowest heat time -- 24.59 seconds. The winner's final time was 19.79 seconds.

Diving: In the women's 3-metre springboard, Diamantina Georgatou -- who we last saw finishing last in a synchronized diving event (results) -- finished 33rd with a score of 157.56. The leader in the prelims -- who eventually finished 3rd -- had a score of 347.04.

Football: In women's football ("soccer"), Greece was ranked last at the end of the tournament.

Hockey -- or "field hockey" as we say in Canada (never say "ice hockey"): Spain was 0-4 in the prelims and lost the 9-10 classification, finishing 10th. Reader George Brink makes the call: "Spain have just come last in the Women's Olympic Hockey competition losing 4-3 to South Africa by a Golden Goal. This must be the cruelest way to come last having scored the first goal then having fought back from a 3-1 deficit to draw 3-3 at full time only to have the 9th position snatched away from them when South Africa scored the first goal in Extra Time."

Modern Pentathlon: In men's upper-class twit of the year modern pentathlon, Marcin Horbacz of Poland finished 32nd with 4,388 points. He was 4:33 behind the winner, who had 5,480 points. Marcin started relatively strongly, placing 7th and 6th in the shooting and fencing portions, respectively (he's a better shot than the eventual medallists, for example), but a DNF in the riding component put him out of the running. (The results seem to indicate a horse substitution?)

Sailing: Some of you have been wondering, "Where's India?" Wonder no more. After 16 races, Indian sailors Malav Shroff and Sumeet Patel finished 19th in the 49er class, with a score of 292 total points, 253 net points. The winners had 91 and 67, respectively. (Lower is obviously better.)

Triathlon: In the men's triathlon, Marc Jenkins of Great Britain finished 45th with a time of 2:05:33.60, nearly 14½ minutes behind the winner and about a minute and a half behind finisher number 44. There were four DNFs.

Water Polo: Kazakhstan lost to Canada 4-10 in the women's 7th/8th classification game to finish 8th in women's water polo; they were 0-3 in the preliminary round. (Remember that there were only eight spots in this tournament.)

Standings to date: After achieving its rightful place on the throne after my goof of the standings, Greece solidifies its lead with a seventh and eighth last-place finish, denying Poland a chance at the top.

Results for Wednesday, August 25

Athletics: Surprisingly few results to report here today: lots of heats, few finals. Women's 400-metre hurdles: Klodiana Shala of Albania had the slowest result in the heats with the improbable time of 1:00.00 -- one minute even. The winner's final time was 52.82 seconds. Women's hammer throw: Marina Lapina of Azerbaijan had the lowest result in the qualifying rounds, with a best throw of 55.34. The winner's best throw in the final was 75.02 metres. Women's 200-metre: Gladys Thompson of Liberia had a heat time of 27.51 seconds, about 5½ seconds behind the winning final time of 22.05 seconds.

Baseball: Both Italy and Greece finished the prelims with a 1-6 record, but Italy takes last place because it had fewer runs scored and more runs scored against.

Cycling wrapped up today. In the women's points race, Lyudmyla Vypyraylo of Ukraine finished 18th; the bottom three finishers and one DNF each lost a lap after a sprint and finished with negative points. In the men's madison, Oleg Grishkin and Alexey Shmidt finished 17th with one lap point (compared to the winners' 22); there was one DNF. I'm not sure it's possible to figure out a last-place finisher in the men's keirin -- or am I mistaken?

Equestrian: In individual dressage, Gerta Lehmann, riding "Louis" for Greece, finished 51st in the grand prix and did not advance to the grand prix special. Her score was an even 60 per cent; the winner's average after the grand prix freestyle was 79.278 per cent.

Sailing: The last races in the mistral categories were run today. On the men's side, Martin Lapos of Slovakia was 34th after 11 races; on the women's side, Karla Barrera of Puerto Rico was 26th.

Synchronized Swimming: Australia's Amanda Laird and Leonie Nichols finished 24th in the preliminaries; only the top 12 advanced to the finals. If I'm reading the scores right, their score of 38.834 was 10.75 points behind the leaders' score at that stage.

Triathlon: In the women's triathlon, Delphine Pelletier of France finished 44th with a time of 2:22:39.28. That's about a minute behind the next-to-last-place finisher and 17:55.83 behind the winner. Four competitors did not finish after completing the swimming leg, one did not finish after completing the cycling leg, and one was overlapped during the cycling.

