Oh, how could I fogotten to mention yesterday's men's 400 meters?

Of course, I was glad to see a USA 1-2-3 sweep, but nationalist chauvinism is hardly the whole story.

1 ~ Young LaShawn Merritt was a more-or-less co-favorite, but no one expected him to run away with the race by such a huge Bolt-like margin. Gold medal, lots of exuberance; good for him!

2 ~ Defending gold medalist from Athens Jeremy Warriner faded badly in the stretch and was about as disappointed with his silver medal finish as any second-place individual or team at Beijing. There have been many instances in many different sports where competitors' reactions to their finishes had more to do with measurement aganist expectations than with the actual performance ~ one man's 3d-place bronze can be an absolute triumph, while another's 2d-place silver can be a bitter defeat. Which leads us to:

3 ~ Lightly regarded David Neville had spent half of the past year in various hospitals, surprised the track world just by qualifying for the US team, surprised 'em again by making the Olympic final, and provided us all with a wonderful heroic moment by diving through the tape and landing face-first on the track to come from behind and just barely achieve a third-place finish. This guy's bronze meddal was a far greter achievement than half the golds and probably all the silvers distributed so far; great for him!