Continuing our look at the golden moments from the Games, Sophie Hardach tells us what it was like watching the heart-wrenching story of weightlifter Matthias Steiner unfold.

Sophie writes:

After covering 14 Olympic weightlifting competitions, I sat down for the super-heavyweight contest knowing that it would be the most spectacular of them all. In the previous contests, I had seen hulking strongmen in tears, had watched lifters crash to the floor under the barbell, had heard caveman howls and primal screams.

Now all that macho breast-beating would reach a climax, with 150kg-contenders trying to snatch more than 200kg. What I did not expect to see in that testosterone-filled competition hall was a moment of heart-breaking tenderness.

I had heard the story of 25-year-old German lifter Matthias Steiner, whose wife, Susann, died after a car crash last year, and my heart went out to him as I watched him fail not just one but two attempts.

I had read that he carried a photo of Susann with him at every competition, and had promised her in hospital that he would make their joint Olympic dream come true. But after the snatch and another failed attempt in the clean and jerk, it looked as if he would not even win a medal.

I wrote up a short story just in case, thinking that his moving story might interest my editors even if he ended up fourth or fifth. Then I gave the editing desk a heads-up on the likely ranking: Russian Evgeny Chigishev gold, Latvian Viktors Scerbatihs silver … and maybe, just maybe, bronze for my own country, Germany.

Suddenly, Steiner raised his weight by 10kg. Weightlifters usually move up in steps of 2kg, sometimes 4kg or 6kg. After two failed attempts, this looked like a desperate lunge for a medal by a man who was clearly unable to lift the targeted weight. I was sure he would fail, and yet, as he lifted the barbell, I found myself forgetting my journalistic impartiality, thinking only: come on, you can do it, pleeease…

He did it. Groaning and yelling, he lifted 258kg, his personal best. “Matthias Steiner gold, Chigishev silver, Scerbatihs bronze,” I shouted into my phone. I then hugged the bewildered Reuters colleague next to me before furiously typing up the story.

I only looked up again when the German anthem played. Steiner was standing on the podium, a bear of a man choking back the tears, clutching a bouquet and his medal. Then someone handed him another object.

He held it up and kissed it, a look of incredible pain mixed with happiness on his face. I gasped when I recognised what it was — a photo of a young, pretty blonde with a carefree smile. Susann.

Read Snapshot Beijing, 1: Matt Emmons, by Erik Kirschbaum here.

More to follow over the course of the day.

PHOTO: Matthias Steiner of Germany holds a photo of his late wife Susann as he poses with his gold medal in the men’s +105kg Group A weightlifting competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 19, 2008. REUTERS/Alvin Chan   

Matthew Mitcham did two surprising things in Beijing. He scooped a gold medal from the apparently invincible Chinese diving team and told anyone who asked that he is gay.

Mitcham broke down in tears after a nearly perfect last dive edged him above the Chinese favourite into top place. It was the eighth and last medal in a sport that the host nation utterly dominates and was expected to sweep.

Mitcham is as fearless talking about his personal life as he is on the board.

He has been open about his sexuality, and according to a study by a gay sports website he is the only man among 10,500 Olympic athletes to publicly say he is gay.

Coming out is not a simple choice for a gay athlete. It could bring disapproval from fans or team mates and jeopardise sponsorship deals. Then there is the fact that media focus on the whole gay issue could overshadow an athlete’s sporting achievements.

Read Emma Graham-Harrison’s story of Mitcham’s incredible winning dive here.

PHOTO: Matthew Mitcham of Australia competes in the men’s 10m platform diving final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Rickey Rogers writes: Pictures of sports idols don’t get much better than this one. Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona kisses the hand of modern-day Brazilian idol Ronaldinho.

The rivalry between their countries, their differences in personality and the arrogance for which Maradona is known all make this fraction of a second one that in the sports world speaks volumes.

The original caption reads: Former Argentine soccer player Diego Maradona kisses the hand of Ronaldinho of Brazil after the medal ceremony for men’s soccer at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008.  REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin

FIFA president Sepp Blatter says he does not see any need to change the format of the Olympic soccer tournament, which is restricted to under-23 teams and allows each to field up to three overage players.

Many people, however, feel that soccer is something of an unwelcome gatecrasher at the Games and that not bringing its top players is rather like turning up at the party with a bottle of cheap plonk.

Like many compromises, the under-23 solution succeeds in pleasing nobody, the critics say.

But what should the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA do? It is an interesting dilemma.

Lifting the age limit could effectively create an alternative World Cup, devaluing the real thing, cluttering up the international calendar and infuriating the European clubs.

The other extreme would be to drop soccer altogether. But with a total of 2.14 million paying spectators at the 2008 Games, the most of any sport according to FIFA officials, this is hardly a feasible option, either.

PHOTO: Lionel Messi (R) of Argentina fights for the ball with Dele Adeleye of Nigeria during the men’s gold medal soccer match at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Whatever the results of the investigation into the date of birth of He Kexin, China’s double Olympic gold medallist, I hope we don’t lose sight of the fact that even in the event of any subterfuge the gymnast herself would not be the one to blame.

The International Olympic Committee has asked the gymnastics federation to check He’s date of birth of following claims that she might be under the minimum age to compete.

He herself was given a pretty rough ride by reporters during press conferences at these Games, with at least one journalist trying to catch her out by asking her what her star sign was.

She has also been asked to “prove” in a press conference that she really was 16. You can’t help wondering how she was supposed to do that.

He won team gold and a gold on the asymmetric bars. She was registered as having been born on January 1, 1992. Gymnasts must turn 16 in the year of the Games to be allowed to compete.

