STUCK IN A MOMENT

Four years ago in Athens Emmons also was one shot away from the gold medal in this very same event. On that day the former four-time national champion at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (an NCAA shooting juggernaut, believe it or not) did something that was, in the words of The Princess Bride villain Vizzini, "INCONCEIVABLE!"

Emmons fired a bull's eye. At the wrong target. The classic blunder -- the Merkle's Boner of shooting, if not all Olympic, lore -- cost Emmons not just gold but a medal altogether. He finished eighth.

There was a happy ending, though, and those of us in the media gleefully reported it. Later that evening at an Athens nightspot, Czech shooter Katerina Kurdova approached Emmons, whom she did not know, to tell him that she admired the way he had handled the colossal blunder with good humor and grace. Three years later the lovely Kurdova and Emmons got married.

And so we were thrilled for him. For both of them. And then just hours after the Olympic flame had been lit during the Opening Ceremony, Kurdova (now Katerina Emmons) became the first athlete at these Games to win a gold medal with her world-record tying score in women's 10-meter air rifle. 

Over the course of the week Katerina would add a silver medal, and Matt would win silver as well. Still, the Hollywood ending called for Emmons to vanquish himself in the event that has haunted him for four long years. The three-position rifle. And now, just one shot away, Emmons steadied his rifle butt against his right shoulder and took aim.

And misfired.

Inconceivable.

Emmons accidentally squeezed the trigger prematurely, an error that would be bizarre at even the collegiate level of shooting. But for the world's best shooter, with the final shot of his competition ...

"It's just a crazy thing that happens," Emmons said. "It accidentally went off. That's pretty much what happened.”

There is no one, not even Liu Xiang, who I have more compassion for in these Games than Emmons.

Once, he was snake-bitten. Twice?

Of course, Emmons is only 27 and unless his eyesight rapidly declines between now and 2012, there's no reason to believe that he cannot compete in London. But how much frustration can one man take?

Matt Emmons is the reason that we find the Olympics so compelling. These athletes train and train and train -- I was told, for example, that members of the U.S. men's swim team did a triple, i.e., three separate workout sessions in the pool, last New Year's Eve -- for four years just to get to a single moment. "One Shining Moment"? Much more extreme. NCAA hoopsters get 40 minutes and can return the following March unless they want to Carmelocate themselves to the NBA.

The Olympics, though, mostly feature anonymous athletes. And none of us are going to see all the hours across all the years that they sacrificed to reach their moment. All we will see, what for many will be their legacy to the greater public, is their moment. You have to perform in that moment. Do so, and your name (Jason Lezak) will forever be revered. Fail to do so, and, fair or not, your legacy will be tarnished. The moment will define you. That is the risk you take when you dare to compete at the Olympics.

It's a lesson for all of us, really. Not all days, not all moments in life are equal. A few seconds can have life-altering consequences. With the help of my office compatriot and friend Andrew Silver, I've compiled a few of the more memorable moments from these Games thus far. Moments of ... 

1) Misery ... Alicia Sacramone falls off the balance beam on her mount (but keeps it together the remainder of the routine) in the women's gymnastics team competition.

2) Being Clutch ... Alexander "Sasha" Artemev, a last-minute alternate addition for the U.S. men's gymnastics team, executes a near-perfect routine on the pommel horse under enormous pressure to help his team earn bronze.

3) Poor sportsmanship ... Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian tosses his bronze medal onto the mat in disgust and storms off the podium during the medals ceremony. Whether or not Abrahamian's contention that he was robbed is accurate, the redolent Olympic image of Abrahamian will be that of a sore loser (the IOC later stripped him of the bronze).

4) D'oh! ... Chinese rower Zhiang Liang, who thought he was scheduled to row in the third heat in single sculls, when really it was the second. Adding insult (and just plain meanness) to injury, FISA, rowing's world governing body, disqualified him from his next event, double sculls. Zhiang's Olympic moment was being deprived his moment.

5) Heroic effort ... Jason Lezak's final 25 meters in the men's 4 x 100 freestyle relay. Pure heart and determination.

6) Missed opportunity...  South Korean archer Park Kyung-mo who, like Emmons, was ahead going into his final shot. Except that Park felt the pressure of an entire nation. South Korea owns archery the way China does table tennis, but remarkably had never won a gold in the men's individual event. Park, in position to end that drought and, incredibly, on the anniversary of his nation's Liberation Day--and if that wasn't enough, his own birthday--came up one point short to lose 113-112.

7) Crowd-pleasing fun ... Yao Ming opens China's basketball tournament run by attempting -- and converting -- a three-pointer from the top of the key against the Redeem Team.

