Australia claimed two titles in the velodrome today, as Ryan Baily took gold in the Kierin final, and the team of Stuart O'Grady and Graeme Brown won the especially exciting Madison final. Britain's Rob Hayles crashed early on, losing the team's strong momentum. But he and teammate Bradley Wiggins gradually made an astonishing comeback and thrilled the crowd to finish in bronze medal position. Hayles missed a medal in Sydney due to a crash in the last lap; and this completes an Athens set for Wiggins - adding bronze to his team pursuit silver and his individual pursuit gold.

After winning four world championships, Russia's Olga Slyusareva finally earned that elusive Olympic gold as she won the cycling points race today. Mexico's Belem Guerrero Mendez came second and Maria Luisa Calle Williams claimed bronze - Colombia's first-ever cycling medal.

In windsurfing today the big news here was the gold medalist Gal Fridman became the first Israeli to win gold in any sport. Greece's local hero Nikos Kaklamanakis, who lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony, won silver.

Americans Kerri Walsh and Misty May beat the Brazilians to win the women's beach volleyball title last night. After the match, May sprinkled the ashes of her mother who died of cancer two years ago - over the court. The men's title will be decided tonight when the favourites Brazil face off against Spain.

The Netherlands beat Germany today to make it to the men's hockey final. They'll play the winner of tonight's other semifinal between Spain and Australia for the gold medal on Friday. This is the third time in a row that the Dutch team has made the Olympic hockey final.

Two new Olympic champions sailed through the heats of the men's 5,000-metre race today and will meet in Saturday night's hotly anticipated final. Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj won the 1500-metre title last night, while Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele claimed the 10,000-metre title on Friday.

America's most winning Olympic female athlete Marion Jones begins her second Olympics tonight with the long jump. She won three golds and two bronzes in Sydney, and hopes to also compete in the 400-metre relay here in Athens. After her son was born in June 2003, Jones took a year off before beginning to train for Athens.

But America's heavyweight wrestler Rulon Gardner saw his unbeaten record come to an end here today as he lost his Olympic title in the semifinal stage of the 120-kilogram Greco-Roman wrestling category, beaten by Georgiy Tsurtsumia of Kazakhstan. While in weightlifting, the world's unofficial strongest man, "Iranian Hercules" Hossein Rezazadeh, was also unable to defend his Olympic title in the over-105-kilogram category. Latvia's Viktors Scerbatihs took the gold.

And weightlifting officials had their own challenge today when super-heavyweight Stian Grimseth was injured during his competition . . . and no one could help him leave the stage! Grimseth stands 1.87 metres (6 ft 2 in) and weighs 158 kilograms (348 lbs), and after the medical staff strapped him to a stretcher no one could move him. It took five men to slide him to the edge of the stage, and ten men to lower him to the floor and push him out a doorway. None of Grimseth's competitors dared to lend a hand.

PERSONAL NOTE: THE OLYMPIC COMPLEX

At the hub of Athens' Games layout is the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, OAKA (pronounced oh-WAH-kuh). This is an enormous area in Maroussi, northern Athens, with five entrances serving various bus lines and Metro stations. There are five major venues in this complex: the Olympic Stadium (where the cauldron burns); the Olympic Aquatic Centre (with three pools - outdoors for swimming, indoors for synchronized swimming and indoors for water polo and diving); the Olympic Tennis Centre (with ten courts, two of which have stadiums); the Olympic Indoor Hall (an arena for gymnastics and the basketball finals); and the Olympic Velodrome (my favourite venue so far, which I'll write about soon). Connecting these is a vast open area filled with souvenir shops, food stalls, ice-cold drinking fountains and big screen TVs, as well as the elaborate Today set (America's top breakfast TV show) and more spartan camera positions for other TV shows that want the stadium and cauldron in the background. Most of the half-moon shaped area is simply paved with packed earth, which looks strangely unfinished when it's empty, but works well when there's a big crowd. Apparently this is a specifically Greek kind of pavement - it wasn't supposed to be grass! (There are a few grassy areas, which become lovely naptime spots when you can find some shade.) There are several astonishing architectural touches, such as a fountain geyser that can shoot higher than the Olympic Stadium itself. Most dominant is a semi-circular walkway around the curved edge of the park with a beautiful arched covering that provides latticed shade - inside its like a massive shopping mall full of proportionally tiny people. At least 300 metres long, it's bordered on one side by fountains (no wading!) and on the other by sponsors' pavilions (McDonalds, the Samsung Centre, the Kodak shop, a mammoth souvenir superstore). On the straight side of the central space is what they call the Super Wall - a gigantic flat surface at least 100 metres long suspended in mid-air, which casts a shadow across the main pathway on that side. It's made of slats that sometimes ripple dramatically (which is why everyone calls it the Waving Wall), and at night they project huge video images on it. The wall connects the aquatic and cycling venues at one end with the gymnastic and athletics venues at the other. Apparently after the Olympics they will convert this area into a huge sports and entertainment complex - although without a pressing deadline to work toward you wonder when that will happen!

[by Rich Cline]