Weightlifting: The final weightlifting event was the +105 kg men's category, where Itte Detenamo of Nauru lifted a mere 347.5 kg. The winner's combined total was 472.5 kg. There were three DNFs.

Standings to date: (You all know about the number of athletes being recalibrated, right?) Greece leapfrogs Poland to move into second place, threatening China's lead. Australia and France make the top 5, while Slovakia and Ukraine make big jumps up the standings.

Results for Tuesday, August 24

Athletics: Women's 5,000 metre: This should have been in yesterday's results, but I somehow missed it. Sonia O'Sullivan of Ireland finished 14th with a time of 16:20.90, more than a minute behind the next-to-last finisher and about 95 seconds behind the leader; she appears to have trailed badly at the end. There was one DNF. [Correction] Women's pole vault: Alejandra García of Argentina and Silke Spiegelburg of Germany tied for 13th place with a jump of 4.20 metres on the third attempt; the twelfth-place finisher also vaulted 4.20 but did so on the second attempt, and as a result was ranked higher. The winner vaulted 4.91 metres; one athlete failed to clear the minimum height and received no mark. Men's 3,000-metre steeplechase: In show jumping for humans, Polish runner Jakub Czaja's time of 8:56.24 was the slowest in the heats; the winner's final time was 8:05.81. There were two DNSes and one DNF in the heats. Women's 100-metre hurdles: Canadians may be bemoaning the result in the final (we're very good at bemoaning, actually), but the slowest time in the heats was put in by Maria Joelle Conjungo of the Central African Republic -- 14.24 seconds, compared with the winner's time of 12.37 seconds in the final. Women's 400 metre: Libyan runner Ruwita El Hubti's time of 1:03.57 was the slowest in the heats, but two other runners put in times in excess of a minute. The winner's final time was 49.41 seconds. Men's decathlon: Of 30 athletes competing, Victor Covalenko of Moldova had the lowest score, 6,543 points. The winner had 8,893 points. Victor was the only competitor to score fewer than 7,000 points, but hey, this is the decathlon, okay? Men's 1,500 metre: Despite media expectations that he would be the next Eric the Eel, Robert Caraciolo Mandje did not finish DFL in this event. I'm pleased to report that he came in third-last. (I love it when expectations are confounded.) Instead, Jimmy Anak Ahar of Brunei Darussalam put in the slowest heat time of 4:14.11. Each of the three slowest runners put in times above four minutes; the winner's final time was 3:34.18.

Cycling: In the men's points race, Wong Kam-Po of Hong Kong finished 20th with two points, compared to the winner's 93. Three competitors did not finish. In the women's sprint qualifying round, Evgenia Radanova of Bulgaria finished 12th with a time of 12.457 seconds and a speed of 57.798 km/h; the winner's time and speed in the qualifying were 11.291 seconds and 63.767 km/h, respectively. And in the qualifyings for the men's sprint, German cyclist Stefan Nimke finished 19th (11.338 seconds, 63.503 km/h; the winner's results were 10.177 seconds and 70.747 km/h in the qualifyings).

Diving: The men's 3-metre springboard wrapped up today; in the preliminaries yesterday, Justin Wilcock of the United States finished 32nd with a score of 225.87, 291.72 behind the leader in that round. Justin received a score of zero for his fifth dive, so something unfortunate must have happened, but he was trailing throughout.

Equestrian: They awarded the team jumping medals today; Mexico had the most penalties -- 70 -- after the first round and, like the other teams that did not make the top 10, did not advance to the second round.

Weightlifting started with little tiny people hauling giant weights; now the guys are getting much bigger. And the weights much heavier. Today it was the men's 105-kg class, and Eleei Ilalio of American Samoa was 16th, lifting a total of 295 kg. The winner lifted a combined total of 425 kg, and all but the bottom two were within a few kilos of 400. Six lifters were DNF; all of them trying to lift more weight than Eleei did -- and failing at it.

Standings to date: Poland moves into second place and Bulgaria and Germany make big moves up the board. But the big story is Brunei Darussalam, whose single athlete finished last in his single event. That means that Brunei has scored a perfect 100 per cent in the last-place sweepstakes -- though I suppose that percentages greater than 100 are theoretically possible if an athlete enters, and finishes last in, more than one event. Still!

