Late Results for Thursday, August 21

Athletics: Women's javelin: Rumyana Karapetrova of Bulgaria, 26, had the shortest best throw in the qualifying round; she finished last in group B with 40.15 metres. Two competitors in the qualifying round had no mark. The gold medallist's final score was 71.42 metres. Women's 200 metre: Samia Yusuf Omar of Somalia, 17, was considerably behind the rest of the field with her time, in heat five, of 32.16 seconds. The gold medallist's time in the final was 21.74 seconds. There were two DNSes in the heats. Men's triple jump: In group B of the qualifying round, Indian Renjith Maheswary, 22, had a best jump of 15.77 metres; the gold medallist's best in the final was 17.67 metres. Two athletes had no mark in the qualifying round. Men's 400 metre: 20-year-old Liu Xiaosheng of China put in the only plus-50-second time in the heats; his time in heat two was 53.11 seconds. The gold medallist's final time was 43.75 seconds. There was one DNS in the heats. Men's 110-metre hurdles: Heat three saw Pakistani hurdler Abdul Rashid, 29, finish with a time of 14.52 seconds; the gold medallist's final time was 12.93 seconds. There were two DNFs and one DNS in the heats.

Diving: In the women's 10-metre platform event, Annette Gamm of Germany, 31, finished 29th in the preliminary round with a score of 234.3; the lowest score to advance was 291.9.

Equestrian: In individual jumping, John Whitaker, 58, riding Peppersteak Peppermill for Great Britain, was 77th in the qualifying round and did not advance.

Upper-Class Twit of the Year Modern Pentathlon: Most competitors at the back of the field in this event can blame a DNF in the equestrian leg, giving them zero points. Horses is difficult. Such was the case in the men's event run today, in which Jaime Lopez of Spain, 22, was 36th with 4,196 points and 5:59 behind the gold medallist, who had 5,632 points.

Standings to date: China adds its eighth last-place finish and its third today, taking first place from Canada, which falls to second. Germany adds a seventh to move into third, and Britain adds a fifth to move into fifth position, oddly enough. Spain's third DFL is good for 19th place, Pakistan's second for 29th.

Results for Tuesday, August 12

Canoe/Kayak (Slalom): In yesterday's men's C1 heats, 23-year-old Siboniso Cele of South Africa finished 16th; only the top 12 advanced to the semifinal; only the top eight advanced to the final. Cele accumulated 50 penalty seconds in his first run, which put him well out of contention. Something similar happened to two kayakers in the men's K1 heats, but while Ding Fuxue of China, 28, had a couple of seconds' fewer penalties, he put in a slower time; he finished 21st.

Diving: Great Britain is not having a good time at the pool: the team of Tonia Couch, 19, and Stacie Powell, 22, finished eighth with a score of 303.48 in women's synchronized 10-metre platform diving. Their score was 60.06 points behind the gold medallists.

Equestrian: Eventing has finally wrapped up. France finished 11th in the team event, due to the fact that they had to include the score of an eliminated horse and rider (teams are scored using the top three results, though most countries arrive with four or five riders). Individual scoring ran concurrently, and the individual jumping final is imminent. But, since the final only includes the top 25 (limited to three per country), we can safely assign a last-place result here as well, based on the results so far. Canada's Samantha Taylor, 25, riding Livewire, 10, finished 56th with 188.3 penalty points -- 134.1 points behind the leader. A total of 14 horse-and-rider pairs were either eliminated or withdrew.

Gymnastics is extremely difficult to report on, because a number of medal events are derived from the same qualifying round, as far as I can tell. In 2004 I gave up on trying to report on the individual events and limited myself to the team scores. Unless someone can hold my hand and show me how this time, I'll do the same again for 2008. So. In the men's qualification round, the Italian team was 12th with a total score of 355.5; the top team score in the qualification round was 374.675. Note that there were a number of individual gymnasts competing without a team in this round.

Shooting: Nikola Saranović, 39, of Montenegro finished 45th in the men's 50-metre air pistol. His score in the qualifying round was 535; 559 was needed to advance to the final. In the men's double trap, Canadian Giuseppe Di Salvatore, 18, finished 19th with a qualifying score of 109; he would have needed at least 136 to have a shot a the final.

