Once believed to have more bulk than skill, British super-heavyweight David Price has matured nicely and is two wins away from winning an Olympic gold medal.
The biggest man in the boxing competition, Price, who stands 201 cm tall and weighs a hefty 110 kg, has destroyed everything in his path to advance to the semi-finals and make sure of at least a bronze.
It was a very different story four years ago, when the boxer from Liverpool, northwest England, failed to qualify for the Athens Games.
"Four years ago he was a boy in a man's body," said British coach Terry Edwards.
"He's come along tremendously since then." Working harder than everybody else in training, the 25-year-old Price became the team's captain in Beijing and their top prospect since world lightweight champion Frankie Gavin pulled out before the draw for failing to make his weight.
Edwards, who had a difficult relationship with Audley Harrison but still guided him to Olympic super-heavyweight gold in 2000 in Sydney, made no secret of the fact that he preferred Price.
"I think David is more mobile, has a good boxing brain and a big heart," Edwards said.
"Over the last 18 months this guy just got stronger and stronger." Price started his run in Beijing by outclassing Russia's Islam Timurziev, ranked number one in his weight class, and then moved past Jaroslav Jaksto, whom he shook several times in the first round before the Lithuanian retired with a thigh injury.
"Every time I hit him I knew I'd sickened him," Price said after that fight, summing up just how powerful he had looked in the ring.
Coming next is Italian world champion Roberto Cammarelle, an opponent Price would have faced in the quarter-finals of last year's world championships in Chicago had he not been ruled out with a broken hand.
"That was one of the low points of my career," said Price.
"I knew I would meet him here at some stage and now it's going to happen.
I think I can definitely beat him." Taylor injury dampens Aussie win Australia advanced to the semi-finals of the women's Olympic basketball tournament today, but their gold medal hopes suffered a major injury blow.
Despite pulverising the Czech Republic 79-46, the world champions were left sweating on the condition of guard Penny Taylor, who hobbled out of the game with an ankle injury.
Taylor collapsed in agony after twisting her right ankle on a drive to the basket in the third quarter and is a doubt for Thursday's semi-finals.
The Olympics hosts China await Australia in the last four after overpowering Belarus 77-62.
Australia's chances of denying fierce rivals the United States a fourth successive Olympic title would be significantly diminished without Taylor, the team's best defensive player.
"Penny's a huge part of our team," Opals captain Lauren Jackson told Reuters.
"We've got to hope for the best.
I don't know what we're going to do without her.
"We've got the best doctors and physios in the world so I'm sure they'll get it right.
But we're going to go out there and give it our best shot regardless." Australian doctors were hopeful that Taylor, who leads the team in steals, could still play a part in the Beijing tournament.
"She's got a pretty significant injury.
We'll hopefully see her back on the court if not for the semi-final then hopefully for the final," team doctor Scott Burne said.
Women urged to wear shirts with "curves" Table tennis is desperate to attract more viewers and some in the sport believe a simple enough solution exists: get the women to wear skirts and shirts with "curves".
Half-empty stands for women's games at the Olympics in China, the country most obsessed with table tennis, reinforce concerns that the sport needs a make-over to shed its fusty image.
Women players mostly wear baggy shorts and shirts unlike their tennis counterparts who dress for comfort as well as style.
"We are trying to push the players to use skirts and also nicer shirts, not the shirts that are made for men, but ones with more curves," International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) vice president Claude Bergeret said.
One player, Japan's Naomi Yotsumoto, has taken matters into her own hands.
At the Japanese national championships last year, she played in a daring ensemble of her own design: knee socks, a pleated mini-skirt and a shirt that left one shoulder bare.
IOC president to avoid 'best ever Games' at Closing ceremony While all his predecessors have alwaysfollowed an Olympic tradition, the International Olympic Committee(IOC) president Jacques Rogge has decided to change the trend thistime and said he would avoid the cliche "best ever Games" when speaking at the Olympic closing ceremony.
Rogge, who arrived here yesterday, said though China has done a commendable job, he would still prefer to acknowledge China's effort with some different words.
"It made my task more and more difficult.
I promised never to say 'best ever Games'.
I believe that my vocabulary is rich enough to give a ringing endorsement," he said upon his arrival here at the venue from the Olympic equestrian events are being held.
"What you have achieved is outstanding," he told about 300 guests which included many senior officials of the Hong Kong Special administrative Region government, heads of local sports federations and some diplomats.
Rogge further added that he would also avoid the word "fantastic" after coming across it in an answer speech to a welcome message.
Rogge showered praises on Beijing for hosting the Games and said the event was "really outstanding," with the athletes "absolutely happy with what they called the best ever Olympic Village." "Even the media, who criticised us once in a while, said to me, 'president, we will continue to criticise you, but we have to say we never had so nice facilities," he added.
Rogge was very happy with ongoing equestrian events here and said there were doubts and concerns among the equestrian community when the possibility of staging the equestrian events was first discussed in 2004.
"I am glad to say today that these doubts have been totally dispelled and the choice of Hong Kong was a right one," he said.
The Beijing Games, currently in its 10th competition day, had brought thrills and records all along since it started on August 8 and is scheduled to conclude on August 24.