Results for Monday, August 23

Athletics: Women's 20-km walk: Fumilay Fonseca of São Tomé and Príncipe finished 52nd with a time of 2:04:54, which was 35:42 behind the winner and about 15 minutes behind the next-to-last finisher. Three walkers did not finish and two were disqualified, presumably for breaking into a run. Women's triple jump: Athanasia Perra of Greece had the shortest best jump in the qualifying rounds at 13.19 metres; the winner's final jump was 15.30 metres. Men's discus: Samoan competitor Shaka Sola's result of 51.10 metres was the lowest in the qualifying rounds; the winner's final result was 70.93 metres. Women's 800 metre: With a time of 2:32.10, Sanna Abubkheet of Palestine had the slowest time in the heats, well behind the other competitors and considerably behind the winner's time of 1:56.38. There was one DNF in the heats. Men's 400 metre: Abdulla Mohamed Hussein of Somalia had the slowest heat time, 51.52 seconds. This race was a bit tighter: the winner's final time was an even 44 seconds.

Cycling: In the men's team pursuit qualifying round, New Zealand's foursome finished 10th with a speed of 57.411 km/h. The winning team's speed in the final was 60.445 km/h.

Softball: With a 1-6 record in the preliminaries, Italy ended up at the bottom of the final standings. But bear in mind that only eight teams were in the softball tournament.

Weightlifting: Aruba's Isnaro Faro finished 19th in the men's 94-kg event, lifting a combined total of 307.5 kg. I don't think he was too far off the pace, though: the winner lifted exactly 100 kg more, and those in between lifted from 320 kg on up. Six athletes received DNFs.

Standings to date: Insofar as final results in sports I can figure out a last place finisher for are concerned, this was a comparatively light day. Greece seems determined not to let the most last-place finishes crown slip through its fingers. Results from Palestinian and Somalian competitors are rather distressing: fully half of their Olympic delegations (four each) have now finished last. And it's great to see cute little islands enter the list; I bet you don't even know where São Tomé is!

Results for Sunday, August 22

Athletics: Women's marathon: Luvsanlkhundeg Otgonbayar of Mongolia finished 66th with a time of 3:48:42 -- half an hour behind the 65th-place finisher and over an hour and twenty minutes behind the winner. Sixteen competitors did not finish. Men's high jump: Liu Yang (China) and Alfredo Deza (Peru) both finished at the bottom of their qualifying heats with jumps of 2.10 metres, the minimum required, so I'll award them a last-place tie. Two jumpers received no mark; the gold-medal jump was 2.36 metres. Men's triple jump: Armen Martirosyan of Armenia had the shortest distance in the heats at 15.05 metres; the winning jump in the final was 17.79 metres. Men's 1,500-metre wheelchair: The wheelchair athletes weren't allowed to march with the athletes during the opening ceremonies. Screw that; I'm including them here. Joel Jeannot of France finished 7th with a time of 3:22.14, a little less than 12 seconds off the winning pace. There was one DNF. Women's 800-metre wheelchair: British athlete Tanni Grey Thompson finished 8th with a time of 1:56.87; this was a much closer race, with a bit more than three seconds separating all finishers. Men's hammer throw: Alfred Kruger of the USA had a best throw of 69.38 metres in the qualifying; the winner's best in the final was 83.19 metres. Two tossers received no mark. Men's 100-metre: In the Games' marquee event, the slowest time put in in the heats was by Sultan Saeed of the Maldives at 11.72 seconds; the winner's time was 9.85 seconds.

Cycling: Evelyn Garcia of El Salvador had the 12th-slowest speed in the qualifying rounds of the women's individual pursuit. Her speed was 45.752 km/h; the top eight speeds (you needed a top eight finish to advance to the next round) were between 50.191 and 52.325 km/h in the qualifying round.

Diving: South Africa's Jenna Dreyer finished 34th in the preliminary round of the women's 10-metre platform event. Her score of 186.90 was 184.20 points behind the leader in that round.

Rowing: Whether the last-place finisher is determined in the repechage, the semifinals, or one of the finals seems to depend on the number of entrants. Women's lightweight double sculls: Pham Thi Hien and Nguyen Thi Thi, Vietnam (C final). Men's lightweight double sculls: Three teams did not make it out of the C/D semifinal, but of those three, the Uzbek squad of Sergey Bogdanov and Ruslan Naurzaliyev had the slowest time: 6:45.47. Men's lightweight four: The foursome from Great Britain didn't make it out of the repechage. Women's quadruple sculls: Belarus (B final); only eight teams competed. Men's quadruple sculls: The foursome from France didn't make it out of the repechage. Women's eight: Canada (woe! alack!) didn't make it out of the repechage. Men's eight: Great Britain (B final). And that wraps up rowing.