Swimming: The heats for today's finals took place on Sunday. First, the men's 200-metre freestyle, where, in heat one (of course), Emanuele Nicolini of San Marino, 24, put in a time of 1:59.47. For comparison, the gold medallist's time in the final was 1:42.96. There was one DNS in the heats. Next, the women's 100-metre backstroke, where, again in heat one, 18-year-old Panamanian swimmer Christie Marie Bodden Baca's time was 1:07.18 -- compare that to the gold medallist's time of 58.96 seconds in the final. There was one disqualification and one DNS in the heats. Now for the men's 100-metre backstroke: Mohammad Rubel Rana of Bangladesh, 25, put in a time of 1:04.82 in heat one. That's more than 12 seconds behind the gold medallist's final time. And finally, the women's 100-metre breaststroke (stop sniggering). In heat one, 24-year-old Mariam Pauline Keita of Mali had a time of 1:24.26; the gold medallist's time in the final was 1:05.17.

Weightlifting: Bolivia's Maria Teresa Monasterio, 38, finished 17th in the women's 63 kg. Her score was 141, 100 points behind the gold medallist; there were two DNFs and one DNS. Meanwhile, in the men's 69 kg, Nizom Sangov of Tajikistan, 25, finished 24th with a score of 250 -- 98 points behind the gold medallist; there were six DNFs.

Standings to date: Now things are starting to get interesting. Britain, home of Eddie the Eagle, maintains its hold atop the DFL standings with four, but Canada adds two to move into second place. San Marino and South Africa add their second DFLs.

Results for Monday, August 11

Archery: I've been able to figure out last-place results for the team archery events. The scores in the ranking round won't work because, in the men's team event, the team with the lowest score in the ranking round went on to win a medal. So it's the lowest score in the 1/8 round that is meaningful for our purposes. In the women's team event, which ran yesterday, that meant the Colombian team of Ana Maria Rendon, 22, Sigrid Romero, 19, and Natalia Sanchez, 25. They had a score of 199; the highest score in the event was 231, a world record, which came in the semi-finals. In today's men's team event, the lowest score -- 210 -- was put in by the British team of Laurence Godfrey, 32, Simon Terry, 34, and Alan Wills, 27. The gold medallists' score in the final was 227, an Olympic record.

Diving: The results from the men's synchronized 10-metre platform event are in; British divers Blake Aldridge, 26, and Thomas Daley, 14 -- that's right, this kid -- finished eighth with a score of 408.48 -- 59.7 points behind. I have to see some footage of this: how a 14-year-old and a 26-year-old can stay in sync is something I want to see.

Shooting: In the men's 10-metre air rifle, 21-year-old Saso Nestorov of Macedonia finished 51st with a qualifying-round score of 558; it took at least 595 to make it to the final. In the women's trap, Namibian Gaby Diana Ahrens, 27, was 20th. Her qualifying-round score was 52; the lowest score to qualify for the final was 67.

Swimming: Four more swimming medals today, but we go back to Saturday and Sunday for the lowest heat times in these events. In heat one (naturally) of the women's 100-metre butterfly, the slowest time was that of 24-year-old Simona Muccioli of San Marino. Her heat time of 1:04.91 was eight seconds behind the gold medallist's final time. In heat one of the men's 100-metre breaststroke, a rather slow performance of 1:20.20 -- more than 21 seconds behind the gold medallist's final time -- was put in by Petero Okatai, 27, of the Cook Islands. The heats had one DNS and one disqualification. In the women's 400-metre freestyle, it's heat one again: 19-year-old Shrone Austin, swimming for the Seychelles, with a time of 4:35.86 -- more than 32 seconds behind the gold medallist's final time, but keep in mind that this event is four times as long as the previous two. Think of it as eight seconds per hundred metres. And finally, the men's 4×100-metre freestyle relay. Relays are by nature more competitive, since the basic requirement is at least four good athletes per country -- Bhutan won't have a relay team, for example. There were two heats in this relay; the slowest time came in heat one from the German quad of Steffen Deibler, 21, Jens Schreiber, 25 , Benjamin Starke, 22, and Paul Biedermann, 22. Their time of 3:17.99 was 9.75 seconds behind the gold medallists' final, but that was a world record -- and in their own heat, they were only 5.76 seconds behind that same gold medal team. There was one disqualification.

