Olympic Update – Day 12

We won 11 medals over seven events Wednesday and there was some pretty big news on the medal front. What do the winners do on the podium, who is the most clicked on athlete, how much will the soccer team win if they grab the gold medal today, what do other athletes win if they medal who sent athletes but no coaches and other random news from London. 

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings won a gold medal yesterday in beach volleyball by defeating April Ross and Jen Kessey. That makes three gold medals for Misty and Kerri and they have never been defeated in a match in Olympic history. Kerri and Misty beat April and Jen 21-16 in both sets.

Allyson Felix won her gold medal in the women’s 200 meter. Another American, Carmelita Jeter took bronze. You can watch them both run again today and go for the gold in the women’s 4 x 100 meter relay.  Brittney Reese took the gold yesterday in the women’s long jump while her teammate Janay DeLoach took bronze. Long jump is the only event both of them were participating in and they both took home a medal. Lashinda Demus took home the silver in the women’s 400 meter hurdles. Over to the men’s side, Aries Merritt took the gold and teammate Jason Richardson took silver in the 110 meter hurdles and that was the only event for both of them and that gives the U.S. seven medals just in track and field.

Clarissa Chun won bronze yesterday in the 106 pound weight class for wrestling. Wrestling is interesting because they give two bronze medals to each of the two semifinalists instead of having a bronze medal match. Judo and boxing do the same thing. Didn’t know that. Women’s boxing is making its debut in London this year and the U.S.’s Marlen Esparza took bronze in the semis yesterday in the flyweight match.

The U.S. is now once again on top of the medal count with 81 medals. China, Russia, Great Britain and Germany round out the top five.

The Wall Street Journal is analyzing the medal ceremonies and found that there have been 129 gold medal winners and 15.5 percent of them have cried on the medal stand. Most sing along with their national anthem and another 15.5 have either bitten or kissed their medal.

As of Monday, more than a billion people have clicked on the athlete profiles on NBCOlympics.com. American Gymnast Gabrielle Douglas has 18.27 million clicks and the number two most clicked on athlete doesn’t even come close. Over seven million people have looked up swimmer Michael Phelps. The third, fourth and fifth most clicked on athletes are Gabby’s teammates McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman.

The U.S. women’s soccer team is playing for the gold medal today and if they win, they’ll all split 1.5 million dollars. There are 18 players on the team but the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation believes that the ladies will share the cash with their trainers and coaches as well as those who didn’t make the Olympic team. Even if they split the money with others, each of them will get about 50 thousand dollars, not counting the 25 thousand dollar bonus they get from the U.S. Olympic Committee and yes, they will have to pay taxes on it. Italians, by the way get the highest bonus. Italian gold medal athletes get a bonus of 182 thousand dollars. That’s a lot of wine.

The country of Sri Lanka sent seven athletes to the London Olympics, but they didn’t send any trainers or coaches along with them. There is a hurdler, two swimmers, two runners, one shooter and a badminton player and if you’re keeping track, Sri Lanka hasn’t won a single medal, five are finished competing and none of them even made the finals in any of their events. There are ten officials that were also sent along with the team and this has created quite the controversy because the head of their Olympic committee says he doesn’t think that it’s important to have their coaches with them due to the fact that they’re done training.

This may not be the last we’ve seen of swimmer Ryan Lochte. Apparently producers are asking him to take part in a few different reality shows but didn’t say which ones they were, but Ryan did say that he is interested in being on Dancing With the Stars and would also be willing to go up against fellow swimmer Michael Phelps for the mirror ball trophy. Michael says he’s not opposed to doing Dancing so maybe next season we could be seeing both of them waltzing for their life.

Have you seen Ryan Seacrest at the Olympics yet? What do you think about the American Idol host also being a part of NBC’s coverage? Personally, I don’t need to see Ryan and find out what he thinks about the diving team but according to a new poll, three out of four people think that Ryan is doing a good job and while that may sound like a lot, Bob Costas and Dan Patrick both rank ahead of Ryan with more than 90 percent of respondents saying they think the pair are doing a good job. The same poll says that our favorite moments so far include: Michael Phelps being named the most decorated Olympic athlete ever, Gabby Douglas taking gold in women’s gymnastics and the women’s gymnastics team taking gold in the all around competition.

Speaking of Gabrielle Douglas, there is this ridiculous controversy going on surrounding Gabby’s hair. That’s right. Apparently even gold medal winners can’t escape criticism because some people have to pick others apart to make themselves feel better and I guess that means tearing a little girl apart because her hair doesn’t look right. Gabby herself hasn’t personally addressed the controversy and good for her because it sounds like she is really focused on doing the best that she can.

You can follow along with all of our Olympic coverage by clicking HERE and don’t forget to tune in for Olympic updates from London with our correspondent Lady Catherine Archer every morning at 7:10 all throughout the games.