Former Freedom High track and field standout Calvin Smith II will not get to run in the Olympics, his father and former Olympian Calvin Smith said Thursday.

Smith made the track team as part of the 4x400 relay pool and knew going into the Beijing Games there was a good chance he would not be selected by American coaches for either Friday’s qualifying or Saturday’s final. The reason is likely Smith’s lack of experience. At age 20, Smith, a sophomore at the University of Florida, is the youngest member of the U.S. men’s team and making his Olympic debut.

“He’s obviously disappointed,” Smith’s father said. “But it’s still a good experience for him to be there.”

Smith has already earned multiple all-America honors at UF and, thanks to making the Olympic team, was able to run his first season in Europe this summer. There, he ran his 400 personal best of 45.07 seconds. U.S. coaches will likely select one or more members of the American men who swept the medals in both the 400 hurdles and 400 open for each of the two 4x400 relay rounds.

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Tampa’s Damu Cherry came as close as you can to winning an Olympic medal Tuesday night in the finals of the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the Beijing Games.

In the closest Olympic women’s hurdles final ever—just two one hundredths of a second separated second through sixth place—Cherry wound up fourth in 12.65 seconds. She missed both the bronze and silver medal by a hundredth of a second.

The official results were not posted until several minutes after the race while officials sorted out the final order with the finish line photo.

American Dawn Harper, third at last month’s U.S. Olympic track and field trials, was the surprise winner in a season-best time of 12.54. That one was clear. But after that, who finished where became difficult to determine as race officials were forced to extend the timing to thousandths of a second to determine place order.

Australian national record holder, Sally McLellan, who didn’t even make the finals of last year’s world championships, took the silver medal at 12.64. A hundredth of a second behind her was Canada’s Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who was eliminated in the first round of the world championships, was awarded the bronze, also at 12.64. Then came Cherry at 12.65.

But the photo finish didn’t stop with Cherry in fourth. They also needed the picture from the high-speed camera to decide fifth and sixth place. Experienced Jamaicans Delloreen Ennis-London and Bridgitte Foster-Hylton took those spots at 12.65 and 12.66, respectively. Pre-race favorite Lolo Jones of the United States, the U.S. trials winner, ran 12.72 for seventh place.

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As a child whose energy sometimes landed him in a hospital emergency room with bumps and bruises, Chris Colwill earned the nickname “The Cardiac Kid” from his parents, Chuck and Debbie Colwill.

In Tuesday morning’s Olympic diving semifinals in men’s 3-meter springboard, Colwill found another way to send his mom and dad’s hearts racing.

Perilously close to not reaching the event’s finals, the 23-year-old Brandon native vaulted from 10th to sixth place on his final dive to secure his spot in the medal round. Only the top 12 from the 18 semifinalists moved on to the final round.

“He did it to us again,” Chuck Colwill said with a laugh, via phone, shortly after the semifinals ended. “He just nailed that last dive. Wow! What a dive that was!”

All of the semifinalists performed six dives each. Colwill scored in the 70-point range for his first four dives and was in 12th place at that point. But he scored 85.75 on his fifth dive and, on his last dive—a reverse 3-1/2 somersault tuck—Colwill was awarded a whopping 94.5 by the judges to jump to a more comfortable sixth place with a combined score of 480.95.

Colwill’s final dive turned out to be the third-highest score awarded out of the 108 dives performed in the semifinals. China’s He Chong topped the semifinals round with a score of 547.25 while Canada’s Alexandre Despatie was second at 518.75. Colwill was less than two points out of fifth place and finished ahead of U.S. teammate Troy Dumais, who was 10th at 463.15.

The finals are slated for 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in Beijing, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Tampa. As was the case in the semifinals, scores don’t carry over to the next round and all 12 finalists will start with a score of zero.

