Beiing 2008 wrap-up: The Is It Over Yet? edition

It's a special day for Duane, plus Andrew is rolling down a river, so someone's gotta step up on this, the penultimate day of the 29th Olympiad, although at some point, sleep will be a necessity.

Maple Leaf gold: Adam van Koeverden, who bounced back from geeking it in the 1,000 to claim the silver medal in the K-1 500, with the Australian Ken Wallace edging him in the final stretch for the gold.

The question to keep you up all night: Who should be Canada's flagbearer for the closing ceremony? If they pick Ian Millar or Eric Lamaze, will they have to do it on their horses?

The pick here is the gold-medallist wrestler, Carol Huynh. Her unexpected triumph got Canada off the schneid after that interminable first week, plus she's from B.C. -- symbolic of what's to come in two years' time.

The upside of Canada's boxing program having fallen into complete disrepute: Not being able to work up any anger over the judging scandal in the boxing tournament, which is 100 times greasier than anything Ricky, Julian and Bubbles ever got up to at Sunnyvale.

The quote you will try to work into conversation today: Sweden's Carolina Kluft said of Lyudmila Blonska, the de-medalled heptathlete, "She doesn't deserve my thought. I am just happy she got caught and is out of the sport forever."

"Doesn't deserve my thought" is just so icily polite.

Maple Leaf silver: Hmmm, huh, Andrew Willows and Richard Dober did get sixth in their paddling final.

Honorary Canadian Award: Sarah Stevenson, taekwondo, Great Britain, who can probably relate to Sylvie Frechette felt in 1992 when that Brazilian judge punched in the wrong score. In Stevenson's case, apparently you can kick your opponent in the head and still not get credit from the Chinese judges.

The WTF was the Ceeb thinking award: Fifteen minutes before van Koeverden's race, the intellectual mice at the People's Network (thank you, Mordecai) inexplicably went to a montage of cheerleaders and dancing fans set to Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music.

It's not the first time in these Games that the CBC has rummaged through the Time Life Sounds of the Seventies collection for filler. Earlier this week, there was a montage set to The Guess Who's Star Baby. It seemed odd, but someone in the newsroom noted, "The CBC was going to use this during the 1976 Games when Canada won a gold medal."

The Wow, It's Like No One Ever Saw A Breast Before Award: A commenter at a Chicago Tribune blog says Canadian diver Emilie Heymans had a "wardrobe malfunction" that was shown on NBC (it's an occupational hazard for women divers). Who cares one way or the other, aside from someone's who's very repressed? Besides, this Games will long be remembered for two huge boobs -- Bob Costas and Jacques Rogge.

The Tinfoil Visor Award: The Hater Nation is semi-seriously suggesting that with softball on the way out of the Olympics for not being competitive enough, the U.S. fastpitch team tanked the gold medal game vs. Japan (which won 1-0) just to prove a point.

The YouTubeage award: Some enterprising videographers got some behind-the-scenes footage of Kingston-born Simon Whitfield minutes after his silver medal in the triathlon.



The random bit of Sager family trivia: This has absolutely sweet eff-A to do with the current Olympics, but my mom has been known to joke about being pregnant during three straight Summer Olympics -- 1976, '80 and '84. (This most assuredly was not mentioned by her first-born during an interview in the spring with Greg Joy, Canada's silver medal high jumper from '76.)