Results for Wednesday, August 20

A comparatively quiet day, medals-wise.

Athletics: In the women's hammer throw qualifying round on Monday, 17-year-old Galina Mityaeva of Tajikistan met her Dr. Horrible in group A, with a best throw of 51.38 metres. Only one other competitor was under 60 metres; the gold medallist's best result in the final was 76.34. Three athletes had no mark. In round one of the men's 200 metre, the slowest time came in heat five: Juan Zeledon of Nicaragua, 22, had a time of 23.39 seconds; the gold medallist's freaky-fast record time in the final was 19.3 seconds. There were three DNSes and one DNF in the heats. The first round of the women's 400-metre hurdles was held on Sunday. Galina Pedan had the only time in excess of a minute; the 25-year-old Krygyz athlete's time was 1:00.31, compared to the 52.64 second-time put in by the gold medallist in the final.

Sailing: In the men's RS:X, Colombian sailor Santiago Grillo, 21, was 35th. In the women's RS:X, 34-year-old Sedef Koktenturk of Turkey was 27th.

Swimming: In the women's 10-km marathon, 16-year-old Antonella Bogarin of Argentina finished 24th. Her time of 2:11:35.9 was 12:08.2 behind the gold medallist; she and one other swimmer were considerably behind the main pack. There was also one DNF, who I really hope was fished out.

Synchronized swimming: In the duet event, the Egyptian team of Dalia El Gebaly, 26, and Reem Abdalazem, 25, was 24th in both the preliminary and technical rounds, and did not advance to the final.

Standings to date: Colombia, Turkey, Egypt and Argentina add their third DFLs, Nicaragua and Tajikistan their second.

Early Results for Sunday, August 17

A lot of results to report on today, so I'll start with a short post on the morning and early afternoon events, and do the rest of the day later.

Athletics: The women's marathon -- a high-profile event insofar as media coverage of last places is concerned -- ran this morning. There was one DNS and 12 DNFs, but the last person to actually finish was Ukraine's Oxana Skylarenko, who finished 69th. The 27-year-old runner's time of 2:55:39 was 28:55 behind the gold medallist, and 1:54 behind she who came 68th.

Shooting: Siddique Umer of Pakistan, 26, finished 49th in the men's 50-metre rifle, three positions; his score of 1,116 fell short of the 1,170 or so needed to qualify for the final, but not by all that much, actually. There was one DNS.

Swimming: In heat two of the women's 50-metre freestyle, 21-year-old Mariama Souley Bana of Niger put in a time of 40.83 seconds, the only plus-40-second time in the event (though there were plenty in the 30s). The gold medallist's time in the finals was 24.06 seconds. There were two DNSes in the heats. In heat one of the men's 1,500-metre freestyle, Turkish swimmer Ediz Yildirimer, who's only 14 bloody years old, had the only 16-minute-plus time in the event, 16:28.79; the gold medallist's final time was nearly 108 seconds faster, at 14:40.84. A reminder: 1,500 metres equals 30 pool lengths. There were two DNSes. Ukraine had the slowest heat time in the women's 4×100-metre medley relay: their time of 4:08.62 was about 16 seconds behind the gold medallists' final time of 3:52.69. In the men's 4×100 medley relay, the slowest heat time was put in by the team from Belarus; at 3:39.39, it was 10 seconds behind the gold medallists' final time.

Standings to date: This will change in a few hours, once I tabulate the results for the rest of the day, but in the meantime, Turkey and Belarus have added their second last-place finishes, and Ukraine jumps onto the board with two DFLs. At the moment, they're in 15th, 17th and 18th place, respectively.

Morning Results for Saturday, August 16

Athletics: The men's 20-km walk just wrapped up; Turkey's Recep Çelik, 25, finished 49th with a time of 1:32:54, which was 13:53 behind the gold medallist. There were two disqualifications.

Swimming: Heats for this morning events were run on Thursday. 17-year-old Christin Zenner of Germany finished last in the second heat of the women's 200-metre backstroke; her time was 2:20.28, just over 15 seconds slower that the gold medallist's final time. There was one DNS. In the men's 100-metre butterfly, Marco Camargo of Ecuador, 19, had the slowest heat time in heat one: his time of 57.48 was just over seven seconds slower than some freak's gold medal time. There was one DNS in the heats here, too. Next, the women's 800-metre freestyle: in heat one, 16-year-old Polish swimmer Karolina Paulina Szczepaniak -- this is why I don't do a podcast -- put in what appears to be a rather slow time of 9:08.87; the gold medal time in the final was 8:14.10. Another DNS in the heats here, too. And finally, the men's 50-metre freestyle, which was an event designated for wild card entries, only one of whom could finish last. The slowest time came in heat two from Stany Kempompo Ngangola, 34, representing the Democratic Republic of Congo (the one that used to be Zaire). His time of 35.19 seconds was 13.89 seconds behind the gold medallist's time of 21.3 seconds in the final.

Mr. Kempompo Ngangola runs a real risk of being anointed the next Eric the Eel by the media. A slow swim from a competitor representing a country in equatorial Africa -- the ostensible parallels are all too obvious. I'll hazard a guess and say that his story will be nothing like Moussambani's, but that won't stop anyone from trying. I only have the numbers at the moment, but let me use what little information I have to place his result in some kind of context. The 50-metre event, as I said, had a number of participants there because of a wild card draw; any one of them could have finished last. Mr. Kempompo Ngangola's heat was particularly slow: all but one had a time of more than 30 seconds. His performance, in other words, was not singularly awful.

What I'm trying to say is this: the first patronizing story I see about this event, watch out.

Standings to date: Poland and Germany each add their third DFLs, moving them into fourth and seventh place, respectively.

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.

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.