The games have come to a close. This provides a detailed summary of the highlights of the closing ceremony. Spectacular sights, however once the official part of the closing ceremony was over, the quality of the music, songs and singers to try to entertain the crowd left a lot to be desired and was basically chaotic and disappointing, in my opinion.

Becks was there promoting the London games in 2012. Jackie chan only got a few seconds of airtime....

The London metamorphisizing bus was great.

Au revoir Beijing, till London for the next instalment of the Olympic games.

For those who feel Olympic withdrawal syndrome, you can relieve the symptoms by listening to the uplifting medal ceremony theme.

Caught replay of the 9th inning where Republic of Korea beat Cuba 3-2 off a pitch from relief pitcher, which saw two cuban outs on first and second bases. Cuba had ROK on the ropes, with bases loaded, and the umpire clearly making dodgy calls on balls v strikes. ROK catcher was ejected for arguing with the umpire on this issue. Luckily justice was done.

France wins final gold medal 302th of the Beijing Olympic games

France has beaten Iceland 28-23 in the men's handball gold medal match to win the last gold medal to be awarded at the Beijing Olympics.

They are showing all the team finals on TV right now, ahead of the Olympics closing ceremony tonight. Will do a round up of the team sports later.

Saw the replay last night when 'Aussie diving hero Matthew Mitcham upset the form books to dive a 112 point last gasp dive to beat the fancied Chinese diver in the 10m platform event. This torpedoed the Chinese clean sweep of gold in all 8 diving events. Wel done to a new hero for Oz, he became the first male individual diving gold medalist in diving since 1924 for Australia.

The Opals (Australian women's basketball team) are playing arch enemies the US in the gold medal match now. Hopefully the world champs can winl.

Update: Opals have lost 92-65, outclassed and out witted by the US tactics. This is the fourth time in a row the US wins gold and the Aussies the silver in the last 4 Olympic games.
Meanwhile, the men's redeem team beat Spain in a close one 108-107 for the gold medal.

On the last night of the athletics:
Gold for Norway in men's javelin, as Thorkildsen defends his Athens gold medal with a breat throw of 90.57m, a new Olympic record. The mythical Thor wouldn't throw his hammer any further...
Sweep in mens and women's 4X400m relay races for the USA.
30 year old Tia Hellebaut, a Belgian jumped 5cm above her best for the year 2008 to beat fancied top ranked Croatian jumper for the women's high jump gold medal.
Kenya takes 2 golds in 800m(Bangei) 1500m women's race(Nancy Jebet Langat).
Ethiophia's Kenenisa won gold in the 5000m final.

Saw the mens singles medals concluded in table tennis, very high quality play indeed. 42 year old Persson of Sweden, who is competing in his 6th Olympic games failed to get the bronze medal. China has done the 1-2-3, matching their women's singles 1-2-3. Mah Lin has won the bronze, upsetting compatriot Wang Nan (no 1 seed) in a great match.

Last night Steve Hooker of Australia, won the pole vault men's final. And that is a field gold medal in athletics that I can remember Aussies winning at the Olympics. Well done Steve, and I see from the highlights, he has set a new Olympic record of 5.96m.

Another inspirational story, Maarten van de Weijden of the Netherlands won the 10km marathon swim. Remarkable as this man won his battle against leukemia 7 years ago.

Nelson Evora, the 2007 World Champion has just won the men's triple jump at the athletics.

1-2-3 for the US again in the 400m men's race. Jeremy Wariner came second.

Chen of China Ruolin had a great battle with Canadian diver Emilie Haymens for the gold medal in the women's 10m platform event. Chen had to pull off a 100+ point dive in the last one of the night to clinch the gold medal. She is only 15 years old and a star in the making. Wang Xin of China took home the bronze medal.

Sensation in the athletics, as both the US men's and women's 4X100m relays dropped their batons at the fourth changeover, resulting in them missing out on qualification for th efinal. In addition, Great Britain were disqualified in the men's, along with Nigeria. Notable, as the US, Nigeria and G Britain are the medal winning teams from Athens, Britain being the defending champions.

A late post, but the Boomers (Australian men's basketball team) were beaten in the quarter finals by the Redeem Team, the team of all stars from the NBA. 116-85. The Boomers had no answer to the pace and power of the likes of Coby Bryant and Lebron James.

The invincible team of Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor from the US has beaten chinese pair Wang Jie and Tian Jia for the gold medal. No firsts in beach volleyball gold for China.

