Is it Friday already? Yes, it's Day 14 here and as the Games begin to wind down there's still a lot of competition to come this weekend. The USA has extended its lead at the top of the medals chart, with 28 golds out of 83 total medals. China is second with 25 golds and 54 total. Australia has finally jumped into third with 16 golds and 43 total. But they may relinquish that to the fast-rising Russians, who have one fewer gold (15) but a much larger total (60). Medals are awarded today in athletics, canoeing, mountain biking, horse jumping, hockey, women's modern pentathlon and taekwondo.

Paula Radcliffe will indeed run in tonight's 10,000-metre race here in Athens. After dropping out of Sunday's marathon with four miles to go, she had refused to say whether or not she would participate tonight. But she's the fastest woman over the distance this year - by a whopping 26 seconds - and she wants to make up for her fourth-place finish in Sydney. Her main competitor tonight will be defending champion Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia.

America took all three medals in last night's 200-metre men's sprint final - with Shawn Crawford claiming the gold in personal best time, followed by Bernard Williams and 100-metre winner Justin Gatlin. The race got off to a bad start with a false start caused by the Greek fans loudly booing the absence of defending champion Kostas Kenteris, the national hero who withdrew from the Games at the last minute after missing a drug test.

Poland's three-time world champion Robert Korzeniowski won his third straight men's 50-kilometre walk gold medal here this morning. World record holder Denis Nizhegorodov of Russia took the silver.

And the Dominican Republic won its first-ever Olympic gold medal when Felix Sanchez triumphed in the 400-metres hurdles final, adding gold to his world and Pan American titles. He's been unbeaten in the event since July 2001.

At his fifth Olympics, Brazil's Torben Grael won his fifth medal yesterday - taking gold with teammate Marcelo Ferreira in star class sailing. Grael also won gold in Atlanta, silver in Los Angeles and bronze in Seoul and Sydney.

Russian hammer thrower Olga Kuzenkova finally won that elusive Olympic gold medal here in Athens. She finished second in Sydney and at three consecutive world championships. But here she finally won the title, and with a throw of 75.02 she both set an Olympic record and made the fourth longest throw in history.

In the men's hockey final tonight, Holland has the chance to claim its third straight gold medal - and victory seems fairly assured. They have been undefeated here, but they will face strong competition from the feisty Australian team, which has won three silvers and three bronzes at previous Olympics and is determined to finally get the gold.

Russian 400-metre runner Anton Galkin is the latest competitor to be thrown out of the athlete's village for failing a drug test. He finished fourth in his semifinal last weekend - and he's the 18th athlete to be expelled from the Athens Games, which is a new record.

And finally, a local taxi driver was honoured by the Greek government for returning a silver medal left in his cab by Dutch rower Simon Diederik on Monday. For returning the medal, the government presented driver Yiannis Zavos with a commemorative book about the Games, which includes a rare collection of Olympic stamps.

PERSONAL NOTE: A DAY IN THE LIFE

Here's a description of a typical daily schedule here in Athens - which pretty much echoes my work in Sydney with one key difference. Here I have an official press credential, which means I can attend most events free - I simply walk in the media entrance. I can't get into the big-ticket things like athletics and swimming finals - or most team sports from quarterfinals onwards. But everything else is fairly free access. At other Olympics I've had to buy tickets to get into the venues - and being inside is essential for me as I do regular radio reports on the atmosphere of the Games. So here's a rough outline of my day: Get up at around 7am at the team house in Marousi (we all eat breakfast and shower as and when we can!), take the Metro four stops to the office/production facility in Nea Ionia and produce the morning news report. Then I hit the town - either walking around Athens or attending some competition. In the late afternoon I am either at a venue or in the city press centre downtown, then back to Nea Ionia for the evening news report at around 8pm. Then possibly to another event or to the office to do another live report before staggering home to bed at around 1am. This is subject to frequent change, usually depending on what's happening where. For example, yesterday I did the morning news early so I could go down to the triathlon in Vouliagmeni; and today I'm very late due to a horrific transportation failure getting to and from the canoeing venue in Marathon. These kinds of shifts are daily occurrences! And along the way I have several radio pieces to do: Two daily reports for UCB Radio in Britain, one daily report for Voice Africa, and a daily version of my morning news roundup for the More Than Gold radio programme, which is syndicated for some 800 stations around the world. I have also reported on the Olympics several times each week for BBC Radio 5 Live, LBC Radio in London, Century FM in Manchester/Liverpool and Premier Christian Radio in the UK. It does feel somewhat relentless - no matter where I am I always have to be ready to say something both intelligent and entertaining to my listeners! Many of these reports are done wherever I am at the time - on a bus, lounging on the beach (I've managed that twice), walking in town or working in the office. If I'm in the office I can use a digital ISDN line, but most are done on my mobile phone, which gets a strong, clear signal (I have a Greek number for these three weeks). And I;'ve also continued to do my normal weekly film reviews for the BBC and Century FM. OK I'm about three hours late with this, so I'd better get running . . . .

[by Rich Cline]