One of the qualities of time, the only absolute thing in the universe, is the gap between the pace of time (which does not change) and the sense of time. Every moment could be an eternity, every minute could be an hour, even if every day was 24 hours. This, perhaps, begins to describe the day that passed today (Wednesday) for Michael Yakovlev who broke the Olympic record and was eliminated in the round of 16 of the sprint.
The cyclist broke the Olympic record in the qualifiers with a great time of 9.152 seconds, a record that lasted only two minutes and was broken twice in an unusual qualifying round. Harry LeBrycen, the Olympic champion, broke it.
Those two minutes were one of the highlights of Israeli sports, as short as they were. The moment when an Israeli athlete held a global Olympic record, for the first time ever, is a great moment even if it lasted from 14:15 to 14:17 Israel time. You can watch it in the player below >>>
Yakovlev advanced to the first knock-out stage from third place overall, where he met the Malaysian Muhammad Sharom and was ahead of him by half a second. Welcome to watch here >>>
Later he met Jair Tzen en Pe and beat him convincingly too, with a big run >>>>
Then came the eighth. He met the British Amish Turnbull, and reached the finish line with him in the same second. Even in the same tenth of a second and hundredth of a second, but a thousandth of a second in a dramatic photo-finish relegated him to the consolation division (as you can see in the player above).
In this round, after the great drama, the 23-year-old lost to the Polish Desperate Rodik by a gap of five hundredths of a second. Roddick will compete in the quarterfinals, but Yakovlev will be left out after a good debut at the Games. Watch >>>
