Spice Girls reunite at Olympics closing ceremony

Watch for musical nostalgia amid the fireworks and pageantry at Sunday night's closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London.

All five Spice Girls -- Ginger (Geri Halliwell), Baby (Emma Bunton), Sporty (Melanie Chisholm), Scary (Melanie Brown) and Posh (Victoria Beckham) -- are expected to perform two of their hits.

Will it be Viva forever to promote their upcoming stage show?

Or will they stick to a crowd pleasing standby like Wannabe?

 

 

The Who and George Michael also are in the musical mix, along with latecomer Ed Sheeran.

Isles of Wonder: Music for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the soundtrack from the sonically rich kickoff, is now available on CD, and A Symphony of British Music: Music for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games will be available for download Aug. 12. 

In June, Mel C (Sporty Spice) dazzled onlookers in Birkenhead Park carrying the Olympic torch.

The first stem-cell treatment for an Olympic athlete

Thousands of horses have undergone stem-cell therapy for injuries in the last decade but only now is one of them an Olympic athlete.

Ravel, the grand hope of the American equestrian team at the Olympics, received "emergency treatment with a new technology based on stem cell therapy" before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Discovery News reports.

The horse and dressage rider Steffen Peters finished 17th in the individual dressage event Thursday.

His veterinarian, Rodrigo Vasquez, wouldn't give details for what type of injury he has treated Ravel, but did say, "Ravel is a high-impact athlete. He runs the same risks as any other athlete in a high performance sport and he gets hurt like any other athlete too."

The London Games marks the end of 15-year-old Ravel's competitive career, Peters announced after their dressage event, the newsletter Horsetalk has reported.

U.S. Equestrian Federation photo/Rider Steffen Peters and Ravel compete in the individual dressage finals at the London Games on Aug. 9, 2012

Big guys do cry

A completely unscientific survey has tried to figure out what kind of athlete among gold medal winners cries on the podium.

The Wall Street Journal studied 129 gold medal winners at the London Games.

The results: About 16 per cent of them cried. A quarter of the women cried and eight per cent of the men, although the WSJ pointed out that the men who did cry were sobbing uncontrollably like South African Chad le Clos after he beat Michael Phelps in the 200-metre butterfly.

In a comparison of China, the United States and Great Britain, the medal leaders, the British cried the most: 37.5 per cent of them. The Chinese wept the least, at 7 per cent, and the Americans were in the middle, at more than 17 per cent, the WSJ said.

On the other hand, the Chinese almost always sang along with their national anthem, while 61 per cent of the British did and 44 per cent of the Americans.

The survey didn't factor in the rigours of whatever sport they were competing in or how long after the event the medal ceremony came.

AFP Getty Images/ South African swimmer Chad le Clos on the podium for his 200-metre butterfly gold medal on July 31, 2012

 

In which we learn: Can Ryan Lochte act?

An all-star cast of British actors Patrick Stewart and Simon Pegg and Olympic champion Ryan Lochte hams it up shamelessly in a new video guide to ticket scalping at the London Games.

Stewart kits himself out as Fagin, complete with overcoat and fingerless gloves, as he sleazes his way across London bilking Olympic fans. Charging American tourists $1,200 each for tickets is called "Yankee Pankee," he explains. Then comes the biggest prize of all -- Lochte, who has a dumb smile and his swim event pass.

The Funny or Die video ends with a pale and skinny Pegg in Lochte's Speedo on the starting block.

 

Usain Bolt runs over Carl Lewis

The fastest man in the world has tried to run Carl Lewis into the ground.

“I’m going to say something controversial right now,” Usain Bolt said after winning another gold medal, this time in the 200-metre race.

“Carl Lewis, I have no respect for him. The things he says about the track athletes is really downgrading for another athlete to be saying something like that about other athletes."

Lewis, with a lifetime 10 Olympic medals, has questioned how Bolt manages to run so fast.

In 2008 Lewis told Sports Illustrated: “When people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period.”

Replied Bolt: "I think he’s just looking” for attention, “because nobody really talks much about him.”

Lewis himself tested positive for banned drugs at the Olympic Trials in 1988, the year Canadian Ben Johnson lost his gold medal to Lewis for steroid use. The International Olympic Committee accepted Lewis's contention it was "inadvertent" use of a herbal substance.