Sailing: In the women's Europe class, Natalia Ivanova of Russia finished 25th; and Sami Kooheji of Bahrain finished 42nd in the mixed laser class.

Shooting: In the men's 50-metre rifle, three positions, Alexsander Babchenko of Kyrgyzstan finished 40th with a score of 1130; the scores were fairly close together in this event, but you needed a score of 1164 to advance to the final round. And in the men's skeet, Syrian Roger Dahi finished 41st with a score of 106 (those advancing to the final had scores of 122 or better).

Standings to date: China solidifies its hold on first place, France and Kyrgyzstan make a run for the "top", Great Britain makes a "strong" debut, and even more countries get added to the list.

Results for August 20-21

Archery: In the women's team event, Poland finished fourth in the ranking round but ended up 15th and last in the 1/8 eliminations. On the men's side, the archers from Greece stayed in 13th place in both rounds.

Athletics: Lots of heats going on in some events but, as with swimming, I'll wait until the final results before reporting the slowest heat times. Men's 20-km walk: Park Chil Sung of South Korea finished 41st with a time of 1:32:41, 13:01 behind the winner. Men's 10,000 metre: David Galvan of Mexico finished 21st with a time of 29:38.05, more than 2½ minutes behind the winner. Women's discus: Tsvetanka Khristova of Bulgaria threw the shortest final distance -- 43.25 metres -- in the qualifying rounds; the winner's distance in the final was 67.02 m. Women's 100 metre: Somali sprinter Fartun Abukar Omar had the slowest heat time of 14.29 seconds; the winner's final time was 10.93 seconds. Women's heptathlon: In this gruelling two-day event, Shen Shengfei of China finished last with 4949 points [Correction]; the winner had 6952 points.

Canoe/Kayak (Slalom Racing): In the men's C2, Australia's Mark Bellofiore and Lachie Milne finished 12th in the heats with a combined time of 278.36 seconds, more than 77 seconds behind the fastest heat time. In the men's K1, Jens Ewald of Germany finished 25th in the heats with a combined time of 250.09 seconds, more than 63 seconds behind the fastest heat time.

Cycling: Tamilla Abassova of Russia finished 12th in the women's 500-metre time trial with a speed of 51.213 km/h; the winner's speed was 53.016 km/h. In the men's 1-kilometre time trial, Radoslav Konstantinov of Bulgaria's speed of 54.327 km/h earned him 17th place; the winner's speed was 59.297 km/h. In the men's individual pursuit, Hossein Askari of Iran did not advance to the heats after his 15th-place result in the qualifiers (there was one DNS). Nor did the team from Slovakia advance after their 12th-place finish in the qualifying round of the men's team sprint.

Equestrian: In the team dressage event, Switzerland finished 10th with a score of 65.653 per cent; the winning team's score was 74.653 per cent.

Gymnastics: In the complicated event of jumping up and down on a trampoline, very low scores on the second routine during the qualifying round (indicating an incomplete routine on account of bouncing off the damn thing, presumably) pushed the following competitors into last place. Tatiana Petrenia finished 16th with a score of 32.90 (the highest qualifying score was 66.80); on the men's side, it was Peter Jensen of Denmark with a score of 32.70 (the highest score during that round was 69.10).

Rowing: I wish I knew what I was doing. If I read the results right, everyone in rowing makes it to a final, it's just a matter of which. So for our purposes, it's a matter of finding the last-place finisher in the lowest (e.g., D or E) final. Women's single sculls: Doaa Moussa, Egypt (D final). Men's single sculls: Ibrahim Githaiga, Kenya (E final). Men's pairs: Czech rowers Adam Michalek and Petre Imre did not make it out of the repechage. Women's pairs: Sophie Balmary and Virginie Chauvel finished last in the B final, but their time of 7:17.94 would have placed them fifth in the A final. Women's double sculls: Ironically, the B final was faster than the A final (where the medals were awarded), but Russian rowers Olga Samulenkova and Yulya Kalinovskaya finished last there; if they had rowed that time in the A final, they'd have won the silver. Men's double sculls: Lithuanians Kestutis Keblys and Einaras Siadvytis had the slowest time in the repechage and did not advance to the semis. Men's fours: Romania did not make it out of the repechage.

