Chicago Olympians: Day 9

By Marcus Gilmer on Aug 17, 2008 3:45PM

Michael Phelps is a badass. To do what he did is unfathomable and he did it with grace, dignity, and respect to himself, his fellow swimmers, and Mark Spitz. But thank God swimming is over because if NBC showed Phelps' mother in the stands reacting to a race one more time, I was going to tear my hair out. This is the network's fault in doing what they do best : taking a very sweet thing...and running into the ground until we want to stab out our eyes with sporks. ANYWAY. We had several Chicago-area Olympians of our own competing, including in the pool, so let's get to it! (And GO TOYIN!)

Women's Swimming - Christine Magnuson added some lustre to her silver medal by winning another one, swimming the third leg (butterfly) of the women's 4x100 medley relay for Team USA. Woot!

Diving - Chirstine Loukas scored a 315.70 for a ninth place finish overall in the women's 3m springboard diving competition.

Men's Track & Field - Jorge Torres ran a 10,000m in the time it takes me to run half that distance (on a GREAT day), but it still wasn't enough to win as he finished 25th, 1:12.76 off the winning pace.

Rowing - Jamie Schroeder and the U.S. Men's Quadruple Sculls team came in fifth in their final, around six seconds off the gold medal pace. Meanwhile, former Chicago Rowing member Ashley Brzozowicz and Team Canada placed fourth in Women's Eight, less than three seconds off gold medal pace.

Women's Basketball - As of post-time, the women's team was still in action but cruising over New Zealand. More info later.

Softball - Team USA continues to crush the competition, blanking the Netherlands 8-0 and no-hitting another team. Osterman and Finch were not involved in the decision.

Women's Indoor Volleyball - Oganna Nnamani and the U.S. women defeated Poland 3-2 (18-25, 25-21, 19-25, 25-19, 15-13) to close out pool play and prepare for this week's medal round.