Olympics Asia

Even if you're like me and practically all Americans and you know nothing about handball, you have to admit that this is a thrilling way to end a game:

With one second left and the game tied 28-28, Norway's Gro Hammerseng threw the ball past South Korea's goalie, Lee Min-hee, from about 25 feet away, giving Norway a 29-28 victory.

Or did she? South Korea insists that the goal actually crossed the line after time had expired, and that the game should have gone into overtime. I've looked at the video a few times and think the South Koreans are right, at least if the clock in the upper left corner of the screen is the correct time.

But the International Handball Federation and the International Olympic Committee say the goal will be upheld, and South Korea's protests will be denied. So Norway will play Russia for the gold medal and South Korea will play Hungary for the bronze.

After Japan's Satoshi Ishii won the gold medal in heavyweight judo this week, he made a bold statement: Ishii said he wants to fight the top heavyweight in mixed martial arts, Fedor Emelianenko.

Dave Meltzer reports that Ishii is a national hero in Japan, and that if he did fight Fedor, it would probably be a bigger draw in that country than an experienced, legitimate MMA heavyweight taking on Fedor would be.

Fedor is currently sidelined after breaking a bone in his hand while punching the daylights out of Tim Sylvia, but he has said he expects to be ready to participate in his annual New Year's Eve fight in Japan. So could Ishii be his opponent?

It sounds like a long shot, but not totally out of the question. There's no such thing as professional judo, and if Ishii wants to make a living off his skills, MMA might be the best bet. I'd prefer to see Fedor fight an experienced MMA heavyweight, but if Ishii is his next opponent, I'll be watching.

In one of the biggest upsets in any sport in these Olympics, Japan has defeated the United States 3-1 to win the softball gold medal.

The U.S. had won the last three gold medals, had a 22-game winning streak in Olympic softball and was accustomed to not just winning but blowing out its opponents. So dominant was the U.S. that softball games involving the Americans often invoked the mercy rule, and American dominance was one of the main reasons that the sport has been canceled for the 2012 Olympics.

But Japan, which got a fourth-inning home run from Eri Yamada, was the better team today. Team USA will settle for silver.

During the remainder of the Olympic men's basketball tournament, FanHouse will give you 5 Things to watch for in each game.

Will Yao play mad? On Monday, Chinese coach Jonas Kazlauskas held Yao Ming to seven minutes in the second half. Yao was furious. We assume he's gotten over things. If he hasn't? Yao rarely plays angry; he's an extremely mature fellow, typically calm and reserved, unless he's getting mauled on the court. But he's had a bit of an edge to him this week. He's barked at Yi Jianlian and Sun Yue more than he ever has in Chuck Hayes' presence. He looked like he wanted to punch Kazlauskas when he was removed. He didn't talk to reporters. I've only seen Yao under the spell of bloodlust once, in Sacramento last season as some combination of Mikki Moore and (surprise!) Ron Artest aggravated the snot out of the big guy. He was ineffective and eventually got ejected. I imagine things are fine on Team China now. If there are, however, raw nerves, Yao might either play with a fire we haven't seen ... or he might be distracted into malperformance.

Trade secrets. One more Kaslauskas note: this Coach K is Lithuanian, and coached the Lithuanian national team until 2001, and knows the games of many of Lithuania's top players well. That sort of trade secret thing won't work without talent ... with China has with Yao and sometimes Yi. As a longtime Oakland Raider fan (pity me), remember the Jon Gruden Super Bowl.

During the remainder of the Olympic men's basketball tournament, FanHouse will give you 5 Things to watch for in each game.

Can the Team USA transition game be stopped? Through five pool play games, no one came even remotely close to slowing Team USA's fast break. The central challenge, beyond the overwhelming speed and finishing ability of every single player in red, white and blue, is that the Americans get out in transition so freaking often. The pickpocketing ways of Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul make up one avenue. LeBron James has been an interior disruptor, and the team flies off his deflections, steals and blocks. The team runs out on defensive rebounds, with Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh looking for an outlet guard, and those guards (Jason Kidd and Kobe Bryant, mainly) getting the ball up the court quickly. Even on the rare opponent make, the Americans push. How do you stop all that? You don't. You try to limit it as much as possible, by protecting the ball and slowing the game to a crawl. But nothing you do will prevent a few breakaway dunks from going down.

