http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png http://jezebel.com/tag/gold medal http://jezebel.com/tag/gold medal

Four months after winning Olympic golds in the 400m and 800m freestyle races, swimmer Rebecca Adlington is getting the Michael Phelps treatment in Britain. Dubbed the UK's most successful swimmer in 100 years, Adlington's life is now filled with photoshoots and awards ceremonies, but she says winning two gold medals still hasn't sunk in. "I'm just a 19-year-old girl. Everyone keeps saying it's really special, but I don't see myself as being special," she said. "It's like how you don't think you're beautiful but someone else thinks you're stunning." Want to relive her awesome race? Click here. [Guardian] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5097499&view=rss&microfeed=true

Do you care that Dara Torres didn't win a gold medal? Neither does anyone else. Torres, 41, has become a national inspiration despite the fact that she returned home with three silver medals and has never won the gold. At the Olympics last month, her agent, Evan Morgenstein, tried to explain to her that losing the gold actually made her more relatable, since “wanting something so badly and you don’t get it, but you keep on trying, is something everyone can identify with.” Though Torres was disappointed about missing the gold by a hundredth of a second, she says the intense adulation she's received since she's come home, from throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees game, to inspiring Lance Armstrong to come out of retirement, to being congratulated by fawning fans wherever she goes, is helping her stop seeing herself as a loser. [NY Times] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5053526&view=rss&microfeed=true

With so much media coverage of men's Olympic swimming, down to Michael Phelps' dietary choices and Ryan Lochte's drawings, it's disappointing that we're not hearing as much about women's swimming events. Yesterday the Australian women's swimming team won the 4x200 free relay over the heavily favored American team, which came in third. In the clip above (the last 1/3 of the race), Aussies Stephanie Rice, Bronte Barratt, Kylie Palmer and Linda MacKenzie shatter the world record set by the Americans in 2007 by more than five seconds. Swimming the leadoff leg was Rice, 20, who made history during the race as the fifth Australian to win three gold medals in a single Olympics. Though, you wouldn't know it if you've been getting your Olympics news from the New York Times, where a search for Rice's name yields mainly links to a blog post dubbing Rice and her ex-boyfriend, fellow Australian swimmer Eamon Sullivan, the "Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo of Australia." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5036957&view=rss&microfeed=true

As many of you have noticed, Michael Phelps really knows how to rock the "skin tight patriotic pants and no shirt" look. But were you aware that he can also win gold medals and even move while looking hot? Watch the clip above to see yesterday's incredible mens 200-meter freestyle race, in which Phelps finishes almost two body lengths ahead of silver medalist Park Tae-Hwan of South Korea, breaking his own year-old world record. Remembering that Olympians are truly phenomenal athletes makes it easier to justify ogling some of their pictures all day. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5036022&view=rss&microfeed=true