g3 － day 12.

Thank God. Women's beach volleyball is finally over.

Maybe it's just me, but it sure seemed like NBC had an intense interest in airing every single second of play － from prelimanaries to semi-finals to this medaling match － by American "golden girls" Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor [above, decently dressed, left & right]. Is it possible there's a demographic out there in TVland who digs watching two buff babes bounce around barely clad, kicking volleyball ass and rolling around hugging in the sand? Seriously, if there were an Olympic event for least amount of cloth you can attach to your body and still call it a "uniform," then the women's beach volleyball bikinis would win the gold, nolo contendre (and three new uniforms could be created from the medal ribbons!).

All of which is not to imply that I'm not happy that May-Treanor, 31, of Costa Mesa, CA, and Walsh, 30, of Santa Clara, CA, whooped up on the Chinese to win a second consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball Wednesday night. The pair beat China's Wang Jie and Tian Jia in straight sets － 21-18, 21-18 － extending their winning streak to 108 consecutive matches. They never lost a set in seven Olympic matches (really? only seven?), playing through the beautiful Beijing smog, the sweltering heat and, finally, the drenching rain that dominated their final match (luckily, their white uniforms were reinforced ... otherwise, they might have had a spontaneous post-game wet t-shirt contest up on the medals podium).

A second team from China, Xue Chen and Zhang Xi, earned the country's first beach volleyball medal by beating the Brazilians for the bronze earlier on in the day.

I'm proud and pleased these powerful, thirty-something American women won the gold again － I just wish they wouldn't have had to do it with their asses hanging out (regardless of how tight and tan they are).

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The women's 400-meter hurdles race was wide open going in － world record-holder Yulia Pechonkina of Russia wasn't participating due to heart trouble; two-time world champion Jana Rawlinson of Australia was out with an injury; and reigning Olympic champion Fani Halkia of Greece had been expelled from the Games following a positive steroid test.

So it was anyone's race.

It turned out the race belonged to Jamaica's Melaine Walker, as she set a new Olympic record while winning the gold in 52.64 seconds. American Sheena Tosta, 25, of Garfield, VA, earned the silver, coming in at 53.70 sec., and Britain's Tasha Danvers got the bronze with a finish time of 53.84.