Spain comes away with the silver medal and Argentina beat Lithuania 87-75 for the bronze medal.

An interesting note on the game is that Lisa Leslie and Teresa Edwards have both been on all four gold medal teams for the US. Which also makes them the only basketball players to ever win four gold medals.

For the US team it was a very hard earned silver medal, considering the stabbing incident that they went through when they first arrived in Beijing. For those who don’t remember, on August 9th the father of US player Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon was killed in Beijing by someone who then killed himself. Her mother was also injured in the stabbing attack.

Anyway, the whole tournament was very emotional for the US Women’s volleybal team, and they should proud of how well they performed under the circumstances.

If the US team let’s it guard down it will be looking at the silver medal. However, it sure looks like they will be taking home Gold medals.

The finals was fun to watch. It is pretty amazing that Dalhausser and Rogers have only been playing together for three years. They look like they have been playing together a lot longer.

Congratulations to the US Women’s Soccer team for their gold medal win.

Congratulations to Misty and Kerri for another gold medal. All the best with your future goals off and on the court…

I was really interested to hear a bit of the story of the team’s coach, Jenny Lang Ping, though. If you’re big volleyball fans, you probably already know that she was a member of the 1984 gold medal winning Chinese women’s volleyball team. She’s quite the star in China, having coached the National team after she finished her career as a player.

You can read more about her on USA volleyball’s website.

So, what is going on? It’s not just the Beijing Olympics. No top-five player has won the gold medal in men’s singles since 1988. My husband thinks maybe the Olympics just aren’t as important to the pros, so they don’t try as hard. I don’t think that’s it. I’ve read interviews, and the players seem genuinely proud and pleased to be representing their countries. I do think that perhaps there is an overconfidence problem.

But really I think it’s just that there is something about playing in the Olympics that makes it difficult to predict who will win. There’s certainly plenty of skill around, but a lot of times the difference between a win and a loss in the Olympics seems to be a question of heart and wanting it more. Perhaps that’s why the hosting team always seems to have a home team advantage. If that is the case, I hope the Williams sisters want that doubles medal more than they wanted the singles one.

James Blake is one of my favorites, and it would be a real Olympic story if he could pull off the unthinkable and win a medal in the Beijing Olympics. Even though he’s part of the winning American Davis Cup team, Blake hasn’t achieved the fame and notoriety of more well known tennis players, including Federer.

And that’s a shame because James Blake has quite a story. From a diagnosis of scoliosis as a teen to a broken neck and shingles in 2004, Blake is quite the comeback kid. So, it would be really great if more people get to know James Blake, and a medal would certainly accomplish that.

Frankly, from the written descriptions, it seems like it was a bit of over-kill to remove him from the game. Players tussle all the time while going for the ball. There’s a big difference between an accidentally thrown elbow and a punch in the face. It would seem to me that, especially at the Olympics, there would be some benefit of the doubt given. It’s a shame that the United States soccer team’s Olympic hopes were dashed by one error in judgement.

I’m not taking anything away from the skill required to play badminton, but I just have a hard time taking it seriously. In case you were wondering, the match I was watching was American Raju Rai vs. Ville Lang of Finland. Rai lost.

In China, on the other hand, badminton is very serious business. Their coach has said, anything less than 3 of the 5 gold medals will be considered a failure. Wow, no pressure there.

MSNBC is broadcasting a full day tomorrow, as well, including women’s tennis, women’s handball, women’s basketball, women’s water polo and women’s volleyball. (Incidentally, U.S. women’s water polo is pursuing their third straight Olympic gold medal.) Men’s badminton (where U.S. competitor Raju Rai may actually have a chance), weightlifting and men’s archery are also available for viewing.

CNBC will be showing men’s beach volleyball, boxing, and women’s softball.

USA is broadcasting women’s beach volleyball, rowing, men’s tennis (featuring Wimbledon champion Rafael Nedal), women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball.

Oxygen will be covering gymnastics and equestrian.

Online, you can see archery, badminton, basketball, fencing, handball, field hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, softball, tennis, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.

Rain stopped the match between Serena Williams and Olga Govortsova and prevented the match between Roger Federer and Dmitry Tursunov, among others (so much for cloud seeding to prevent rain). In all, nine matches were completed, 10 suspended and 26 postponed. I’m not sure how they plan to get the tournament back on schedule, but I’m sure they’ll manage somehow.

A bright spot in the day was James Blake’s win in his Olympic debut. If you don’t know about James Blake, make sure to read my upcoming post about this American comeback kid.