Click here for more coverage from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
BEIJING — Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin are familiar faces by now, so seeing the gymnasts side-by-side on the medals stand Tuesday was nice, but nothing new.
For that, get to know another American gold-medal winner, freestyle wrestler Henry Cejudo.
The son of illegal immigrants from Mexico, Cejudo (pronounced say-HOO-doh) was 4 when he last saw his dad. His mom raised six kids and often struggled to make ends meet. The family moved more times than anyone remembers.
He got into wrestling as a youngster because his older brother Angel was good at it, good enough to get invited to live at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Only halfway through high school, Henry went with him.
The kid became a national champ at 17, then defied conventional wisdom by blowing off college to study nothing but wrestling.
Yet last year, at the world championship — his first senior-level international event — he didn’t win a single match.
Now he’s the world’s best in the 55-kilogram division, the youngest American ever to win an Olympic wrestling gold medal.
That’s saying something, because his was the 50th gold won by U.S. wrestlers; swimming and track and field are the only sports to produce more.
His story is packed with vines of inspiration for all kinds of people to grasp. The parts he hopes resonate most: Dream big, work hard and never give up.
“Anybody can do it,” he said. “It’s just a matter of seeing it, believing it and just working at it, and achieving it. ... The guy who went 0-1 (at the world championship) just won the Olympic title.”
Cejudo’s gold and Johnson and Liukin finishing 1-2 in the balance beam were among the highlights for the U.S. delegation at the Olympics on Tuesday. Another gold medal came in the 100-meter hurdles, but it wasn’t from the expected sprinter, Lolo Jones.
Jones was leading the pack, then hit the second-to-last hurdle and wound up seventh.
Gold instead went to Dawn Harper, who grabbed the last spot on the American squad at trials.
With 205 of the 302 medals decided, the United States is atop the medals table with 79. Check out the distribution: 26 gold, 26 silver and 27 bronze. Talk about diversity.
China is close behind with 76 total medals, but 43 of them are gold. Other than the U.S., no other delegation has that many of any color. Russia is closest with 42.
Gymnastics
China’s men won two more events, with Zou Kai winning high bar and Li Xaiopeng winning parallel bars. For the meet, China took all but one men’s event, the vault — in which there was no Chinese finalist.
The United States got its only men’s individual medal when Jonathan Horton took silver on high bar.
Women’s basketball
Not that there was much doubt, but the U.S. women are headed back to the Final Four of this tournament.
Sylvia Fowles had 26 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Americans on their latest rout, a 104-60 victory over South Korea.
The Americans have made the medal round in every Olympics they’ve entered, and have won 31 straight games since losing in the 1992 semifinals.
Women’s volleyball
After a slow start, the U.S. took down Italy in five sets to advance to a semifinal matchup with undefeated Cuba.
Beach volleyball
Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor — the winners of 107 straight matches, including the last Olympic title — are headed to the finals against the Chinese duo of Tian Jia and Wang Jie.
The Americans easily beat a Brazilian tandem in the semifinals.
Tian and Wang advanced by beating another team from China.
Sailing
The U.S. got its first gold from the regatta when British-born Anna Tunnicliffe won the women’s Laser Radial class.
China’s Xu Lijia got bronze, marking the third sailing medal for the hosts.
|
No Related links found
|
