The High List Presents: The O List, Part 1

Sports
The first full day of Olympic competition from Beijing was one of incredible triumph (Zagunis, Jacobson & Ward sweeping Women's Sabre event in fencing) and tragedy (the murder of Volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon's father-in-law) for the US Olympic team. But I thought I'd switch things up from the typical Olympic coverage to highlight three medalists from countries not vying for tops in the medal count. I call this piece Stories from the Bottom of the Medal Standings List (SBMSL):

1. Rishod Sobirov (Uzbekistan)
Rishod won bronze in Judo's smallest weight class, 60 kg. He defeated his first opponent, Algerian Omar Rebahi by ippon, the highest possible score in Judo. After a second victory, he lost to the eventual gold-medalist, South Korea's Choi Min-Ho, in the quarterfinals. He then fought his way through the Bronze Medal bracket - known as "repechage" - ultimately defeating Frenchman Dimitri Dragin to take a spot on the medal stand. His medal is the 13th in Uzbekistan's short Olympic history, his country's second in Judo. All of Uzbekistan's Summer Olympic medals have come in three combative arts, the others having been won in Wrestling and Boxing.

2. Chen Wei-Ling ("Chinese Taipei"/Taiwan)
Wei-Ling took a bronze in the 48kg weight-class of weightlifting, the smallest for that sport. She managed 84 kg in the snatch - the one where the lifter pulls the weight over her head in one swift motion - and 112 kg in the clean and jerk, or the two-motion lift. Her clean and jerk actually beat that of the silver medalist, Turkey's Sibel Ozkan, but wasn't quite enough to make up the deficit she faced from her snatch. This is the 16th medal for "Chinese Taipei," and their fourth weightlifting medal. The Taiwanese have also found success in recent times in Archery, Taekwondo, and Table Tennis, and in 1992, their baseball team took the silver medal.

3. Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)
A familiar name to the cycling scene, Fabian had never before participated in an Olympic road racing event, but snatched a bronze in the 245 km (152 mi) Men's Road Race. He is a time trial (race against the clock) specialist at the Tour de France, and has won a couple of stages over the past few years. Swtizerland is no stranger to the medal stand, having participated in the Olympics since their modern inception in 1896. They have hosted the Winter Olympics twice - in 1928 and 1948 - both times at St. Moritz. Switzerland is also host to the headquarters of the Olympic Movement in Lausanne.