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Tuesday, July 03, 2012

My List Of Interesting Moments in Olympics

London 2012 Summer Olympics is coming soon. The opening ceremony is scheduled on 27 July, just 25 more days to go. For the sports mania, this few weeks will be a good break after following closely on the Euro 2012 in Poland-Ukraine for 2 weeks. For the Europeans, especially Swedish and some other countries that observe summer breaks, it's a whole 2.5 months of fun and activities throughout June, July and August.

I began watching Olympics in 1988, when I was still in primary school. Each Olympics have dished out some interesting moments and highlights, and I can recall some of them because I watched them myself. Hopefully, there are more to come in the coming edition in London.

1) Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988 Seoul Olympics
> The US sprinter set the Olympic and world record in 100m and 200m that are unbreakable until today. Besides, she's also famous for her long and colorful fingernails and unconventional sports attire.
 

2) Ben Johnson in 1988 Seoul Olympics
> The Canadian sprinter broke the world record in 100m, but was later disqualified for drug. He was on the spotlight because he managed to break the domination by the USA, but ended being infamous, instead of famous.

3) Greg Louganis in 1988 Seoul Olympics
> The USA diver was a diving champion, but he hit his head on the springboard in the 3m event. It was just funny that an established diver can do such a thing, though it was an accident.

4) Anthony Nesty in 1988 Seoul Olympics
> The swimmer won the 100m butterfly event by beating Matt Biondi, and he came from a lesser known country, Suriname. I believe not many know where this country is located.

5) Lighting of opening ceremony flame cauldron in 1992 Barcelona Olympics
> The lighting of the cauldron was done by an archer, Antonio Rebollo who shot with an arrow with fire.

6) USA Basketball Dream Team in 1992 Barcelona Olympics
> The basketball team of USA consisted of professional players playing in the world famous NBA.

7) Razif and Jalani Sidek in 1992 Barcelona Olympics
> Malaysia won the first Olympics medal, a bronze through badminton. However, no datukship was awarded after this success.

8) Lee Lai Shan in 1996 Atlanta Olympics
> She's Hong Kong's first gold medallist, by winning the sailing event. Though it's a not so famous event, it is actually a huge achievement knowing that "yellow skin" people, other than Chinese, Japanese and Korean can do it. She's also the only one athlete to win before Hong Kong's return to China.
 

9) Joint gold medallist in 2000 Sydney Olympics
> Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall Jr won the 50m freestyle in identical time of 21.98. This was an unbelievable result, and even the photo finish technology could not identify the clear winner.

10) Eric Moussambani in 2000 Sydney Olympics
> Eric represented Equatorial Guinea in the 100m freestyle heats and became famous when he finished top in his heat, but at a time more than twice the time of the gold medal winner. It was his countries' best time, and also his personal best.

11) Michael Phelps in 2004 Athens Olympics
> He won 8 medals in swimming, where 6 was gold medals and 2 was bronze. He almost equalled Mark Spitz 7 gold medals record.

12) Lighting of opening ceremony flame cauldron in 2008 Beijing Olympics
> The last torch bearer was Li Ning, an ex-gymnast. He was suspended mid-air and mimic the running around the stadium before lighting the fire cauldron.

13) China beat USA in the medal tally in 2008 Beijing Olympics
> China's medal tally was 51 golds, beating USA at 36 golds. However, in total number of medals, USA still topped the chart by extra 10 medals.

14) Usain Bolt in 2008 Beijing Olympics
> It has been awhile since the last person who made a great impact in sports as Usain. He became the currently undisputed fastest man on Earth, with his gold medal and world record feats in 100m, 200m and 4x100m track events. What was so special was the distance he beat his opponents, and he seem to be able to do even better.

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