Colwill plans to upgrade his degree of difficulty for the finals and would have the highest DD of any diver in the finals. He plans to perform a reverse 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists, a dive with a 3.9 DD that only Mexico’s Yahel Castillo has performed in the Games. The new dive will give Colwill an additional five-tenths in DD, for a total of 20.4. He Chong has been competing a list with a degree of difficulty of 20.2.

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Despite suffering the effects of the flu, Tampa’s Damu Cherry is just one step away from an Olympic medal after reaching the finals of the women’s 100-meter hurdles in Beijing, China.

Cherry, a Leto High and University of South Florida graduate making her Olympic Games debut at age 30, earned her spot in the title race by winning her semifinals heat Monday night at the National Stadium, aka “The Bird’s Nest.”

Having just come down with the flu bug the night before, Cherry had struggled in Sunday’s opening round, finishing third and having to qualify on time, not place. Monday however, Cherry looked more like the hurdler that is ranked No. 2 in the world when she powered to first place in her semifinals heat in 12.62 seconds, .04 ahead of U.S. teammate Dawn Harper.

“I just settled down and focused on making the final,” Cherry said via text message from Beijing. “I prayed and gave my best effort and left the results to God.”

Cherry said her flu might be “a blessing in disguise.” She says it has forced her to calm down, rest and “practice patience.”

The other American in the event, Lolo Jones, who is ranked No. 1 in the world, won her heat in a lifetime best of 12.43 to lead all qualifiers into the finals. Jones and Cherry went 1-2 in last month’s the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, where they posted the world’s top two times of the season to that point at 12.45 and 12.47, respectively.

The finals are slated for 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Beijing time, 10:30 a.m. today in Tampa.

In diving, Brandon’s Chris Colwill has advanced to the semifinals of the men’s 3-meter springboard competition at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Colwill, a Tampa Prep and University of Georgia product, earned his spot in the semifinals by placing seventh in Monday’s opening round of the event. Last week, Colwill and dive partner Jevon Tarantino placed fourth in the 3-meter synchronized springboard, one spot away from the medals podium.

According to Colwill’s father, Chuck Colwill, who attended Monday’s event at the National Aquatics Center in Beijing, Chris’ performance was “nothing flashy but very consistent.” Colwill scored 464.75 points for his six dives, 50,75 behind top qualifier He Chong of China but more than 16 points ahead of his U.S teammate, Troy Dumais, who won the event at the U.S. Olympic diving trials.

Colwill started off in 25th place after his first dive but worked his way up the list and had cracked the top 10 by his fifth dive. He scored just 67.50 points on his first dive but scored more than 80 points on three other dives, including 84 apiece on his last two dives - a reverse 2 ½ pike with 1 ½ twists and a reverse 3 ½ tuck.

“I was definitely a little nervous on that first dive, but I felt confident,” Colwill said. “ I definitely could have done a little better, but I can’t complain [about his position].”

The top 18 from Monday’s opening round advanced to the semifinals. All scores from the first round do not carry over to the semifinals. The semifinals were held Tuesday in Beijing at 10 a.m., or 10 p.m. Monday in Tampa. Finals are Tuesday night in Beijing/Tuesday morning Tampa time.

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Facing the strongest winds of the Olympic sailing competition, Clearwater’s Zach Riley captured the silver medal in Finn class Sunday in Qingdao, China.

The 24-year-old Railey challenged four-time Olympic medalist Ben Ainslie all week long but when the medal race was over Sunday and the series totals were added, the veteran British sailor emerged with the gold medal by a comfortable 23-45 margin.

Leading from start to finish in winds that gusted to 20 knots and seas that were rough, Ainslie took the medal race and the gold medal in style. He was never really challenged while Railey turned in a solid race with sixth place. France’s Guillaume Florent edged Denmark’s Daniel Birgmark for the bronze medal.

For now, Ainslie is the king of Finn. But at 31, he is seven years older than Railey and will be challenged to maintain his dominance over the next Olympic cycle, at least in Finn.

