DFL

Celebrating last-place finishes at the Olympics. Because they're there, and you're not.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Early Results for Friday, August 15

Archery: In the men's individual event, Joseph Walter Muaausa of Samoa, 46, was 64th in the ranking round and had the lowest score of the round of 64. Fortunately, at least for me, this result is unambiguous; it was entirely possible for the person with the lowest score in the round of 64 to have been ranked higher, or vice versa; someone who set an Olympic record in the round of 16 ended up finishing only 14th.

Canoe/Kayak (Slalom): In the heats of the men's C2, the South African duo of Cyprian Ngidi, 25, and Cameron McIntosh, 32, finished 12th. Their combined time after two runs was 277.2, including a total of 54 penalty seconds. It was the slowest time overall, though the top three times in the heats were faster than the gold medal time in the final, for whatever reason. This was also the case in the women's K1, where, thanks to two and a half minutes in penalties each, two competitors in the finals had slower times than the slowest time in the heats. But, applying my own vague rules as to who gets the DFL, the slowest time in the heats prevails, because these two put in a better score earlier to make it to the final. As a result, the DFL goes to 19-year-old Luuka Jones of New Zealand, with a time of 272.36.

Shooting: Hazem Mohamed of Egypt, 38, finished 56th in the men's 50-metre rifle, prone position; his score of 576 was 18 points behind what would have been needed to qualify for the final.

Swimming: Heats for today's swimming medals were held Wednesday. In heat one of the women's 200-metre breaststroke, Tatiane Sakemi of Brazil, 22, finished with a time of 2:39.13. The gold medallist's world-record time in the final was 2:20.22. There was one DNS in the heats. For once, heat two had the slowest time in an event -- in the men's 200-metre backstroke: Estonia's Andres Olvik, 22, whose time of 2:03.66 was nearly 10 seconds behind the gold medallist's time in the final, which was another world record. There were two DNSes in the heats. Danil Bugakov of Uzbekistan, 20, finished heat one of the men's 200-metre individual medley with a time of 2:10.04; the gold medallist, some nobody, put in a world-record time of 1:54.23 in the final. There was one DNS in the heats. And finally, in the women's 100-metre freestyle, 16-year-old Olga Hachatryan of Turkmenistan, where I'm not sure there is any standing water, finished with a rather slow time of 1:14.77 in heat one; the gold medallist's time in the final was 53.12 seconds. There was one DNS in the heats.

Badminton had a medal today, but it -- like other sports involving rackets or paddles -- is not something for which I can figure out a last place.

Still to come later today: athletics (men's shot put, women's 10,000 metre), cycling (team sprint) and weightlifting.

Standings to date: Egypt and Turkmenistan each add their second DFLs; South Africa and Brazil each add their third, moving into third and fourth place, respectively.

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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Results for Saturday, August 9

Fewer medals are awarded today than on any other day of these Games, which means not very many last-place finishes to report on yet.

Cycling: In the men's road race, 30-year-old Luciano Pagliarini Mendonça of Brazil came 90th with a time of 7 hours, 8 minutes and 27 seconds. That's 44 minutes, 38 seconds behind the first group across the finish line (and two and a half minutes behind the 89th-place finisher), and if that seems like a lot, consider that the race is 245 kilometres (152 miles) long, and that Pagliarini's average speed was around 34 km/h (21 mph) over that distance and time, versus 38 km/h (23 mph) for the winner. There were also 53 DNFs, seven of whom were lapped. Pagliarini is a cyclist of some note: he has a Web site and a Wikipedia entry, which calls him "one of the best of his country."

Shooting: In the women's 10-metre air rifle, Turkmenistan's Yekaterina Arabova, who turns 25 tomorrow, received a score of 376 in the qualification round and finished 47th. Competition was tough: the eventual gold medallist shot a perfect 400 in the qualification round, and the lowest advancing score was a mere 396. In the men's 10-metre air pistol, 38-year-old Sri Lankan Edirisinghe Senanayake came 48th in the preliminary round with a score of 561; a score of 581 was needed to advance, and the eventual gold medallist got 586.

Weightlifting: In the women's 48-kg event, Karla Moreno, 20, of Nicaragua came 11th in a field of 14; there were three DNFs (who couldn't perform a successful lift). Her score of 150 was well behind the gold medallist's score of 212.

Medals were also awarded in judo and fencing, but from what I can tell it's not possible to determine a last-place finisher in these sports.

Standings: I still have some work to do before I start recording the standings, but it's still too early for anything interesting. Nicaragua is nominally ahead in the last-place race because it has the smallest delegation.

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Saturday, August 28, 2004

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.

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Monday, August 16, 2004

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.

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