Nepal's new Maoist PM to attend Olympics close Nepal's new Maoist prime minister will travel to Beijing to attend the closing ceremony of the Olympics, a government official said today, in what would be his first trip abroad as the country's leader.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who still goes by the nom de guerre Prachanda -- meaning "terrible" or "fierce" -- was sworn in on Monday as the country's first prime minister after the abolition of the 239-year-old monarchy.
The International Olympic Committee had invited the former guerrilla chief to attend Sunday's closing ceremony in the Chinese capital.
Niranjan Basnet, a senior foreign ministry official, said Prachanda was scheduled to leave for Beijing on Saturday and return home next Tuesday.
"This trip is for the participation in the closing of the Olympics," he said.
Nepal, struggling to emerge from months of political uncertainty, was represented by a former minister during the opening ceremony of the Games.
Prachanda's election, after his Maoist party won a surprise victory in April's assembly elections, is a major step towards capping a peace process after a civil war in which more than 13,000 people died.
Nepal's influential southern neighbour India has also invited the new prime minister for a visit to New Delhi but officials said no decision had yet been taken about the invitation.
Germany makes it to last four, Holland beat Pakistan Playing to a plan world champion Germanyover ran New Zealand 3-1 to become third team to qualify for thesemi-finals of the Olympic Men's hockey competition here today.
Australia and Holland have already made it to the semi-finals from Pool B.
In another match of the morning session, three-time winner Pakistan ended their miserable league campaign on a losing note going down to Holland 2-4.
Pakistan ended with two wins and three defeats while Holland collected 13 points from four wins and one draw.
Needing a win to keep their Olympic Gold medal dream alive, Germany hit New Zealand hard from the moment the first whistle sounded, forcing their opponents deep into their own half.
It took just five minutes for the defensive line to crack, when Timo Wess scored a powerful penalty corner to make the score 1-0.
It was a captain's goal from Wess, who produced the goods just when his side needed him most.
Four minutes later the score moved to 2-0, when Matthias Witthau brilliantly deflected the ball into the goal from the top of the circle.
New Zealand had their best chance of the half when Phillip Burrows picked up the ball on the back line, beat a couple of players and sent his pushed shot just wide of the right post.
The Kiwis had another near miss just 20 seconds into the second half when Simon Child chipped the ball over Germany keeper Max Weinhold only to watch it fall agonisingly wide of the target.
Eventually though, their hard work paid off when Hayden Shaw slammed home a drag flicked penalty corner to make the score 2-1 in the 46th minute.
However, Florian Keller moved in from the right and stuck a superb third goal for Germany with 15 minutes to go, killing off the New Zealand challenge.
It looked that Pakistan had saved its best for the last game of the pool, but even that was not good enough to rustle up a win against the Netherlands and sign off in style.
The green shirts, already out of the top four, thus bowed out 4-2, and with only two wins against three losses from five league games, it is left to fight it out in the middle cluster of four.
For the first time, there was some measure of rhythm, method and fluency in Pakistan's attack and its defence almost at par with the better outfits.
In the first half, Pakistan was definitely the dominant side and went into the break with a most heartening 1-0 lead through a brute of a strike by short corner specialist Muhammad Imran that sailed low and at lightning pace to smash into the backboard.
But missing by the forwards that has been Pakistan's bane in this tournament, came back to haunt it in the second half as several opportunities went begging.
Holland came back through that most fabulous of playmakers, Teun de Nooijer, setting up two goals with Taeke Taekema, already the leading scorer in this Olympic tournament, took his tally to 10 goals from another brace to literally put the game away and pile still more misery on Pakistan.
The Dutch equaliser came through a run down the left flank by Nooijer and laying a pass for Matthijs Brower to slam it home from the centre in the 41st minute.
Two hot, precision penalty corner conversions 12 minutes apart, in 46th and 58th, Taekema shot Holland into a double lead.
Pakistan's mid-fielder pulled one down with a short corner deflection into the net but that was neutralised by another Nooijer effort that was slammed home by Jeroen Hertzberger with a minute to go.
Germany's "Frodo" wins men's gold Germany's Jan Frodeno, who took up triathlon because a girl he fancied did it, won the Olympic gold medal today in a dramatic sprint to the finish.
Close behind him, Sydney gold medallist Simon Whitfield of Canada won the silver in the baking hot Beijing swim-bike-run event, and New Zealand's Bevan Docherty the bronze.
Frodeno, a former swimmer and surf-lifeguard who took up triathlon eight years ago while living in South Africa, battled with Docherty and 2008 world champion Javier Gomez of Spain, both heavily tipped for gold, for front position in the last two laps.
But the German, whose nickname is "Frodo", strode ahead at the final bend, overtaking all of them and leaving Gomez in fourth place, a full 20 seconds behind his finish time of one hour, 48 minutes and 53 seconds.
"It was a moment I had dreamed of so many times in my head.
During the race I told myself: 'Boy, be greedy -- it's champagne or fizzy water'," an overwhelmed Frodeno said afterwards.
"I tried not to think that the others behind me were the fastest guys and the most famous triathletes.
he said, adding he had learned his lesson from losing a lot of sprints this year.
The all-round fitness event came down to a running race, as the best sprinters held back and then surged past the winners of the swim and bike sections in the four-lap final section.
Frodeno, whose gold medal surprise came a day after his 27th birthday, punched the air triumphantly after breaking through the ribbon at the Ming Tombs reservoir course north of Beijing.