Span versus Serbia turned out to be no contest. Spain got up early and cruised to a 85-63 victory. Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers led the way with 18 points and 11 rebounds, while Rudy Fernandez of the Portland Trail Blazers chipped in with 15 points. Uros Tripkovic led the way for Serbia by scoring 15 points.

Serbia can’t be too disappointed in their finish. After no one thought they’d be successful, the country was able to finish in second place. Third place went to Greece after beating Slovenia by a final score of 57-56.

Fifth place was taken by France, who beat Croatia 69-62. Russia, the defending European basketball champions, beat Turkey 89-66 to win seventh place.

Paul Gasol and Spain celebrate their European basketball championship (Image: Zuma Press)

Post from: EveryJoe

Spain Wins European Basketball Championship

Team USA — the United States men’s basketball team–moved on to the semi-finals with their 116-85 win over the Australians on Wednesday. The game ceased to be a contest after about the first 15 minutes, with Kobe Bryant having his best game of the Beijing Olympics. He contributed 25 points to the USA effort and LeBron James added 16 points.

The United States will face the winner of the Argentina/Greece game in the semi-finals on Friday night (Saturday morning in the United States).

Post from: EveryJoe

Team USA Stays Undefeated

The International Olympic Committee confirmed Saturday that Fani Halkia of Greece, the defending Olympic champion in the women’s 400m hurdles, tested positive for steroids in an August 10 sample. She is banned from the Beijing Games.

Halkia is the fourth athlete who has been ousted from the Games due to testing positive for a banned substance. I suppose four out of more than 10,000 athletes is a better good record, but it’s still sad to see.

Post from: EveryJoe

Defending Gold Medalist Out for Doping

It was billed as the rematch, Greece having been the ones to defeat the 2006 USA men’s basketball team for the world championship. However, today’s game bore little resemblence to that earlier contest. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and the USA “Redeem Team” started stronger and only got better, besting the Greeks by a score of 92 to 69.

Bryant and Chris Bosh led the scoring with 18 points each, followed by Dwayne Wade with 17 and James with 13 points.

The win earns Team USA a spot in the medal round. Their next contest is with world champions, Spain on Saturday night (Sunday morning in North America). The winner of that game will be the top seed going into the quarterfinals.

In other Olympic basketball action today:
Spain defeated Germany 72-59
Australia defeated Iran 106-68
China defeated Angola 85-68
Lithuania defeated Russia 86-79

Post from: EveryJoe

Basketball: US “Redeem Team” Tops Greece

The Olympic sailing events got underway in the Chinese port city of Qingdao on Saturday with a few unexpected results. American Zach Railey (pictured above), a first-time Olympian, finished the first Finn race ahead of three-time British medalist and favorite to win the men’s sailing event, Ben Ainsle, and finished the day at #2 after two of eleven races.

The winner of the first race, Greek Emilios Papathanasiou failed to finish the second race. Rafal Szukiel of Poland led overall after the two races, placing third and second.

Sailing resumes on Sunday.

Post from: EveryJoe

Day One Sailing Results

The ceremony will take place at the Panathenaikon Stadium. The Olympic Torch will be ceremoniously handed over to representatives of BOCOG (The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad).

The Panathenaikon Stadium is the site of the first modern-day Olympic Games.

Source

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Olympic Torch Hand-over Ceremony Happening Today

On 24 March 2008 visitors of www.olympic.org will be able to watch the Olympic flame come to life in Olympia, Greece.

\r\n\r\nSource\r\n\r\nThe coverage of this special event, as part of the 2008 Beijing Games, will start 10:00 GMT; accessible online. The Olympic torch relay is said to cover 137,000 kms — passing through five (5) continents — and will last around 130 days.

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Let’s Light the Torch on the 24th!