A sensation, as current World Champion Tyson Gay failed to qualify for the mens 100m final in the athletics. He looked flat as he came in fifth in the semi final. Powell and Bolt are through safely and look the best bets for the big race.

Caught some highlights of the swimming gold medals decided this morning, more historic moments. Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe won gold in the 200m backstroke, adding to her 3 silver medals already won in the pool. This is another gold to Zimbabwe, after the one they won in Athens 2004. Meanwhile, Janet Evans' 19 year old record is smashed by Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain, her second gold medal of the games, the first being the 400m freestyle. Here is the queen of middle distance swimming in these Beijing Olympics.

Oh and Brazilian Cesar Cielo Filho set a cracking pace down the pool with an Olympic record time of 21.30 to take gold in the 50 m men's freestyle race. Set the cat amongst the pigeons relegating two Frenchmen, including Barnard to 2nd and 3rd.

Women's singles gold medal goes to Zhang Ning of China, the defending Olympic games champion from Athens, defeating Xie Xi Fang also of China, the current world ranked no. 1. This is another inspirational Olympic story, Zhang being 33 years old and in the twilight of her career. She has not won a tournament since 2007.

Michael Phelps has won his 7th gold medal of the Olympics, in the 100m butterfly. But he just did it, almost pipped by the Serbian Milorad Cavic, winning only by 1/100th of a second. This is worth US1 million to Phelps, as Speedo, his sponsor will pay him this amount as incentive/bonus. The winning time was only an Olympic record, breaking the string of world records Phelps has busted this Olympics.

Saw my first athletics event, the 10000m for women. Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia has won gold and set a new Olympic record. Dibaba's time of 29:54.66 was enough to break the old record of 30:17.49 set by fellow Ethiopian Derartu Tulu and hold off silver medalist Elvan Abeylegess of Turkey who ran a time of 29:56.34. Bronze went to Shalane Flanagan of the United States in a time of 30:22:22.

Rafael Nadal gets into the Olympic men's gold medal playoff in the tennis, outlasting Novac Djokovic of Serbia in the semi final 6-4 1-6 6-4. Evenly matched in a swinging exciting encounter with plenty of big shot making, the one that cracked was Djokovic who had Nadal on the ropes on the baseline, defending smashes. He blew the second of two smashes over the baseline. Nadal collapsed in victory on the baseline. He will now play Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the final on Sunday. From memory I think Gonzalez is the former Olympic champion.

Women's heavyweight (+78kg) udo was won by Tong Wen of China over the defending Olympic champion Tsukada Maki of Japan. these were big women, weighing in at over 130kg. You realise this when you compare with the men's shot putt competitiors in the athletics event, some of whom weighed a little less than 130 kg. Anyway there was tremendous excitement after Tong who was trailing one shido to one yuko to the Japanese won by a great throw, scoring an ippon with barely 20 seconds to go in the bout. Well done!