Sunday’s medal race showed just how far Railey has come since he was a kid sailing Optimist dinghies. Now 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, Railey started in last place but in clear air. After a few tacks, Ainslie was obviously keeping Railey in his sights because Railey was the only sailor in the fleet close enough to challenge him for the gold. But unlike Saturday, when races were abandoned due to a lack of wind, Ainslie took the initiative and grabbed the lead. Railey, meanwhile held on for a sixth-place finish and the silver.

After the race, Railey was already talking about the 2012 Games, where Olympic sailing will be staged in Weymouth, England.

“I will continue my training step by step, and goal by goal. I will definitely go for the gold,” Railey said. “It’s just one more place to go. It has always been my dream to stand on the Olympic podium. The fact that it‘s silver and not gold is not important to me.”

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She wasn’t among the automatic qualifiers, but Tampa Leto High and University of South Florida product Damu Cherry still managed to advance to the semifinals of the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics in China.

Running in her first race since the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials more than a month ago, the 30-year-old Cherry opened her Olympic competition Sunday evening in the opening round of her hurdles event at the National Stadium in Beijing. Cherry finished third in the second of five qualifying heats with a time of 12.92 seconds. The top two in each heat automatically qualified for the semifinals, as well as the next six fastest times.

Cherry’s 12.92 was the fastest non-automatic qualifier. The top time turned in for the opening round was 12.68, run by both Josephine Nnkiruka Onyia of Spain and Susanna Kallur of Sweden. Cherry’s U.S. teammates, Lolo Jones and Dawn Harper, were among the automatic qualifiers for the semifinals. Jones won her heat in 12.71 and Harper finished second in hers at 12.73.

Cherry said afterward she is feeling the effects of a flu bug but hopes to shake it off for Monday’s semifinals.

“I got off really slow. I had the flu last night and just didn’t react,” Cherry said. “I had to play catch up. We’ll see what happens. I felt flat today. There’s no excuse. It is what it is.”

The semifinals are slated for Monday at 7:40 p.m. in Beijing, 7:40 a.m. Tampa time Monday morning.

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Clearwater’s Zach Railey (left) and Britain’s Ben Ainslie keep an eye on each other in the medal race of Finn Class on Saturday in Qingdao, China. The race was abandoned due to a lack of wind.

Clearwater sailor Zach Railey, who is in strong position to capture an Olympic medal in the Finn class, will have to wait at least until Sunday to collect it.

Once again, the wind did not cooperate Qingdao, China, and the medal race was abandoned shortly after it started Saturday.

After eight preliminary races, British star Ben Ainslie is assured at least a silver medal on total points, no matter what happens in the medal race. The medal race was introduced for the Beijing Games and awards double points. Ainslie has an 12-point lead on Railey, while Railey is nine points ahead of Sweden’s Daniel Birgmark.

Before officials called off the race, Ainslie and Railey were fighting it out at the back of the fleet, in ninth and 10th after nearly two legs. Clearly, Ainslie, the defending Olympic champion, was covering every move by Railey to make sure he could not threaten Ainslie’s gold with a top finish.

At 30 seconds before the start, the fleet of 10 Finns in the race were free to accelerate and none of them were close to being over the starting line. Railey had managed to get himself a clear start at the bottom third of the line but moments later, he came back below the line. He later explained he though he had heard a horn for a individual recall for being over the line early, but there had been none.

The mistake allowed Ainslie the chance to cover Railey and at the top mark of the course, Ainslie and Railey were bringing up the rear of the fleet. That gap only grew larger on the downward leg. As boats rounded the leeward mark, the wind had died so badly that sailors were making little progress upwind. The race was then called off and rescheduled for Sunday.

When Railey was asked if he was accustomed to this type of match racing, Railey said “We’ve been preparing for this and I think I showed that pretty effectively yesterday.”

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If finishing one place away from making your country’s Olympic team is the toughest place to finish at the trials, then fourth place at the Olympic Games is probably an even more difficult spot to take.