Can Australia be effective in the half-court offense? The wonderful Xs and Os of Basketball blog took a detailed look at Australia's versatile half-court offense recently, showing how many different ways the Aussies set up shop. Certainly, it's a better system than Germany or China offered, and it's a slower, more deliberate movement-driven offense than Spain runs. (Spain tends to be a bit free-wheeling and quick; Australia is closer to the old slow Princeton ... though there are serious differences.) The United States hasn't been tested in the half-court, really -- it has blown its opponents up way out at midcourt and built big leads before the foe can get settled. With Patrick Mills running Australia's show, the Boomers should be able to get into their offense early. At that point, it will be up to the Americans to show they can play real halfcourt defense.

The U.S. women's soccer team is back in the gold medal game after playing its best match of these Olympics in beating Japan today.

Japan scored in the 15th minute and led 1-0 for most of the first half, and the American women at times looked like they were dragging, perhaps even resigned to the idea that they simply weren't good enough without their injured star Abby Wambach to repeat as gold medalists.

But two goals in quick succession in the 41st and 44th minutes made it a very different game at halftime, and in the second half the Americans poured it on with goals in the 70th and 80th minutes. Japan put in a goal with just seconds to play to make the final score 4-2.

In today's other semifinal, Brazil beat Germany 4-1, and the Brazilians are considered the favorites to win the gold. But at this point, no one should count out the American women.

The U.S. vs. Brazil gold medal game will be broadcast live at 9 a.m. Eastern Thursday on USA Network.

This video is from the 2004 Athens Games (click link). In the 110-meter hurdles, China's Liu Xiang won the country's first ever Olympic track-and-field gold medal.

Liu is a legend in China of Yao Ming-like proportions. The entire country was buzzing about Liu defending his medal in the Beijing Games. However, he's been dealing with an Achilles injury that forced him to withdraw from a race in New York City this past spring.

The injury reared its ugly head again, as Liu dramatically withdrew from the 110-meter hurdles event in Beijing.

Smarting from the injury, Liu decided to give it a try ... but when a false start saw Liu come up completely lame, Liu took off his number and walked off the track. He went into the stadium tunnel and received treatment.

Needless to say, this is a sad day for the Chinese:

In the first week of the Olympics, Michael Phelps won a ridiculous 8 gold medals, Usain Bolt made the best sprinters in the world look like also-rans, Misty May-Traynor and Kerri Walsh have continued to roll in beach volleyball and the Chinese gymnasts have won what seems like every single available medal. Everyone in the US has seen those events, but there's been a whole lot of other stuff going as well. Here's a quick recap of some of the bigger story lines that didn't get a lot of airtime in the US.

Wrecked and overturned boats, wild storms and days worth of protests ... Sailing has been crazy

First there wasn't enough wind in the Qingdao area to have a sailing competition. Then there was a storm that snapped the sail off a Danish boat and overturned an American one. The Danes ended up winning the 49er class race while borrowing a boat from Croatia, but that kicked off a flurry of protests that 6 hours of deliberation by the judges hasn't cleared up (they are scheduled to reconvene again on Monday to attempt to sort out the mess).

Olympic boxing judging is still broken at best, and corrupt at worst

It's becoming repetitive to complain about judging in boxing at the Olympics, but this year might even be worse than normal. There's already been so many individual complaints that it's impossible to list them all, but the fight involving Ecuador's Luis Porozo might have been the worst. There's been accusations of a pro-Chinese bias in scoring fights, there's been a continuation of the brutal inability of amateur judges to properly score body shots and there's little understanding by any of the boxers on how the scoring system is working. In other words, business as usual in Olympic boxing.

