Written by Sun Jiahui, Yang Min, Zhou Wanqi
Translated by Chen Wenqiong, Li Weijia

Beijing - Yesterday 32 gold medals were awarded, the most in one day during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Powerhouse Russia won four crowns, more than all the others, rising to the top 3 in the medals count, surpassing the UK. Host China clinched two golds in table tennis singles and canoe doubles.

The USA swept the championships in the men's and women's 1600m relays as compensation for their earlier losses in the 400m relays.

In baseball South Korea captured the title, nabbing the country's biggest win yet in international baseball with a seemingly impossible victory of 3-2 over defending champions Cuba.

The taekwondo rink was the source of many surprises. Cuban athlete Angel Matos kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification after taking too much injury time. His coach Leudis Gonzalez offered no apology for his actions. Both were banned for life.

Two-time defending champion Chen Zhong from China was defeated by Sarah Stevenson from the UK by 1-2 in the women's +67kg quarterfinal after the panel overturned Chen's original victory.

Comeback for gold of canoing

Beijing—1:41.025, in the men's 500m double canoe flat-water final, Chinese Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun defended their title, leading the runners-up by 0.275 of a sec. They were the first ever pair to retain the championship of the sport as well as the only Asian athletes to win a canoeing gold.

On the top podium, packed happily in the national flag, Yang kissed his beloved gold while Meng took his son from his wife and presented the glittering title to the baby kid.

From the start, the golden pair took the lead and kept it till the finish. The moment they rowed across the line, they knew that they’d made it. Then they were relieved to plunge in Lake Shunyi, intoxicated by the scent of victory.

The 31-year-old Meng actually retired after the win in Athens and got married while his partner Yang turned to singles and won the bronze of the World Cup, but failed to improve further.

As China had no rowers good enough in the doubles after Meng and Yang. Eventually, the history makers came back and resume training for another Olympics.

Meng initiated with losing weight and Yang gave up his promising singles. The powered pair rowed right to championships of recent two years, and straight to the Beijing Olympics gold medal.

The victory means much to Meng, “It is gold never easy for a 31-year-old rower. Though our coach told us that no canoe in the world could win straight gold medals in a same event, we had faith in ourselves and we made it to break the curse.”

Ten Years—Too Long for Gold

Here came the sixth gold for Guangdongers in the Beijing Olympics — Ma Lin, a three-time Olympian, finally was crowned in men's table tennis singles yesterday evening. Ma defeat the first-ranked Wang Hao 4-1 in the all-Chinese final.

Ma wept for extreme joy after the final for two minutes. He confessed that there had been some ups and downs in the game, but he stuck to it and naturally came the victory.”

In the 45th, 48th and 49th World Table Tennis Championships, the 28-year-old appeared to be locked runner-up for this or that kind of reasons, earning him the sting nickname "Never-crowned King". "Last year my defeat to Wang Liqin was a blow too difficult to mention for me. And it's true that the best tastes real after going through the worst.”

Beijing witnessed not only Michael Phelps' eight golds and seven world records, but also Chinese sweeping all the Olympic titles in table tennis, the third time in history following the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics. And they stunned the world with three Chinese national flags rising at the award ceremonies both in men's and women's singles.