UPDATE: The International Gymnastics Federation has begun analysing documents from the Chinese, the organisation said in a statement on Saturday.

“The Federation has received a number of documents from the Chinese Gymnastics Federation, including passports, identity cards and family booklets,” the FIG said in a statement.

“All information is in Chinese and the (federation) is making as thorough analysis as possible of the papers. This process may take some time, but in due course, the FIG will make a full report of our findings to the International Olympic Committee.”

It doesn’t sound like there is going to be any advance on this before the end of the Games.

PHOTO: Gold medallist He Kexin (L) of China kisses silver medallist Nastia Liukin of the U.S. during the medal presentation ceremony for the women’s uneven bars final during the artistic gymnastics competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 18, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

Cuba’s Angel Valodia Matos was banned for life from taekwondo on Saturday after he kicked the match referee in the head in his bronze medal bout.

Matos’s coach was also banned for the behaviour that the official said was in “strong violation of the spirit of taekwondo and the Olympic Games”.

That would be putting it mildly, one might say.

PHOTO: Angel Valodia Matos of Cuba kicks out at referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden during the men’s +80kg bronze medal taekwondo competition against Arman Chilmanov of Kazakhstan at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Remember those jolly tourist pictures you took of yourself in Italy where you were pretending to prop up the leaning tower of Pisa? Here’s the Beijing equivalent.

You stand in front of the Bird’s Nest stadium, hold up your hand and by a miracle of foreshortening appear to grip the vast cornetto-shaped torch burning on the roof of the athletics venue.

It is the most popular picture for visitors to take, judging by the streams of foreign and Chinese tourists posing with their arms in the air.

Of course, the vast roof-top cauldron is shaped like the Olympic torch used in the pre-Games global relay that was hit by anti-China protests.

There are no signs of unhappiness among the security-screened crowds milling around the stadium. ”Everybody wants to be a torch bearer here,” said Li Jiaheng, 16, who was photographing his mother ”holding” the distant torch.

PHOTOS: Chinese tourists poses for a picture outside the National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, while pretending to hold the Olympic Torch, August 16, 2008. REUTERS/Christina Hu

So much goes on in such a short space of time at the Olympics that for many of us it all tends to blur into one. You’re lucky if you can come away from the Games with one indelible image in your mind, a moment you’ll always remember for the drama, the colour or the sheer brilliance of the performance.

We’re almost at the end now, so I’ve asked Reuters correspondents to share a favourite golden moment from the Games. Here’s the first from Erik Kirschbaum, who watched aghast as history repeated itself at the shooting. Erik writes:

As Yogi Berra might have said, it was deja vu all over again.
 
American Matt Emmons had just thrown away another gold medal on his last shot — just like he did four years ago in Athens when I was also watching from about 15 metres back. I bet Emmons will be remembered in 100 years for the unique feat. It was, for me, hands down the most incredible moment of the Beijing Olympics.
 
I spent 3 hours last Sunday watching Emmons, an unbelievably friendly accountant from New Jersey, build up a huge 3.3-point lead in the 3-positions shooting competition.

He made that marathon event famous four years ago by firing at the wrong target on the very last of his 130 shots and throwing away a 3-point lead and a sure gold medal.

In Beijing, Emmons seemed to be on a mission to make up for that wastefulness — even though he could laugh about it then and now. He did, after all, meet his wife thanks to that blunder in Athens.

Emmons was shooting brilliantly on that Sunday, hitting 10s on 7 of his first 9 shots in the 10-shot final and opening up a vast lead in a sport usually decided by fractions of a point.

I had my alert headline all set up on my computer screen, “American Matt Emmons wins Olympic gold medal in men’s 3-position shooting” and was about to pull the trigger when suddenly the score of 4.4 flashed on the screen above his head — and the crowd gasped.  

No, I thought. Can’t be true. He didn’t just blow it again, did he? An instant later I realised he had done just that. I still can’t really believe it.

I’ll be sending more of these, in no particular order, over the last two days of the Games.

PHOTO: Matthew Emmons of the U.S. reacts after shooting during the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 17, 2008. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Join us on the penultimate podcast from the Games for a look at Argentina’s win in the football, mixed feelings for Jamaica in the 4×100m relays and the prospect of Pearly Kings and Queens taking over the Bird’s Nest stadium.

Paul Radford, Al Himmer, Robert Woodward, Julian Linden and Paul Majendie join me around the laptop. Sorry about the end-of-term feel.

There’s been a lively discussion, here and elsewhere, about which version of the medals table is a better way of ranking countries’ achievements at the Olympics.

Reuters goes with the “gold standard”, if you like, which has put China out in front almost from the start. Other, mainly American outlets go with the “total number of medals” tally that puts the U.S. on top.

It’s been interesting to hear so many different points of view, and suggestions for different, weighted systems of formatting the table (see the original piece here).

A lot of people like the idea of different points for gold, silver and bronze, while I’ve enjoyed the notion of combining that weighting system with a per capita bias. That was suggested to me by Greg Stutchbury, a colleague from New Zealand, and it worked out that top of the medals table would be New Zealand. Strange, that.

Still, we’re sticking with the gold standard and on that basis I can tell you that China are now assured of first place. Greg has done the maths and as of this morning the U.S. can no longer catch the hosts. There are still enough medals up for grabs, but the U.S. are not in contention in enough of the events to make up the ground (see the table to the right of this page for the up-to-date tally).

So congratulations China. It is a mighty achievement, given that they did not win a single Olympic gold medal until 1984. It just shows what a massive population and absolute dedication to a goal can achieve.

PHOTO: Zhang Yining of China kisses her gold medal after defeating compatriot Wang Nan in the women’s singles table tennis final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 22, 2008. REUTERS/Joe Chan