Three Santa Clarita athletes are destined to earn gold medals Thursday at the Beijing Olympics, led by local BMX rider Mike Day, who finished fastest and first in all three quarterfinals.
Mike Day leads the pack in the quarterfinals. Photo by Hou Deqiang/Xinhua
Day easily finished the course ahead of the packs of other riders, perhaps due to the months of practice on a duplicate course in Chula Vista. He is the favorite for the gold medal in the final race, scheduled Thursday.
Sprinter Allyson Felix easily qualified for the women’s 200 meter finals, where she will face her Athens opponent Veronica Campbell-Brown in hopes of winning gold and possibly breaking the world record of 21.34 seconds held by Florence Griffith-Joyner.
And Crystl Bustos just keeps smashing records, scoring her 5th home run of this Olympics in defeating Japan for the gold medal game Thursday, matching her personal record of Olympic home runs set in Athens 2004 and increasing her career total to 13.
Crystl Bustos knocks out a home run in the semifinal against Japan. Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images
The semi-final game against Japan was a 4-1 victory for the United States, with nine innings played before anyone scored. Japan then played Australia, who won the semi-final game against Canada, with the close game finishing 4-3 Japan, earning Australia the bronze medal. The USA-Japan matchup is a reprise of the Sydney 2000 playoffs.