Women's beach volleyball final is on right now. USA pair leading Chinese pair 1 set to nil. Can the American's long unbeated streak be broken today?

Usain Bolt just set a new world record of 19.30 sec in winning the Olympic 200m final, obliterating the field and making history by winning both 100m and 200m in world record time. His time tonight eclipsed Michael Johnson's world mark by 0.02 second.

A first ever gold medal in the horizontal bar, as Zou Kai takes the event gold medal yesterday. From the highlights replay, it looked a fine routine.

Larisa Ilchenko of Russia wins th women's 10km marathon swim. This is a historic first time this event is in the Olympics. It is also a race in which amputee Natalie du Toit has competed. Another inspiration story from the Olympics. She finished 16th.

This Olympics is not just about Michael Phelps. Great Britain's Chris Hoy won the individual sprint mens yesterday, bringing his gold medal haul to 3.

Another first, gold for Bahrain, as Rashid Ramzi kicks from 200m out to outlast the Kenyan runner to win the blue ribbon 1500m for men.

Estonia's Gerd Kenter won gold in the men's discus throw event.

Drama in the women's 100m hurdles final, as favourite Jones stepped on the 2nd last hurdle, stumbled and gave away the gold to Dawn Harper of the USA. Australia's 21 year old Sally McClellan got the silver. Canada's Lopes Schliep the bronze.

Women's 400m final won by Great Britain's Christine Ohuruoga. Finally they have won in an event where they have not been sitting.(cycling, rowing, sailing) their previous 12 gold medals.

Likewise, an exciting 3m springboard diving, where China won bronze (Qin kai, the current world champion) and gold (He chong). The reigning world champion relegated to bronze, with the sixth placed He Chng at the world championships in Melbourne, upsetting the books for the gold.

China took out the one three, gold (Lu Chunlong) and bronze (Dong Dong) in the men's trampolinn finals tonight.

China has double gold in both men's and women's trampolining, on day 8, He Wenna won the women's trampoline.

A third world record at the athletics. Was a priveledge to see Elena Isinbayeva of Russis jump 5.05m in the last action of the day. Toher records were the 3000m steeplechase for men and the Thunder Bolt run in the 100m mens.

There was also a first gold medal for Panama in the men's long jump.

Two firsts for Slovenia's Primoz Kosmuz who won the gold medal in the men's hammer throw, and Cameroon Mbango Etone who defended her gold won in Athensin the women's triple jump. Both are the first golds ever won by their countries in Olympic athletics.

Australia's day today as Emma Snowsill wins the Women's triathlon, and in sailing the mens (Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page) and women's ( Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson) 470 medal races sees Aussies take both golds.

Sensation again today at the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium as Liu Xiang, one of China's favourite sons stumbled in the first qualifying round of the men's 100m hurdles event and withdrew ocmpletely form the event. He is the defending gold medalist from the Athens games in the 110m hurdles. In his blog on Sunday, Liu had already gave hints he was suffering from a sore achilles heel injury.

areading the review of day 9 of the Olympics, can report the following notable notes of various achievements.

Michael Phelps gains immortality as the greatest Olympian ever with his eighth gold medal of the Olympics.

Breta Steffan of Germany is the 'sprint queen' of the pool, after winning her second gold medal in te 50m freestyle, adding to the remarkable win in the 100m free.

Refael Nadal adds to his Wimbledon and French Open crowns, the gold medal at the Olympics 2008. Not only that, this week he becomes the new world ranked no.1.

Guo Jingjing of China picked up the gold in the women's 3m springboard event, here second of these Games. Total four gold one silver and one bronze in 3 olympics, the greatest women's diver in the Olympics. Saw the last dive and medal ceremony, beautiful diving from a beautiful woman.

Lin Dan of china thrashed Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei 21-12 21-8 in the gold medal match in men's singles badminton tonight. Disappointing the nation, Lee showed no answer to the barrage of thunderbolts off Super Dan's racquet. Should have put up more fight at least. A big disappointment for me.

Elena Dementiava beat compatriot Dinara Safina (Russia) 3-6 7-5 6-3 to take the women's singles gold medal today. She was the steadier and more calm player and throughly deserved to be Olympic champion. An elegant player.(despite her shrieks) Vera Zvoraneva completed the clean sweep of the medals for Russia.

Usiah Bolt from Jamaica has lived up to his favourite status, thrilling the crowd and setting a new world record of 9.69 seconds in the men's 100m race. It was unreal and out of this world, blowing the opponents away in his wake.