Weightlifting: In the women's 58 kg, 20-year-old Wendy Hale of the Solomon Islands came 12th with a score of 173; the gold medallist's score was 244. My own country, Canada, gets its first DFL in the men's 62 kg: Jasvir Singh, 31, finished 12th with a score of 266; the gold medallist's score was 319, and there were five DNFs.

Standings to date: Great Britain, with three last-place finishes to date, moves into an undisputed lead. No one else has more than a single last-place finish.

Results for Sunday, August 10

Cycling: The women's road race had a lot fewer DNFs than the men's race did yesterday: 4 vs. 53. I wonder if that means conditions were better today. But then there were also fewer competitors over a shorter distance (126 km). In any event, 21-year-old Aurelie Halbwachs of Mauritius came 62nd with a time of 3:52:11 -- nearly 20 minutes behind the winner, and 20 seconds behind the penultimate cyclist.

Diving: We start with synchronized diving, where, in the women's three-metre springboard, the British team of Tandi Gerrard, 30, and Hayley Sage, 22, finished eighth. The fact that there are only eight teams should give you an idea of what it's like even to qualify for this event. Their score of 278.25 was 65.25 points behind the gold medallists.

Shooting: Carolina Lozado, 37, of Uruguay finished 43rd in the qualifying round of the women's 10-metre air pistol event, with a score of 367. It took a score of 384 or better to make it to the final. There was one DNF. In men's trap shooting, Filipino Eric Ang, also 37, finished 35th with a score of 106; those who advanced to the finals has scores between 119 and 121.

Swimming: Four swimming events had their finals today, but for my purposes I have to go back to yesterday's heats to find my last-place finishers, who I will somewhat arbitrarily define as the person putting in the slowest time in the heats. (This is a little problematic if the slowest time in the event is in a semifinal or final, but I have to pick something, if I can.) In the men's 400-metre individual medley, the slowest time was produced in heat one by 22-year-old Hocine Haciane Constatin of Andorra: 4:32.00. (The gold medallist, you may have heard, put a time in of 4:03.84 in the final.) Heat one is also where the slowest time came in the men's 400-metre freestyle (this does not appear to be an accident); Kazakh Oleg Rabota, 18, put in a time of 4:02.16. (For comparison, the gold medallist's final time was 3:41.86.) There was one DNS in another heat. In the women's 400-metre individual medley, it was heat one again, where 18-year-old Thai swimmer Nimitta Thaveesupsoonthorn's time was 5:02.18. (The gold medallist's time was 4:29.45 in the final.) There was one DNS in Nimitta's heat. And finally, the women's 4×100 freestyle relay, which had only two heats: in the second heat, the South African team of Melissa Corfe, Wendy Trott, Mandy Loots and Katheryn Meaklim finished seventh (there was a DNS) with a time of 3:51.14; the gold medal team's time in the final was 3:33.76.

Weightlifting: 22-year-old Venezuelan Judith Andrea Chacon finished ninth in a field of nine in the women's 53-kg event; she had a score of 181, compared to the gold medallist's 221. In the men's 56-kg event, Moldovan Igor Grabucea, 32, finished 15th with a score of 239; the gold medallist's score was 292, and there were four DNFs.

A medal was awarded in archery, but it does not appear that I'll be able to award a last place in that sport -- at least not in the team events.

Standings to date: No country has more than one last-place finish at this point, but since Andorra has fewer athletes at the Games than the others, it displaces Nicaragua for the nominal lead.

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.

David Moorcroft in 1984

"Better DFL than DNF" -- that's what one of you said the saying was in the events you competed in. Finishing the race despite all odds is especially meaningful to some of us -- especially when those odds are tougher than usual. For example, an extremely slow marathon finish on a hot, humid day is all the more impressive when so many others fall by the wayside. Consider the case of David Moorcroft at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, who started and finished the 5,000-metre final despite a pre-race pelvic injury: his goal was simply to avoid getting lapped, and he achieved it. Thanks to Paul Goodfellow for the link.

Marc Jenkins

Gavin Phillips writes to draw our attention to the story of Marc Jenkins, who finished last in the men's triathlon (results) because he had to run with his bike on his shoulder for half a kilometre because of a broken bike wheel.

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 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.