BEIJING – Four years ago, Wang Hao hung his head in shame. He'd done the unforgiveable, lost the gold medal in table tennis to a Korean. China's stranglehold on the sport was lost.

"You made a lot of Chinese have their dreams broken," his coach told him Saturday, in case Wang needed a reminder.

At the time, it was even worse. If a nation could stop dead due to sporting shame, this would have been what did it. An apoplectic Chinese media ripped him to shreds, demanding answers for his wilting under the stress.

"I was under enormous pressure," he mumbled then, an answer not nearly satisfactory for Chinese fans.

For four years Wang used that humiliation to drive him in training, to focus his pursuit of redemption. You think USA Basketball had something to prove?

So here he was now, 24 and back in the gold medal game. It was Saturday night, prime time in Asia, a packed house on the west side of Beijing. Outside, tickets were going above face value; inside, the king of Sweden was leading

BEIJING – Across the Chinese media, the story has hit saturation coverage. China, once mocked as "the weaklings of Asia," is going to win what it calls the total medal count for the Beijing Games.

China, like most of the world, values gold medals above all and only counts them in the standings. With 47 and counting, its total dwarfs all other nations. The United States is second with 31.

In the U.S., all medals are counted, so the Americans still hold a lead (102-89 after Friday's competition) by that standard. The U.S. is trying to retain the total medal supremacy (by its count) it’s held since boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The U.S. has won the most golds since 1996.

In China, the accounting differences don't matter. By the Chinese's standard, this is over. And that's the only standard. They talk about China's victory all day on state-run television. Stories are all over the nation's government-controlled major newspapers.

"China's Gold Boom!" screamed one show on CCTV.

The

BEIJING — Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn't have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games.

All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts' birthdates Rogge was way too slow to investigate.

One of the most powerful men in sports turned the world away from his complicity. Instead, he has flexed his muscles by unloading on a powerless sprinter from a small island nation.

Rogge's ripping of Usain Bolt's supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics.

"That's not the way we perceive being a champion," Rogge said of the Jamaican sprinter. "I have no problem with him doing a show. I think he should show more respect for

BEIJING – Becky Hammon's new team spells her name "Rebekka." A player and the coach of her old country's team have called her "un-American" and "a traitor."

The back and forth over whether a Rapid City, S.D. native should be playing not for the United States but Mother Russia has been a heated subplot of women's basketball. And that was even before Russian tanks started rolling into the city of Gori, John McCain declared "Today, we are all Georgians" and the U.S. and Russia plowed through the Olympic tournament to set up a semifinal matchup Thursday.

"This is sports. It's never been a political statement on my end," Hammon told the media Tuesday, according to the New York Times. "I don't agree with everything that our government does, and I don't agree with everything the Russian government does."

In the United States, at least, not everyone agrees with what Becky "Rebekka" Hammon is doing, a knee-jerk reaction from what should be the bye-gone era of the politics of fear, division and

U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo (L) saves a ball as teammate Heather Mitts (bottom) defends against Canada's Clare Rustad (L) scoring attempt during their 2008 quarterfinal match on Aug. 15, 2008.

(LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIJING – Hope Solo tried to minimize the magnitude of her role in Thursday's USA-Brazil Olympic gold medal women's soccer game. And who can blame her?

It was just last year that Solo was benched in favor of Briana Scurry in the World Cup semifinal against Brazil, and after watching the U.S. lose 4-0, she unloaded with the mother of all hatchet jobs on her veteran teammate.

"It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that," she told ESPN.

"There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it's not 2004 anymore. … It's 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past. It doesn't matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold

BEIJING – Shawn Johnson had spent a week smiling her way through the gymnastics hall. No close defeat, no age controversy, no puzzled judges score could stop her. Where human nature said her face should relay some of her internal emotions – disappointment, frustration – she just kept smiling.

Tuesday she beamed after beam.

On her fourth and final chance, Johnson won her gold medal with a nearly flawless routine on balance beam, outpacing teammate Nastia Liukin and China’s Cheng Fei.

At the end she unleashed a smile as big as Beijing itself, a glorious conclusion to a competition that never got her down and only taught her more about herself as she came to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

“I kept saying, ‘finally’ a lot,” Johnson laughed. “I made it. I finally won a gold medal.

I can’t stop smiling. I’m so excited.”

The 4-foot-9 powerhouse from Iowa had won over the fans here with her strong performance and profound grace. You can’t call an Olympics a disappointment

BEIJING – With each successive blowout, each complete manhandling of competition exponentially greater than Magic, Michael and Larry could have fathomed, the question about the current USA men's basketball team isn't about redemption, it's about greatness.

As in, is this the greatest basketball team ever assembled?

Could they even take the original Dream Team?

Immediate reactions of blasphemy aside, the debate is certain to heat up if Team USA continues its blitzkrieg of the Beijing Olympics and wins the gold.

The team play has been extraordinary, the defense suffocating and even the outside shooting precise. On top of its game, the 2008 team is a tour de force to behold, its 119-82 annihilation of world champion Spain being the finest indication that this, at the very least, is the best Olympic team since 1992. And that includes a rather dominant 1996 U.S. club.

"They wanted to show everyone they are superior, and they did," shell-shocked Spanish center Pau Gasol said.

BEIJING – Shawn Johnson came here to win four gold medals, a half-pint, half-Phelps.

These were going to be her Olympics, too, the West Des Moines, Iowa, powerhouse whipping her 4-foot-9 frame all over China, gymnastics' answer to Michael's domination across the street in the pool.

Three events in and Johnson has three silvers.

So close, so far.

The latest near-miss came Sunday on the floor exercise final where Johnson went first, held onto a lead for the entire competition and survived all sorts of dangerous challengers only to lose to Romania’s Sandra Izbasa on the last possible leap, 15.65 to 15.5.

"I had a great time out there," Johnson offered.

This is why Johnson was poised to become America's sweetheart, why all the corporations had banked on her, why USA Gymnastics was so proud to put her at the forefront of its promotions.

As good a gymnast as she is, she's something else as a 16-year-old kid. Almost unnervingly nice, she is relentlessly positive, a one-person cheering session