The quiet man of canoeing, Alan van Coller, did the minimum necessary to progress through in the first heat of Monday morning’s Olympic 1 000m K1 canoe event. The 21-year-old Nicolene Cronje became South Africa’s first Olympic women walker in Monday’s 20km walk, in which she finished 47th.

Estie Wittstock’s debut in the Olympics ended on Sunday when she finished sixth in the second women’s 400m semifinal in a time of 51,77 seconds. Meanwhile, Johan Cronje failed to make it through to the men’s 1 500m semifinals. In sailing, Gareth Blanckenberg has been quietly handling two races a day for the past week.

This is the question people ask themselves before almost every presidential election: Why, when the United States is teeming with brilliant and inspiring people, are its voters so often faced with a choice between two deeply unimpressive men? I would have thought the answer was pretty obvious: because deeply unimpressive men continue to be elected.

Justin Gatlin from the United States became one of the youngest winners of the 100m Olympic title on Sunday in one of the greatest finals of all time. The 22-year-old posted a personal best time of 9,85 seconds to beat Francis Obikwelu of Portugal, who timed a European record of 9,86, while 2000 Olympic champion Maurice Greene was third in a season’s best 9,87.

Russia’s Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her shot-put gold medal on Monday, the first athlete of the Athens Games to lose an Olympic title because of doping. Korzhanenko, the first woman to win a gold medal at the sacred site of Ancient Olympia, tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after Wednesday’s competition.

Wits University, again, proved to be Orlando Pirates’ hoodoo team when they knocked the Buccaneers out of the lucrative Supa 8 Cup, winning a tense quarterfinal clash 2-1 at the Oppenheimer Stadium in Klerksdorp on Sunday. The teams produced a fast-paced and evenly fought first half.

Any remote chance of earning some sort of medal in Athens effectively went out the door for the South African men’s hockey team when they lost to 11th-ranked New Zealand 4-1 at the Elliniko Olympic Hockey Centre on Monday. The South Africans played well below par and got their lone goal from Emile Smith.

A controversial new device that allows drinkers to inhale alcohol without the effects of drunkenness or hangovers has been introduced in the United States, media reports said on Sunday. The Alcohol Without Liquid vapouriser, or AWoL, allows drinkers to inhale alcohol fumes combined with pressurised oxygen, leaving them euphoric, but not drunk.