That was the position Brandon’s Chris Colwill and dive partner Jevon Tarantino of Boca Raton found themselves in Wednesday at the end of the men’s 3-meter synchronized spring board event at the Water Cube in Beijing.

As expected, China’s Wang Feng and Qin Kai won the gold medal with 469.08 points while Dmitry Sautin and Yuriy Kunakov of Russia earned silver (421.98) and Illya Kvasha and Oleksiy Prygorov of Ukraine (415.05) the bronze.

Colwill and Tarantino scored 410.73, less than five points from making the podium.

Making things more frustrating is the fact that heading into their sixth and final dive, Colwill and Tarantino were in third place and just one point away from the silver medal. But that final dive—a reverse 3-1/2 gainer—just wasn’t one of their better dives of the six they performed Wednesday. The odd thing was that’s usually one of their better dives.

“We just tried to take it one dive at a time,” Chris Colwill said. “It’s our first Olympics ... we’ll come back next time.”

Tarantino expressed some regret, but was still appreciative of being part of the Olympics.

“I’m a little discouraged, but at the same time, this has been an awesome experience,” Tarantino said. “It was a great competition, and we did everything we could. I just went a little short of vertical on that last dive, and I think that was just me wanting it so much.”

Colwill’s father and mother, Chuck and Debbie Colwill, attended the meet. Chuck said the odd thing about the final dive is that the pair’s gainers are usually some of the better dives.

“I thought for sure we had some color of medal heading into that last dive,” Chuck Colwill said by phone. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have a bookie or I would’ve bet the house because that gainer is usually their money dive.”

The good news for the U.S. squad is that Colwill appears to be diving well and is now focused on his upcoming individual event in 3-meter springboard. The prelims for that begin Monday. Tarantino’s Olympics are over because he did not qualify individually.

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NBC is giving us a record number of hours of live coverage of these Olympics on its affiliated networks, as well as live streaming on NBCOlympics.com.

But if you were hoping for live coverage of Brandon’s Chris Colwill competing in the men’s 3-meter synchronized diving Wednesday at 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time, forget it. To see the action, you’ll have to wait until NBC prime time Wednesday night when they show it on a tape delay.

Long before then, however, we’ll try to give you a recap of the action with the help of Colwill’s father, Chuck Colwill, who will be at the competition with his wife, Debbie, at the Water Cube in Beijing.

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Clearwater’s Zach Railey continues to turn in strong performances sailing in the Finn class at the Olympics in Qingdao (pronunced shin-dow), China.

In the second day of competition Monday, Riley reamined in second place thanks to some consistent sailing. He was seventh and eighth Monday and although that doesn’t sound impressive, most of his competition likely would have traded him those scores because much of the field sailed one good and one terrible race.

Defending Olympic champion Ben Ainslie, nicknamed “The Man” in Finn Class and unbeaten since 2004, has passed Railey and now sits in first place but he holds a slim one-pojnt lead. The two men are sailing very different regattas. Ainslie has taken three firsts but finished 10th in two races. Railey has posted finishes of 2, 5, 2, 2, 7, and 8.

“Today was hard. There were 20 degree shifts and you didn’t know they were coming,” Railey said. “In these conditions, I’ll take a seven, eight all day.”

With four races remaining, Ainslie leads 17-18 while France’s Guillaume Florent is third with 26 points. Lasers return to action Wednesday with two races scheduled.

In the Men’s RS:X, Tampa’s Ben Barger is in 22nd place after two races in the 35-board fleet.

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Being home for the Summer Olympics for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games is a strange experience.

But I have to admit, between NBC’s hi-def coverage on multiple channels and being able to see the replay of events on NBCOlympics.com, I almost feel like I’m there. In fact, in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m seeing a lot more of the Olympics than I ever have.

The thing is, when you’re at the Games covering them, you usually pick one event to focus on each day, spend half the day getting there and seeing it, and nearly the rest of the day getting back to the press center to write about, send in photos from your day, as well as videos and blogs. At the Athens and Turin Olympics, I literally worked 18 hours a day, slept about 5 hours and the remaining hour figuring out where I was and how to got there.