Lewis's personal bests in the 100 metres was 9.86, compared with Bolt's 9.63. In the 200 metres, Lewis's personal best of 19.75 compares with Bolt's 19.32.

ALSO FROM THE STAR:

"I am now a legend," Usain Bolt declares after sprinting into history books

Carl Lewis in a 2010 interview on Sri Chinmoy TV in Queens, New York.

Olympic champion's ashes come back to Stadium

The daughter of an Australian Olympic champion in the 1948 Games brought his ashes back to London and spread them "right over the Triple Jump track."

Robyn Glynn described to a Sydney radio broadcaster how she fulfilled her dad's wishes.

"We did more than sneak him in," Glynn told ABC's Adam Spencer at trackside in the Olympic Stadium in London. "we snuck ourselves down to the edge of the track and in the breeze we let his ashes go!"

Glynn's dad, George Avery, had won the silver medal for Australia in the triple jump at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. At the 2000 Games in Sydney, he told his family he wanted to go back to London in 2012, 64 years after his triumph.

Avery died in 2006 and Glynn, her sister and their families decided they'd carry on with his dream regardless. They made sure they had tickets for the triple jump event.

"He's here with us as we watch the triple jump," Glynn told broadcaster Spencer after the track events.

"We decided that this is where he would have wanted to come back to."

London2012 Games image/Christian  Taylor of the United States won gold in the men's triple jump.

A herogram for Simon Whitfield

A Costa Rican triathlete has touched the hearts of thousands of people with his herogram to Simon Whitfield. Leonardo Chacon introduces himself to the Canadian Olympic champion as "the athlete that fell down behind you on the competition on Tuesday."

Whitfield broke his collarbone in the cycling portion of the race. Chacon kept going and finished 48th. He told Whitfield in a Facebook message that the Canadian has been an inspiration to him since Whitfield won gold in Sydney "when I was 15. "A couple years later, silver in Beijing. Now, at my 27 years of age, these were my first Olympic Games and it was an honor to race next to you.

"I also wanted to thank you for being an example of endurance and discipline which have allow you to compete to the highest level in 4 Olympic Games." Chacon invited Whitfield to visit Costa Rica.

Thousands of people have read and liked Chacon's message. Comments praised his sportsmanship and pledged to root for him at the 2016 Games in Rio. Whitfield himself said in a Twitter post right after the competition that he had met Chacon in the Olympic Village and gave him a hug.

Costa Ricans have also taken to Facebook to criticize and apologize for a countryman who had scolded Whitfield for ruining Chacon's chances in the triathalon. The Costa Rican athlete had been 18th after the swim portion.

AFP Getty Images/ Leonardo Chacon gets up after crashing into Canadian Simon Whitfield during the men's triathalon at the London Games on Aug. 8

Olympics Friday: Here's what we're watching

The Canadian men’s 4x100-metre sprint relay team will begin their quest for the podium today as Round 1 of racing gets underway at 2:45 p.m., the final is on Saturday at 4 p.m. (all times Eastern)

Canada's Richard Weinberger is swimming in the men's 10k open water marathon with a good chance at a podium finish starting at 7 a.m.

Hugues Fournel and Ryan Cochrane embark on the first two legs Friday of the K-2 200-metre kayak sprint — a new event in the Games — at 5:33 a.m. and 6:44 a.m. Finals go Saturday at 5:41 a.m.

Canada goes for a medal in the synchronized swimming team final today at 10 a.m.

Semi-finals in men's basketball are played today, with Spain-Russia at noon, followed by Argentina-U.S. at 4 p.m.

In taekwondo, Karine Sergerie begins the preliminary round in women's 67-kilogram at 7:30 a.m. with the bronze medal match at 3 p.m. followed by the gold medal match at 4:15 p.m. In men's 80-kilogram, Sebastien Michaud was eliminated in the preliminary round this morning.

In wrestling, David Tremblay goes for the podium in the men's 55-kilogram freestyle starting at 8:30 a.m. with the bronze medal match at 12:45 p.m followed by the gold medal match at 2 p.m. In men's 74-kilogram freestyle, Matthew Gentry has his first match at 8:40 a.m. with the bronze medal match at 12:54 p.m. and the gold medal match at 2:50 p.m.