Sailing: In the men's 470, Peter Czegai and Csaba Cserep of Hungary finished 27th. Elisabetta Saccheggiani and Myriam Cutolo of Italy finished 20th in the women's 470. In the men's finn class, Estonia's Imre Taveter finished 25th. And in the yngling class, the three-woman crew of Lisa Ross, Chantal Léger and Deirdre Crampton (Canada) finished 16th.

Shooting: We have a tie for last place in the women's 50-metre rifle, three positions event: both Divna Pesic of Macedonia (we've seen her before) and Kim Frazer of Australia finished 32nd with 555 points in the qualifying rounds. In the men's 50-metre rifle, prone, Reinier Estpinan of Cuba finished 46th in qualifying with 581 points. And Australia's Bruce Quick finished 17th in the men's 25-metre rapid-fire pistol: he had 571 points.

Swimming wrapped up during these two days. Women's 200-metre backstroke: It looks like something happened to Shu Zhan of China during her heat: she led at the 100-metre mark but was seventh at 150 metres. She ended up with the slowest heat time, 2:31.56, even slower than the Uzbek. For comparison, the winner's final time was 2:09.19. Men's 100-metre butterfly: Palestinian Rad Aweisat had the slowest heat time at 1:01.60; the winner's final time was 51.25 seconds. Women's 800-metre freestyle: Khadija Ciss of Senegal had the slowest heat time, at 9:20.05; the fastest time in the final was 8:24.54. Men's 50-metre freestyle: Lots of competitors in the heats here from countries that, shall we say, are not known to be swimming powerhouses. (Okay, which wiseacre said "Canada"?) But someone had to have the slowest time, and it was Yona Walesi of Malawi, at 34.11 seconds; the winner's final time was 21.93 seconds. Women's 50-metre freestyle: Ditto. Laotian swimmer Vilayphone Vongphachanh's time was 36.57 seconds; the winner's final time was 24.58 seconds. Men's 1,500-metre freestyle: Not an event for guys who've just learned to swim. The slowest time -- 16:26.52 -- was put in by Juan Carlos Miguel Mendoza of the Philippines. Compare that to the winner's time of 14:43.40. Women's 4×100-metre medley relay: It's Switzerland with a time of 4:15.54; the winning time in the final was 3:57.32. Men's 4×100-metre medley relay: Brazil's team had the slowest heat time, 3:44.41; the winning time in the final was 3:30.68. Relay team results are a lot closer, yes? And that's it for swimming.

Weightlifting: In the women's 75-kg event, Marie Jesika Dalou of Mauritius was well behind the pack, lifting a combined weight of 130 kg; the next-to-last competitor lifted 207.5 kg and the winner lifted 272.5 kg. In the womens plus-75-kg category, Ivry Shaw of Fiji lifed 185 kg; the winner lifted 305 kg -- the results were more spread out than in other categories, but then so were the competitors' body weights. And Julian McWatt of Guyana finished last in the men's 85-kg event, lifting 272.5 kg; the winner lifted 382.5 kg.

Standings to date: Remind me not to do two days at once again, would you? Anyway, all countries in the "top" 20 have more than one last-place finish. About one-third of the countries participating in Athens now have at least one last-place finish. The top five -- with four or more last-place finishes -- have large teams: their last-place finishers tend to come from their second or third entries in an event, or they're finishing last in a team event with limited entries -- Burkina Faso tends not to enter equestrian competitions -- and with pre-Olympic qualifications.

Results for Thursday, August 19

Shooting: Australia got back on the board as Bryan Wilson finished 19th in the men's 10-metre running target. Andrea Stranovska of Slovakia finished 12th in the women's skeet event.

Swimming: In the women's 200-metre breaststroke, Athina Tzavella of Greece had the slowest heat time (2:40.18); the winner's time in the final was 2:23.37. Kyrgyzstan's Yury Zaharov, with a time of 2:10.45, had the slowest time in the men's 200-metre backstroke, about 15½ seconds behind the winner's final time. As for the men's 200-metre individual medley, Georgios Dimitriadis of Cyprus narrowly edged out a swimmer from Senegal for the slowest time, at 2:12.27; the winner's final time was 1:58.52. And in the women's 100-metre freestyle, Gloria Koussihouede of Benin put in an extraordinarily slow time, comparitively speaking, of 1:30.90, over 37 seconds behind the winner's final time.