8) Horror ... Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai collapses to the mat in pain after dislocating his elbow during an attempt in the clean-and-jerk.

9) Resolve ...  The U.S. beach volleyball duo of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, down 6-0 in the decisive third sets, finds a way to come back and beat the Swiss opponents in the round of 16 to avoid elimination.

10) Robbery ... Brazilian pole vaulter Fabiana Murer is denied a chance to compete for a medal when officials lost the pole that she needed.

11) Moonlighting ... Sweden's Caroline Kluft, the gold medalist in heptathlon at the 2004 Games, eschews that event to compete in triple jump and long jump.

12) Heartbreak ... Liu Xiang. You know the story. It's worth noting that in 1976 Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto did the ring exercises with a broken leg (consider the pain on the landing) so that his team would not lose its gold by his withdrawal. Fujimoto aggravated the injury by doing so, and years later when asked if he would go through with it if given the chance again, said simply, "No."

It would have been nice to see Liu at least try to clear that first hurdle after the false start. The lasting image for hundreds of millions of his Chinese fans would have been that of a wounded warrior, gamely refusing to succumb until we could read the pain on his face. A Braveheart moment. That would have been a visual the Chinese could have more easily digested.

The reality is that Liu was in that race to win. And he knew that wasn't about to happen. That at most he'd clear one hurdle (as someone who was unable to run for three months this year due to a severely strained Achilles, I empathize closely with how helpless he must have felt) before he collapsed to the track.

Liu's early exit left a cavity in the soul of this nation that cannot be filled. By leaving the stage before the curtain even came up, he deprived all of China of its moment. Only time will tell how the relationship between Liu and China has been altered. 

NAME GAMES

Perhaps because my own name is so ordinary, so conventional, so vanilla, I am always fascinated by those whose names are unique or extraordinary. For someone such as myself, saddled with a so-sobriquet, it's fun to peruse athlete rosters in search of exotic names.

Today I wanted to pause to honor a few Olympians whose names are so nice they have them twice. Athletes such as U.S. 110-meter hurdler Lolo Jones (who, with a gold medal to go with those model features will definitely emerge from Beijing as one of the more marketable athletes) or teammate DeeDee Trotter, whose 400 meter hopes ended before the final. Or how about China's silver medalist in men's trampoline, Dong Dong, or his compatriot, baseball catcher Yang Yang, who hit a home run versus the USA last night in a losing effort?

My favorite moniker involving this theme, though, belongs to Chinese track athlete Lin Runrun. Lin's specialty, alas, is not running but jumping. He competed in the long jump preliminaries on Saturday. Still, it would have been fun (and impossible, since Chinese fans would not have cheered him in English) to hear chants of "Jump Runrun, jump!"

Another great name for today: Thai female weightlifter P. Jaroenrattanatarakoon (just like it looks is how you'd pronounce it). As a Scrabble play her last name is worth 32 points, I believe. 

Quick aside: In Torino I worked on a show called "Olympic Ice" that was filthy with Americans of Italian descent, myself included. We had producers named Tom and Linda Coppola, Rob Liano and Sarah Rinaldi. And our host was the inimitable -- and Italian-speaking -- Mary Carillo.

When I tried to tell them that I, too, am Italian, they scoffed. Initially.

"What's your mother's maiden name?" Linda Coppola asked.

"Muggeo," I replied. "But my paternal grandmother's maiden name was DiDonato."

"Johnny DiDonato," mused Linda. "Johnny D! Yeah, that would have been a much cooler name." 

Nothing But Nets

You may know that the Redeem Team had little trouble with Germany on Monday night here, winning 106-57 to finish 5-0 in pool play. But halfway around the world at Rucker Park in Harlem, a charity basketball game was taking place. Actor Tom Cavanagh and his wife Maureen -- very cool people, these two -- hosted a charity celebrity hoops game to raise funds to buy malaria nets for people in Africa.

It may sound outrageous to us 1st-World folks, but malaria is still a leading killer of African children and for only $10 you can purchase and have distributed an insecticide-treated bed net. I'll ask Tom, who spent much of his youth in Africa, for a game recap tomorrow with a box score. In the meantime, if you would like to get your own assist, log on to NothingButNets.net.

Thanks.  

Another Country Heard From

Congratulations to Panama, a country normally relegated to being the last word of a palindrome ("A man, a plan, a canal, Panama") for earning its first gold medal in track and field last night. Irving Saladino earned the gold in long jump by leaping 8.34 meters (27 feet, 4 1/3 inches) to earn Panama its first medal of any kind in athletics since 1948. Afterward the Bird's Nest went wild when they played the national anthem.