Four Who Finished Fourth- The Men

This is a complementary piece to our entry on women who finished fourth at the Olympics at our other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

1. Bernard Lagat, 37, USA (originally from Kenya), track and field/men's 5,000 meters (pictured below)_ Ironically, a Kenyan runner Thomas Pkerei Longosiwa kept Lagat from a bronze medal. Lagat had successfully competed for Kenya at the 2000 Sydney Olympics (bronze) and the 2004 Athens Olympics (silver). He began running for the USA in 2005. Lagat finished his race in 13:42.99, a mere one second less than the Kenyan who got bronze.

2. Andrea Baldini, 26, Italy, fencing (foil, pictured second)_ We debated about including Baldini as he did win team gold in the foil fencing competition. But, in the individual competition, the globally recognized fencer came in fourth. He lost to Choi Byung-Chui of South Korea in the bronze medal match. Italy came away with seven medals in fencing though, which was more than any other country.

3. Raymond van der Biezen, 25, Netherlands, BMX biking (pictured third)_ This was the second Olympics for the Dutch biker as he came in second at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This year in spite of an outstanding first run he finished fourth, just behind Carols Oquendo of Colombia. Maris Stromberg of Latvia won the event, which was the only gold for his country.

4. Kenenisa Bekele, 30, Ethiopia, track and field/men;s 10,000 meters (pictured top)_ He way well be the only athlete in London to lose a meda to his younger brother as Tarike Bekele, also running for Ethiopia got the bronze medal. But, the older Bekele still has more Olympic medals as he has won a total of three gold medals and one silver medal in Athens and Beijing.

http://www.raymondbiezen.com

http://www/andrea-baldini.com

Our Favorite Olympic Athletes- Don't Mess with Katie Taylor

Here is a sample of our favorite female athletes at the 2012 London Olympics:

1.Fabian Caludino, 27, volleyball, Brazil_ The Brazilian star who is one of the very best spikers in the world will help her team try to win gold over a talented Team America on Saturday; Brazil won the competition at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

2) Elisa DiFrancisca, 24, fencing (foil), Italy_ The Italian fencer is both a star and a sex symbol in Italy as she has often posed in bikinis for photo shoots. During the London games, she won two gold medals. One for individual foil and one for team foil.

3) Evgenia Kanaeva, 22, rhythmic gymnastics, Russia (pictured bottom)_ The competition in this sport just got started today, and it looks to be a battle between Kaaneva who won gold in Beijing and her Russian teammate Daria Dmitriea.

4) Pandelela Rinonog, 19, diving, Malaysia (pictured center)_ The Malaysian flag-bearer won bronze today in platform diving; it was the first medal for Malaysia outside of badminton.

5) Christine Sinclair, 29, soccer, Canada_ One really has to feel for Sinclair for scoring a hat trick in the team's double-overtime semi-final loss to the United States; Team America won gold today by beating Japan 2-1.

6) Katie Taylor, 26, boxing, Ireland (pictured top)_ The Irish boxer won gold today, as many had expected, by defeating Sofya Octigava in the lightweight division. Taylor won the first and only gold for Ireland at the games so far in the process.

Our Favorite Olympic Athletes (2 of 4)_ A Korean Archer and a Kazak Lifter, et al

We just noticed that somehow Ilya Ilyin, a gold medalist in weightlifting from Kazakhstan, and Aron Szilagyi, a gold medalist in fencing from Hungary, look like the exact same person!

Here are some of our favorite international male athletes from the 2012 London Olympics, in alphabetical order:

1. Rolf-Goran Bengtsson, 50, Sweden, equestrian_ Bengtsson who won silver at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics was expected to perform well in horse-jumping this time around, but things didn't go according to plan (Cliche Alert!). But, the country's flag-bearer will hopefully be happy that his teammate Sara Algotsson won silver. Equestrian is the only event we now of where men and women compete against each other. Sweden has won one gold medal in sailing, and seven overall in London so far.