Huge upsets in Archery shocked South Korea

South Korea entered the Olympics as overwhelming favorites in all the archery events, but shocking upsets in both the men's and women's competitions left them without an individual gold medal. The women's tournament was possibly the biggest upset of the entire Olympics as South Korea brought the top 3 archers in the world and had won every women's gold since 1984, but they watched #27 seeded Zhang Juan Juan of China beat all 3 of the Koreans head to head on her way to the gold.

British Cycling had a phenomenal week

First, Nicole Cooke won the women's road race, then Emma Pooley got silver in the time trial. For most cycling teams, that would have been one heck of a week. For Great Britain it was just a start, as they have utterly dominated the track events in the Laoshan Velodrome with wins in the men's team sprint, men's keirin, men's and women's sprints and women's individual pursuit. Of the 7 gold medals given out in track cycling so far, Great Britain has won 5 of them. What is happening in the velodrome is possibly the most dominant show by one team in any sport so far in the Olympics. (ed - corrections made on number of medals)

Brazil and Argentina are facing each other in soccer ... in the semi-finals

The absurdity of the soccer draw has come to a head, as Brazil and Argentina have dominated the field but are still facing each other before the gold medal match. Argentina's Lionel Messi is one of the 2 or 3 best players in the world, and has been the unquestioned star of the tournament with his spectacular play, but Brazil's loaded squad has been equally as good. Both countries sent their best teams possible, the semi-final matchup on Tuesday should be epic. It's just too bad it's not for the gold.

Russia's had a bit of a rough effort this effort, losing to both Lithuania and Croatia in tight contests. At 1-2 in group play, the Russians needed to beat Australia to guarantee the Group A fourth seed, with its lovely berth into the the medal round to likely face the winner of U.S.-Spain. Australia, who like Russia had only beat Iran this tournament, seems an inferior opponent, based on the fact Russia is the reigning champion of Europe.

No matter. The Aussies walloped Russia, winning 95-80. Andrew Bogut was a beast (for the first time this summer), Andrei Kirilenko's offense was manure on ice. As such, Russia's done ... and Australia will move into the medal round. The team seems assured the fourth seed -- getting #3 would involve a) beating Lithuania, and b) Croatia losing to Iran. I'm not sure which is more unlikely, because they both have no chance of happening (unless Lithuania rests half the roster).

For Russia, the impact isn't much deeper than it is for coach David Blatt, an American in Europe who receives bountiful bundles of praise and gets mentioned for NBA jobs now and then. His reputation -- as it was built in both Euroleague club play and FIBA Europe last summer -- has been that he can get ye old "more than the sum of the parts" from his teams. That may be right (I imagine it is, he beat Spain in Madrid), but this result -- finishing as one of the four worst teams in Olympic competition -- has to undercut the unorthodox career he has built to date.

Blatt's biggest question has to be about whatever's wrong with Kirilenko. AK-47 simply dominated the European tournament last summer, dropping 29/8 with 3 steals and 3 blocks against Lithuania, and played well in the Finals. His mild Olympic performance makes no sense.

With a few days before the track and field events get underway, we have another doping scandal. No, not in cycling, swimming or volleyball.

Shooting.

A North Korean shooter, Kim Jong Su, has had his two medals stripped from him after he tested positive for propanolol.

The International Olympic Committee said shooter Kim Jong Su tested positive for propanolol after winning the silver medal in the 50-meter pistol and bronze in the 10-meter air pistol.

Propanolol is a banned betablocker which can be used to prevent trembling in events like shooting and archery.

Very interesting ... and we learn something new everyday.

This is good news for America, as we pick up another bronze medal. Jason Turner wins the bronze in the 10-meter event, while China's Tan Zongliang (who won the bronze in the 50-meter) now gets the silver and Russia's Vladimir Isakov moves up to a bronze.

It's great they get rewarded with their medals, but it sucks that neither Turner nor Isakov will get the memory of being on the medal stand.