Above: Zhong Man of China smiles as his coach, Christian Bauer, bites his gold medal for the men's fencing individual sabre at theNational Convention Center.
China is well on its way to accomplishing its long-held goal of winning the most gold medals of any nation at the Summer Olympics, with 13 golds for the host nation through Day 4.
Team USA is second in the gold medal count, with seven. The Americans also have seven silver medals and eight bronze medals for a total of 22, or two more than second-place China.
China was widely expected to win the most golds of any country, but the host nation is probably a little ahead of where most observers thought they'd be through four days. The most impressive haul has come from China's weightlifting team, which has won five of the seven weightlifting gold medals that have been awarded so far. China has also won three golds in diving two in shooting and one apiece in fencing, gymnastics and judo.
Team USA has five golds in swimming, one in fencing and one in shooting.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-12-2008 @ 4:14PM
jbudd00 said...
We havent even gotten to Track and Field yet lets not get carried away the US always does well in that
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8-12-2008 @ 5:37PM
Jan said...
China is trying so hard to present itself as a high tech Christmas toy ( most of the toys we buy are from China) but since I have been there, I can attest to the air pollution, the chemically polluted water in every river, not to mention the raw sewage which flows into the rivers. I was afraid to eat the things I saw on the menus and afraid to go into our local fast food joints, so I wound up eating potato chips in sealed bags.
The majority of people are very, very poor and are seldom filmed (however, there are a few films of the provinces on PBS)
and there is no healthcare, relief agencies or foreign medicine allowed to treat these people.
I know the Olympics are not supposed to be political but I worry the athletes will return home with serious illnesses. I almost fell over when the IOC awarded the games to China.
I will not return there again and watch people boil cats and dogs while still alive.
I find it ironic that they are so political and protective of their Pandas and yet most of the population is dying from cancer
at a rate of 100,000 per year.
Jan in Beaver, Utah
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8-12-2008 @ 11:17PM
Henry Bada said...
i think US team will make some miracles towards the end of olympic....just wait n see...
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8-12-2008 @ 11:20PM
Alan Canaday said...
13 Gold Medals, very impressive, a little unusal this early in the Games. It reminds me of old Vegas, not new, a card from the bottom of the deck, usually got you in trouble, with the house and other players. Diggers doing FINE, KEEP Mick D. Happy.
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8-13-2008 @ 1:15AM
Dave said...
Dear Jan, they must not teach arithmetic in Beaver, Utah, but here in sunny Florida the state mandates standardized middle school testing of basic math. Shall we?
You cite that Chinese citizens are dying from cancer "at a rate of 100,000 per year." I must say, I am astonished by your encyclopedic knowledge of world health statistics! Let's play with your numbers:
Out of a total population of 303 million Americans, we are dying at a rate of 556,000 per year from cancer, at least according to the National Institutes of Health. Just so you know, that is about 0.18% per year.
Compare this to 100,000 Chinese dying per year in a population of 1.3 billion -- rounds out to a paltry 0.007%
Mind you, that means that for every 1 Chinese person dying of cancer, there are 25 Americans kicking the bucket!
They must also skimp on the English teachers over in Utah too: I don't recall "panda" being a proper noun.
I know you must be overwhelmed by now, so I won't expound on such college-level topics as the post-Keynesian economic forces at work in a country with a gross domestic profit of over 7 trillion dollars growing at 10 percent per year.
What Macroeconomics 101 boils down to is this: Jan, if you are under the age of 65, you will live to see the day that China takes over as the wealthiest nation in the world.
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8-14-2008 @ 1:36AM
karen said...
I am with Jan, the boiling of cats and dogs (for sex potions I think it is) is so barbaric. That alone says it all, besides the product we recieve here (inferior) and the heath risks they bring. Wealth does not bring confidence or good conscience.
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8-15-2008 @ 12:59PM
Jason said...
you're a "college-level" tool...
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8-26-2008 @ 2:00PM
Scut_Chris said...
Dear Jan, I know how eagerly you want to claim that you know about China. I really feel pity for you since you speak in a way exactly like those who show prejudice towards China.
I have to acknowledge those problems mentioned in your comment really exist in China, but sentences such as "I can attest to the air pollution ...", "The majority of people are very, very poor..." revealed that you haven't been to China. My instinct tells me that, you are just following those biased views toward China on the internet without independent and critical thinking. You were trying to prove your positions by lying you have been to China.
Come on, be a little more creative. Next time when criticizing China, give us some thing more except "Tiananmen","Eating dogs and cats". I really feel tired of hearing this. No coutry is perfect. Criticizing each other makes no sense but boosts hatred amoung people. When you come up with 100 reasons to criticize China, I can sure point out 101 crimes US has committed. Talking about "dogs and cats", how about bestiality in the US?
Your point about Olympics is even more rediculous. So Olympics should never be held in under-developed countries? Come on, where's your so called Olympic spirit? Many ordinary Chinese citizens, although not so economically rich, they know how to enjoy and share Olympics. In this regard, you're even as rich as them. Because you only focus on negative things and try to magnify them. You don't know how to enjoy.
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