2. Im Dong-Hyun, 26, South Korea, archery (pictured top)_ Im Dong-Hyun won a team gold medal in both 2004 and 2008. This year, South Korea finished third behind the United States and Italy, which won gold. South Korea has had a very successful Olympics with 12 gold medals and 23 medals overall. In addition, the women's indoor volleyball pulled a major upset over Italy yesterday.

3. Ilya Ilyin, 24, Kazakhstan, weight-lifting (pictured center)_ Kazakhstan has won a very impressive total of six gold medals so far. Ilyin won gold in the -94 kg division of weightlifting, beating out two other lifters from former republics_ Alexander Ivanov (silver, Russia) and Anatoli Ciricu (bronze, Moldova). Ilyin lifted a total of 418 kg (921 pounds) and his country won four gold medals in men's and women's weightlifting.

4. Kirani James, 19, Grenada, track and field (sprinter)_ One of the highlights of the Olympics has to be the moment when James switched jersey numbers with Oscar Pistorius of South Africa (see below). James won gold in the 400-meter relay; it was the first ever for the tiny Caribbean island nation. James also competes for the University of Alabama in America.

5. Oscar Pistorius, 25, South Africa, track and field (sprinter)_ Known as 'the blade runner,' Pistorius is likely to be one of the most remembered London Olympians even though he didn't win a medal. The South African sprinter, who has won four gold medals and a bronze at the paralympics was the first paraplegic athlete to ever compete at the Olympics.

6) Aron Szilagyi, 22, fencing (sabre), Hungary (pictured below)_ Szilagyi won the first of what is now six Hungarian gold medals in London. Krisztian Berki of Hungary won a gold in the pommel horse event in men's gymnastics.

Olympics Cities Destination Quiz- Berlin to Stockholm

Though it has been a tragic day here in the United States, as all of us are mourning the shooting victims at midnight premiere screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" at a theatre in Aurora, Colorado, but we are going to go ahead with our plans to conclude this series.

We finish this series up with a look at the distance between Berlin, Germany, which hosted the very controversial 1936 Olympics, in which Adolf Hitler promoted Aryan supremacy, and Stockholm, Sweden, which hosted the more sanguine 1912 Olympics.

American track and field athlete Jesse Owens (1913-1980), a black man who is the subject of a folk song by Greensboro, NC, singer/songwriter Bruce Piephoff (a personal friend) entitled "Jesse" (2008), was able to prove the absurdity of Hitler's concepts as he won four gold medals in Berlin.

On a more tragic note, I learned from an exhibit about the 1936 Berlin Olympics at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, that Endre Kabos (1906-1944), a Hungarian athlete of Jewish heritage who won gold in Berlin in addition to his gold medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was among the millions of Jewish people killed during World War II.

Kabos was sent to a concentration camp, but his death reportedly came on the battlefield after he escaped. His Hungarian teammate Attila Petschauer* (1904-1943) who won gold medals in fencing at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was killed in a concentration camp.

Just this week, Hungarian officials detained Laszlo Csatary, 97, for alleged role in deporting Hungarian Jews to concentration camps.

On a lighter note, today's Berlin features stop lights, featuring little green men  and little red men, which are one of few surviving relics from East Germany. In 2004, several German cities, including Dresden introduced female counterparts for pedestrian stop lights.

As for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, among the gold medalists were Finnish wrestler Kaarlo Koskelo, Italian gymnast Alberto Broglia and Australian women's swimmer Fanny Durack. The above pictured dish is a popular one in Sweden during the holidays.

And, even though he has nothing to do with either Olympics, we will mention Bruce Jenner, the American 1976 Montreal Olympics track champion, since the mere mention of his name assures significantly more hits for our blogs.

So just how far apart are these two cities?

A) 454 miles

B) 479 miles

C) 504 miles

D) 529 miles

http://www.ushmm.org

http://www.jewishsports.net

http://www.washington.org


*-I happen to share a first name with the Hungarian Jewish athlete. My first name is Attila. My late Turkish father Mehmet Gokbudak chose to give me the Hungarian spelling as opposed to the Turkish spelling which is Atilla, which has assured that people in Turkey, including passport officials, do not spell my name correctly.