SPORTS NEWS
August 11, 2008
The Games Get Going!
Olympic athletes go for the gold on opening weekend
The 2008 Beijing Olympics began with a bang this weekend. In just two days, the United States racked up 12 medals. China leads the medal count with 14 over all. Competition is fierce. Here are some highlights.
 |  MICHAEL KAPPELER—AFP/GETTY IMAGES Gold-medal Chinese divers show their perfect form. |
Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia of China won gold in women's synchronized 3-meter springboard event. Standing side by side on two diving boards, the pair bent their knees at the same time. Guo and Wu shot high off the boards. They bent forward at the waist and held their arms straight above their heads, forming a perfect V-shape before plunging into the pool.
Later that day, two Chinese men also nabbed gold. Divers Lin Yue and Hue Liang scored highest in the 10-meter platform event. Germany came in second to take home a silver medal. Russia won bronze.
SwimmingSwimmer Michael Phelps, 23, wants to win eight gold medals in Beijing. After this weekend, he has just six more to go. On Sunday, Phelps won gold in the 400-meter individual medley. In this event, athletes complete two laps each of all four swimming strokes: the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.
Phelps finished in 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds. He also set a new world record, dropping almost a second and a half from the one he set back in July at the Olympic trials.
Phelps captured gold again on Monday when the U.S team finished first in the 4x100- meter freestyle relay. The French were favored to win the event. But Team USA beat the France by less than a second. The team, led by Jason Lezak, set a new world record.
American Dara Torres also won big this weekend. The 41-year-old is the oldest swimmer at the Games. She competes against athletes half her age. But Torres took silver in the 400-meter freestyle relay on Saturday night. "Age is really just a number," she said. "Water doesn't really know what age you are."
 BOB ROSATO—SPORTS ILLUSTRATED Kobe Bryant slam dunks for Team USA. | |
On Sunday, the U.S. men's basketball team crushed China 101 to 70. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were among the superstar players. Their powerful slam dunks wowed the crowd.
Yao Ming led the Chinese team. The 7-foot, 6-inch player started off strong, scoring a three-point basket that made fans stand up and cheer. But Yao, who suffered an injury last year while playing for the Houston Rockets, wasn't at his best. In the end, his team was no match for the powerhouse Americans.
An estimated 1 billion people watched the game on television. The stadium was jam-packed. Dwyane Wade, of the Miami Heat, said he was excited, and nervous, to compete in the Olympics.
"I haven't been this anxious to play a basketball game since I was like a kid," said Wade. "I couldn't sleep. I didn't even rest today, I was up the whole day just thinking about the game. It takes you to walk out on the court to feel it ...It couldn't get no bigger than this."—With reporting by Alice Park and Sean Gregory/Beijing