Of course, when you’re not at the Olympics, you miss all the cultural atmosphere, meeting people and seeing sights. And there is an electricity there—a shared one—that is unlike any sporting event I’ve ever attended. But these virtual Olympics on TV and Online, well, this sure is the next best thing. And I don’t have to leave my family, travel an entire day and get my usual 101-degree fever.

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A Chinese soldier looks through coin binoculars as Tampa wind surfer Ben Barger sails past during practice in Qingdao

All of Tampa Bay’s local Olympians appear to be safe and sound in China.

Track athlete Calvin Smith II, 20, of Tampa walked in Opening Ceremonies last night and even got on TV a couple of times. That’s because he happened to be walking near Tyson Gay and Jeremy Wariner, whom the cameras were gravitating towards during the NBC broadcast. His dad says that was Calvin’s plan to be seen. Pretty smart for the youngest member of the men’s track team.

The area’s other track Olympian, Damu Cherry, 30, of Tampa, decided to skip the Opening Ceremony in order to get settled into a training pattern. She joined the U.S. track team members who have made a base in Dalian, about an hour’s flight away from Beijing. (read her blog here on TBO: http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/sports/related/C917/).

Sailors Ben Barger (sailboarding) of Tampa and Zach Railey (Finn class) of Clearwater have been based in Qingdao, about 450 miles southeast of Beijing, where the sailing competition will be held.

Diver Chris Colwill has been in Beijing with the U.S. squad for about a week now, practicing at the picturesque Water Cube in the Olympic Green. His parents, Chuck and Debbie Colwill, left Tampa today to watch him compete in 3-meter individual springboard and 3-meter synchro with Jevon Tarantino.

Wesley Chapel’s Mike and Bob Bryan, who last week won the doubles final at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters tournament in Cincinnati, have arrived, as has Saddlebrook’s James Blake, who was ousted from the Cincinnati tourney by a 19-year-old Latvian before the quarterfinals.

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A spectacular Opening Ceremonies in Beijing’s “Bird Nest”

Like the top of this blog says, Bill Ward is not in China. It’s the first time I haven’t been at the Summer Olympics since Barcelona 1992.

Until now, I wasn’t too upset about missing these Olympics in Beijing. As you’ve probably heard, newspapers are experiencing a difficult transition into the digital world and spending thousands of dollars to send a reporter to the Games is not a good idea on so many levels when you are fighting for your life as an industry.

And then there’s the 20 hours of flying to get from Tampa to the opposite side of the world, the three weeks away from your family and friends, the dorm-like accommodations and the feeling of being part of something that has become over-commercialized, politicized and tainted by drugs. And, of course, there’s those 18-hour work days (I’m not exaggerating, honest) covering the Games.

But there’s something about watching the Opening Ceremonies on TV that makes me feel pretty sad right now. Much like the Athens Games, they were a beautiful spectacle and, for a few hours anyway, transcended the bad stuff that inevitably creep into the Games (except when Taiwan’s athletes were not allowed to carry their own flag into the stadium and when North and South Korea once again were not walking together).

After these Opening Ceremonies, there will no doubt be moments that will live on forever in Olympic history. I’ve witnessed a few in person—Michael Johnson’s 200-meter world record in the 1996 Atlanta Games, the swim by Eric “The Eel” Moussambani” in the 2000 Sydney Games, when he finished the 100-meter freestyle about twice as slow as anyone else in the prelims, and the five-set match Tampa’s Mardy Fish played against Chilean Nicolás Massú, who late in the gold medal match ducked into the locker room and emerged surprisingly refreshed and went on to defeat Fish.

Maybe even more memorable are the peope I’ve met in each country I’ve visited at the Olympics. The Aussies, Greeks, Atlantans—were all great hosts. So were the Winter Olympic cities of Salt Lake and Turin.