Weightlifting: Uganda's Irene Ajambo was well behind the pack in the women's 69-kg category, lifting a total of 150 kg, finishing 9th. In the men's 77 kg, Samoan lifter Uati Maposua lifted a total of 280 kg, finish 21st; the winner lifted 375 kg. As usual, several lifters didn't finish.

Standings to date: Kyrgyzstan takes over top spot from Uzbekistan and Greece moves into the top 5, as even more countries make it onto the increasingly unwieldy list.

Late Results for Wednesday, August 18

Athletics: Just the shot put today in track and field events. The stadium wasn't ready yet, so they made do with some older facilities in nearby Olympia. In the women's shot put, Olga Shchukina puts Uzbekistan into the lead with her last-place score of 14.44; the winner scored 21.06 in the final. It was closer on the men's side, as Bulgaria's Galin Kostadinov finished with a score of 17.75, compared with 21.16 for the winner in the final.

Cycling: In the men's individual time trial, Slawomir Kohut of Poland finished 37th; his time of 1:06:19.29 was 8:47.55 behind the winner.

Equestrian: The three-day eventing competitions wrapped up today: they're a combination of dressage, cross-country race, and show jumping. Jennifer had the cross country on last night and it looked like there were more crashes than at a NASCAR event, though according to the results only seven were eliminated at that stage. (Apparently it used to be much worse.) In the end, Margit Appelt of Austria finished 68th in the individual eventing with 271.80 penalty points; the winner finished with only 41.60 points. In the team event, Poland took 14th place with 376.40 points; the winning team had only 133.80.

Swimming: In the men's 200-metre breaststroke, the slowest heat time was put in by Anton Kramarenko of Kygrgyzstan had the slowest time, 2:28.59, nearly 20 seconds behind the winner's final time. Singapore's Christel Mei-Yen Bouvron was also 20 seconds behind the winner's final time in the women's 200-metre butterfly, with a time of 2:26.21. In the men's 100-metre freestyle, Emery Nziyunvira of Burundi finished 10 seconds behind the winner with a time of 1:09.40. And Slovenia had the slowest heat time in the women's 4×200 freestyle relay, with a time of 8:16.89; the winner's final time was 7:53.42.

Weightlifting: In the men's 69-kg event, Abdul Mohsen Al Bagir (Saudi Arabia) finished 12th with a combined pull of 287.5 kg; the winner lifted 347.5 kg. The women's 63-kg event had fewer entrants, and so Leila Françoise Lassouani (Algeria) finished seventh width a combined pull of 200 kg, compared with the winner's 242.5 kg.

Standings to date: Lots of changes at the top. China is relegated to third place as Uzbekistan and Poland move into the top two spots. Kyrgyzstan and Algeria move up to round out the top five.

Early Results for Wednesday, August 18

Canoe/Kayak (Slalom Racing): In the men's C1 heats yesterday, Chris Ennis Jr. (USA) was 16th with a total time of 290.73 seconds, 89.29 behind the leader; the winner's final time today was 189.16. It was closer in the women's K1 heats, where Slovenia's Nada Mali finished 19th with a total time of 278.49 seconds, 66.28 behind the leader; the winner's final time today was 210.03.

Cycling: The women's individual time trial was held today, and Sweden's Susanne Ljungskog finished 25th with a time of 35:17:25 -- 4:05.72 behind the winner.

Shooting: In the women's double trap, Olympic veteran Susan Nattrass (Canada), who I recall saying that the nature of shooting was such that anyone could finish first or last at this level (or something to that effect), finished 15th today with a score of 88; those who advanced to the final had a score of 108 or more. In the women's 25-metre air pistol, Venezuela's Francis Gorrin -- who finished last in Sunday's 10-metre air pistol -- finished last again, in 37th place with a score of 534. Finalists had scores of 580 or more in that event.

Standings to date: Canada, Slovenia and Sweden enter the race in 32nd, 23rd and 26th place, respectively. Both the United States and Venezuela add their second last-place finishes, moving them into 7th and 3rd place. (Remember, rankings are based in part on the size of their Olympic delegations.)

Late Results for Tuesday, August 17

Gymnastics: Somebody had to come in last in the women's team event, and in the end it was Australia, with 108.847 points. The winning team had 114.283 points. [Correction]

Swimming: In the women's 200-metre freestyle heats, Yuliya Rissik of Kazakhstan had the slowest time of 2:09.93; the winner's final time was 1:58.03. Sergey Pankov of Uzbekistan had a time of 2:13.06 in the men's 200-metre butterfly, well behind the winner's final time of 1:54.04. In the women's 200-metre individual medley, Louise Mai Jansen of Denmark was last; her time of 2:27.08 was nearly 16 seconds behind the winner's final time. And in the men's 4×200 freestyle relay, Hungary had the slowest time of the 16 teams entered: at 7:31.78, they were about 14 seconds back of the final winning time.

