Beijing
13 August 2008
The first week of the 29th Olympiad continues in China with much of the focus remaining on or in the water. From Beijing, VOA's Jim Stevenson has this preview of the 17 medal events on the schedule Thursday.
The rowing tournament will yield its first winners of the Beijing Games in six disciplines at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Park in northeastern Beijing's Mapo Village.
American great Michael Phelps swims in preliminaries only as the 100-meter freestyle race and 200-meter breaststroke finals will provide more gold medals to the fastest men. The women will splash their way to the wall in the 200-meter butterfly and 4x200 meter freestyle relay.
The Olympic Green Archery Field hosts the final in the women's individual competition. The coveted men's individual all-around Olympic title is to be awarded as are gold medals in the women's 78-kilogram and men's 100-kilogram divisions of judo.
Men's gymnastics will thrill spectators at China's National Indoor Stadium. American Paul Hamm is not defending his all-around title because his broken hand has not fully healed. His win in Athens was disputed and ultimately upheld after an apparent scoring error. Hamm says changes in judging have not solved the problem.
"The way we judge the sport is pretty much the same it used to be," he said. "What you do is add a bonus and subtract deductions. So we really have not changed anything in that way. We have not eliminated the possibility that there could be some type of judging error with the starting score. And we also have not eliminated the possibility there could be a bias for one athlete over another."
Another scheduled medal event is women's skeet, which will produce a gold medal at the Beijing Shooting Complex. The venue also hosts the final of the women's 50-meter rifle from three positions. More men's Greco-Roman wrestling culminates in wins in the 84, 96 and 120-kilogram weight categories.