Olympic highlights

ONE TO WATCH

Today's Olympic TV highlight

6.55pm: Men's triathlon final. Sport Illustrated magazine picked New Zealand's Bevan Docherty for a gold medal in this event. Another Kiwi, Hamish Carter, could also feature.

TVNZ has cancelled Holmes tonight to cover this event live (today's eg listings including Holmes were compiled before the change).

ALMOST FAMOUS

Martin Marinov is proud to be canoeing at the Olympics for Australia but he misses the fame he won in his native land from being "Mr Bulgaria 1993". "I used to be famous," he said this week. "I used to be the centre of attention." Marinov, an Olympic medallist for Bulgaria in 1988 and 1992, won the title after being pushed into it by his wife - and he really quite enjoyed it. "It was good fun," he said. "I'm still very famous in Bulgaria." He tried for Mr Europe but was edged by a "pretty ordinary" Frenchman.

LOVABLE LOSERS

For those who believe the adage "all Olympic athletes are winners", a Canadian man is dedicated to proving you wrong. At his "blog" (www.mcwetboy.net/dfl), Jonathan Crowe has been chronicling those athletes who finished last in their respective events. The site has attracted thousands of people to Crowe's humorous takes on the lovable losers at Athens. One candidate is Fumilay Fonseca of Sao Tome and Principe. Fonseca finished 52nd in the women's 20km walk 35 minutes and 42 seconds behind the winner and about 15 minutes behind next-to-last finisher, he reported. A reverse medals table tallies the most last-place finishes for each country.

FANS WATERBLAST BOXING RING

Angry home fans hurled water bottles into the ring after Greek fighter Elias Pavlidis was stopped because of injury in the quarter-finals of the boxing tournament yesterday.

The light-heavyweight, bidding to become the first Greek to win an Olympic boxing medal, was ahead of Egypt's Ahmed Ismail on the scoreboard when the referee stopped him in the third round because of a cut under his left eye.

That's when the fans reacted.

Ismail left the Peristeri hall running under boos from the largest crowd so far in the competition.

FELLED AT THE FIRST HURDLE

The Russian Athletics Federation filed a protest against the result of the 100m hurdles final after Irina Shevchenko was felled at the first barrier.

Pre-race favourite Perdita Felicien of Canada crashed into the first hurdle, veered into the adjoining lane and fell on to the track, at the same time bringing down Shevchenko.

A jury of appeal will hear the protest and theoretically the race could be rerun.

American Joanna Hayes was first across the line, in a Games record of 12.37s, followed by Olena Krasovska of Ukraine and Melissa Morrison, also of the United States.