Standings to date: Uzbekistan's second last-place finish, combined with its relatively small Olympic delegation, vaults it into second place. Yay Uzbeks! Australia, Denmark, Hungary and Kazakhstan, with larger delegations, appear closer to the bottom of the board, in 29th, 23rd, 24th and 28th places, respectively.

Early Results for Tuesday, August 17

Comparatively few medals get handed out today, so there will be fewer last-place finishes to report. Here's what's available so far.

Shooting: Results for the target shooting events are available early because they only shoot during the daytime. Wusses. Anyway, in the men's 50-metre (free) pistol, we have our first tie for last place: both Chris Rice (U.S. Virgin Islands) and Friedhelm Sack (Namibia) scored 529 points and captured 41st place; competitors advancing to the finals had at least 560 points. In the men's double trap, Finland's Joonas Olkkonen brought up the rear in 25th place with a score of 118 points; the leader had 144 points before the final round.

Standings to date: Three more countries -- Finland, Namibia and the USVI -- with a last-place finish apiece.

Late Results for Monday, August 16

For this entry, think about all the teams that couldn't even qualify to be here. If eight teams are competing in an event, you can be sure it's because there were only eight spaces allocated.

Diving: So because only eight teams compete in a synchronized diving event, let's not get catty about the last-place efforts of Eftychia Pappa-Papavasilopoulo -- say that fast ten times! -- and Florentia Sfakianou (Greece), who finished nearly 80 points behind the winner in the women's synchronized 10-metre platform. Nor should we snark at China's Peng Bo and Wang Kenan, who finished last in the men's synchronized 3-metre springboard -- nearly 70 points behind the winner. (No, instead we should snark at synchronized diving as a sport.)

Gymnastics: In the men's team event, in which, again, eight teams competed, Germany finished eighth -- at 167.372 points, they were less than 6½ points behind the winners. Gymnastics seem to be decided by fractions of fractions in any event. (Fractions of fractions -- enough about the U.S. women's gymnastic team's weight.) [Correction]

Weightlifting: Yacine Zouaki of Morocco finished 16th with a combined lift of 225 kg in the men's 62-kg category. That's nearly 3.7 times his weight; and he weighs a lot less than you. (The winner lifted 325 kg.)

Standings to date: China takes an undisputed lead -- though it also leads the medal count, so go figure. Greece moves into a four-way tie for second. Germany and Morocco join the (now) sixth-place tie.

See previous entries:

Early Results for Monday, August 16

More Results for Monday, August 16

More Results for Monday, August 16

Swimming: Heats in many events take place throughout the day, and it's the slowest time in the heats that I report here, but I wait until the finals have been run -- for comparison purposes -- to report the swimming events. (To reiterate, I compare the slowest time in the heats to the fastest -- i.e. the winner's -- time in the finals.) In the men's 200-metre freestyle, Ruslan Ismailov (Kyrgyzstan) had the slowest heat time of 2:01.53; the winner's final time was 1:44.71. From nearby Turkmenistan, Yelena Rojkova finished last in the women's 100-metre backstroke heats with a time of 1:15.48 -- nearly 15 seconds behind the winner's time. On the men's side, Omar Abu Fares of Jordan had the slowest time (1:02.36), eight seconds back. And in the women's 100-metre breaststroke, Pamela Girimbabazi Rugabira of Rwanda was well back with a time of 1:50.39; the winner's time was 1:06.78.

Standings to date: Four countries -- Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda and Turkmenistan -- join the race for fifth place.

Early Results for Monday, August 16

Most of the finals are scheduled for the evening, but I can report a few bottom results so far.

Shooting: Chinese women's trap shooter Gao E, a world-class competitor, finished 17th with a score of 48; the leader after the qualifying round had 66. Marcel Buerge (Switzerland) finished 47th in the qualifying round of the men's 10-metre air rifle with a score of 576; the finallists had scores of 594 or more. In accordance with ISSF rules, last-place competitors will be taken out and shot.

Weightlifting: In the women's 58-kg category, Mongolia's Bayarmaa Namkhaidorj finished 14th with a combined lift of 195 kg, falling short by only lifting 3.8 times her body weight.

