Indonesia wins its first medal
Indonesia wins its first medal
SYDNEY (Agencies): After the second full day of competition, Indonesia joined the medal winners at the 2000 Olympics here on Sunday, thanks to diminutive Lisa Rumbewas who bagged a bronze in the women's weighlifting event.
The 20-year-old lifter, who was a controversial last minute entry to the national Olympic team, competed in the 48-kilogram class. Her teammate Sri Indriyani, a former world junior champion, was tipped to make a podium finish. But she came fourth.
Lisa proved her doubters wrong when she snatched 80 kgs and hoisted 105 kgs in clean and jerk for a total lift of 185 kgs. American Tara Nott also totaled 185 kgs but was awarded the silver because she weighed in at 47.7 kgs compared to Lisa's 47.9 kgs.
Bulgaria's Izabela Dragneva showed just how women's weightlifting has flowered by lifting the first ever Olympic gold. Dragneva, a top competitor for more than a decade with 17 world championship medals to her credit, won with a total of 190 kgs.
Indonesia, a home to 210 million people, is fielding 47 athletes who are chasing medals in 11 events. With hopes already vanishing in archery and table tennis, Indonesia's realistic medal chances are on the badminton court.
Three more world records tumbled in Sydney's Olympic pool Sunday as both the Americans and Dutch staked their claim to what was becoming known as Australian wunderkind Ian Thorpe's "Golden Pond".
The wins shuffled the medals table and put the United States on top with a total of 11 medals, four of them gold.
But even as the Olympics gathered steam in the second full day of competition there were drug scandals and tragedies underlying the triumphs.
The day opened on a somber note with news of the death of International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch's wife just hours before he could arrive at her bedside.
IOC senior vice president Dick Pound said a memorial mass would be held in Sydney which members of the Olympic family and others could attend.
But the IOC quickly moved on with the business of running the Olympics and by the time competition was getting under way again after lunch it was facing another drug scandal with news the entire Rumanian weightlifting team was thrown out for doping offenses.
Soon enough though the attention was again on the swimming pool emerging as possibly the fastest in Olympic history.
Dutch swimmers Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge de Bruijn began the assault on the record books by posting back-to-back world records, de Bruijn using hers to claim the gold medal in the 100m butterfly.
Van den Hoogenband swam his record in the first semi-final of the men's 200m freestyle and then watched Ian Thorpe come close to breaking it in the second, which drew humble predictions from the Dutchman.
"It'll be a great final, but I don't think the world record will last that long," van den Hoogenband said. "Hopefully one day."
Americans Tom Dolan and Brooke Bennett followed the Dutch treat by winning the men's 400m individual medley and the women's 400m freestyle, Dolan breaking his own six-year-old world record in the process.
Domenico Fioravanti also added Italy's first gold medal ever in the pool by taking the men's 100m breaststroke final.
So again and again it all came back to the pool where five other world records were broken on the first night of competition Saturday.
"It's a fast pool, you just go out and take advantage of it," offered U.S. backstroker Lenny Krayzelburg by way of explanation.
Europeans dominated the cycling track Sunday, but it was French star Arnaud Tournant who stole the limelight.
A day after the favorite missed out on a 1,000m time trial medal, he took the podium at the Dunc Gray Velodrome alongside teammates Laurent Gane and Florian Rousseau after outpacing Britain for gold in the Olympic sprint, a debut event.
But it was the 1,000m world record holder's reaction to the victory that served as a magnet for the cameras -- he broke down in tears.
Japan's early stranglehold on the judo was snapped as Cuba's Legna Verdecia won the women's under-52kg title and Huseyin Ozkan of Turkey won the men's under-66kg gold
There was another poignant scene as the triathlon completed its thrilling debut at the Olympics, when courageous Canadian Simon Whitfield bounced back from a crash in the bike leg to win a golden sprint showdown that featured none of the big-name favorites.
"I felt great getting back up and did what I had to do -- I yelled something at someone but it wasn't a huge drama," beamed the patriotic Whitfield.
As Whitfield celebrated, Jamaican sprint legend Merlene Ottey appeared set to get her wish to run in the individual 100m after a leading Jamaican athletics official told AFP the 40-year-old two-time world 200m champion would run at the expense of national champion Peta Gaye Dowdie.
But the hopes of four-time Olympic sprint silver medalist Frankie Fredericks of ever winning gold emotionally collapsed when the Namibian withdrew because of an Achilles tendon injury.
An ankle injury also forced Morocco's world 5,000m champion Salah Hissou out of the Olympics.