Now, whatever happens in these Olympics—good or bad—I won’t be there. And there’s no guarantee I’ll ever get to cover the Olympics again. Now that’s a bummer to think about. :(

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Each time the Olympic Games roll around, I’m just blown away by the gall of the advertising firm that handles official Olympic sponsor McDonald’s.

At the 1996 Atlanta Games, for example, they showed a commercial featuring a road race full of kids taking a detour into McDonald’s for a bite to eat. Yea, that’s what I want our kids doing—eating cheeseburgers and fries at the training table.

Now, 12 years later, they’re pulling off the same thing. This time, they start the commercial with chiseled track, swimming, volleyball, boxing and track athletes getting up early to train. “You gotta get up early” the athletes say, in order to succeed. Then they tell you that you have to get up early to get one of McDonald’s new Southern Style Chicken Biscuit!

Are you kiddin’ me? Do they really think we believe elite, world-class athletes fill themselves with friend chicken and biscuits? Do they think anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line will eat chicken for breakfast?

Maybe one day, they can convince northerners to do this. But young athletes training for the Olympics? Let’s hope not or the United States will stop winning the Summer Games total medal count. I’m not a nutritionist, but something tells me friend chicken and biscuits ain’t the “eat to win” diet our athletes need to succeed at the Olympics.

According to McDonald’s own nutrition guide, the chicken bisquit breakfast sandwhich has 20 GRAMS OF FAT, 8 grams of which are saturated, 410 calories and 1,180 milligrams of sodium.

There’s also stuff like partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, soy lecithin, mono- and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, artificial flavor, sodium phosphates, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate and dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.

Considering how hard they trained to get to the Olympics, doesn’t it seem crazy there’s a McDonald’s at the athletes village in Beijing? Ok, they could get a salad and bottled water there. What makes much more sense is the McDonald’s in the Main Press Center. From what I’ve seen of my fellow journalists at the Olympics, they’ve definitely used Mickey D’s entire menu as a regular part of their diet.

But McDonald’s for the athletes? P-lease!

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U.S. speed skating gold medalist Joey Cheek said he was “shocked” at the revocation of his visa by Chinese authorities. Cheek, who donated the $35,000 he won in bonuses from the U.S. Olympic Committee for winning two medals at the Turin Games, is the president and co-founder of Team Darfur, a group of athletes formed to convince countries like China to help end the ethnic killings in Sudan.

But barring Cheek from the Games shows once again shows once again the two faces of China continually shows the world. It has, as former NPR China correspondent Rob Gifford says, led to a division among the China watchers between the “Panda Huggers” and “Dragon Slayers.” The huggers say China is doing wonderfully and isn’t a threat to anyone. The slayers say China threatens everyone and needs to be contained.

Yes, Gifford says, there is an economic boom in China. But he points out the vast majority of people have no access to it. If you need money to have power in the United States, he postulates you need power to get money.

“Just go a mile from the neon road of the Bund and Nanjing Road [in Shanghai] and you will find thousands of people living on $40 per month,” Gifford writes in his 2007 book China Road. “They have no health insurance and if they become really sick, all they can do is go home and die.”

Yet the World Bank says China is doing something unheard of, lifting 400 million people above the poverty line since 1978. That’s more than the entire population of South America.

“China messes with my head every day,” said Gifford, who is fluent in Chinese. “One day I think it really is going to take over the world, and that the Chinese government is doing the most extraordinary thing the planet has ever witnessed [by lifting so many out of poverty.] The next day it will all seem built on sand and I expect it to all come tumbling down around us.

“I’ll be disgusted at the way the Communist Party treats its people and shocked at the sheer cost of it all, the human cost, which seems acceptable to the government in everything it does.”

Cheek’s ban from China, the attempt by Chinese officials to block certain Web sites from the media in Beijing, unrest in the country’s mostly-Muslim Xinjiang province and continued human rights issues concerning Tibet shows the dark side of these Olympic Games—and we haven’t even had the Opening Ceremonies yet.

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