Standings to date: China and Switzerland pick up another point each and move into a four-way tie for first place with Algeria and Egypt, and Mongolia joins the rest in a multi-way tie for fifth.

Results for Sunday, August 15

Cycling: Today it was the women's road race, and the last to finish the 118.8-km course was Michelle Hyland of New Zealand, who, with a time of 3:40:43, finished in 56th place -- 16:19 behind the winner, according to unofficial results. Hyland appears to have brought up the rear of the final seven riders to finish.

Shooting: In the women's 10-metre air pistol, Francis Gorrin of Venezuela finished 41st with a score of 358; the top eight shooters (who made it to the final) had scores between 384 and 387. Francesco Repiso Romero of Andorra -- yes, Andorra -- finished 35th in the men's trap with a score of 106; the top six were well ahead of the rest of the field with scores above 140.

Swimming: In the women's 100-metre butterfly heats, the slowest time -- 1:07.94, slightly more than ten seconds behind the gold medallist's final time -- was put in by Natasha Sara Georgeos of St. Lucia. Nepal's Alice Shrestha finished last in the men's 100-metre breaststroke heat; his time of 1:12.25 was nearly 12 seconds off that of the winner in the final. In the women's 400-metre freestyle, Olga Beresnyeva of Ukraine finished her heat with a time of 4:26.30, well behind the winner's final time of 4:05.34. And in the men's 4×100 freestyle relay, China's team just beat out Greece for the slowest time in the heats (3:24.31, compared with the winning team's world-record time of 3:13.17).

Weightlifting: Virginie Lachaume (France) was eighth of eight in the women's 53-kg category; she lifted a total of 175 kg, compared with 222.5 kg for the winner. In the men's 56-kg category, Ahmed Saad of Egypt finished last in 11th place, lifting a total of 232.5 kg (compared with the winner's 295 kg), but six other lifters did not finish.

Standings to date: Egypt joins Algeria in a two-way tie for first, and a total of 16 countries, from the big (France, China) to the little (Andorra, St. Lucia) share third place. As more results are posted, perhaps some of these ties will be broken -- or perhaps we'll have a 37-way tie for second place! Stay tuned!

Results for Saturday, August 14

Cycling: According to the unofficial results, Dawid Krupa of Poland finished 75th in the men's road race with a time of 6:00:25 -- 18:41 behind the leader. Dozens of riders, of course, did not finish the 224.4-km race.

Diving: It was synchronized diving on Saturday. Mark Ruiz and Kyle Prandi (USA) came in eighth place in the men's synchronized 10-metre platform; their score of 325.44 was 58.44 points behind the gold medallists. In the women's synchronized 3-metre springboard, Diamantina Georgatou and Sotiria Koustopetrou (Greece) grabbed eighth and last place with a score of 270.33 -- 67.57 points behind the leaders.

Fencing: Nassim Islam Bernaoui (Algeria) placed 39th in the men's individual sabre event Saturday. [Update]

Shooting: In the women's 10-metre air rifle, Macedonia's Divna Pesic finished in 44th place with 368 points -- only 20 points behind the gold medallist. And Rudolf Knijnenburg of Bolivia finished 47th in the men's 10-metre air pistol with 548 points -- only 42 points behind. Not that I know anything about shooting, but the spread between first and last seems awfully close.

Swimming: There are no posted overall results, so I've gone by the slowest result from the heats. In the men's 400-metre individual medley, Nikita Polyakov (Uzbekistan) had the slowest time of 5:09.66 -- more than a minute behind the gold-medallist final time of 4:08.26. In the men's 400-metre freestyle, Malta's Neil Agius finished in 4:22.14; the winner's final time was 3:43.10. Sabria Dahane's (Algeria) time of 5:10.20 was nearly 45 seconds off the winner's pace of 4:34.83 in the women's 400-metre individual medley. I expect the spread in team sports to be closer generally, so it's no surprise that in the women's 4×100-metre freestyle relay, the Swiss team's last-place time of 3:47.47 is less than 12 seconds behind that of the winning team.

Weightlifting: In the women's 48-kg class, Egypt's Enga Mohamed lifted a total of 165 kg, finishing in 14th place; the gold-medal winner lifted 210 kg.

Standings to date: Algeria takes an early first-day lead with two last-place finishes! The rest of the field is in a nine-way tie for second with one last-place finish each.