Team Sun's surprising Olympic moments By SUN MEDIA

TERRY JONES

1. Simon Whitfield – It wasn't the glorious surprise it was in 2000 in Sydney when he won gold in the triathlon. But close. Not a podium projection here, Whitfield may have produced a more incredible performance to win silver in Beijing than gold in Sydney. Fighting back from fourth to rejoin the lead pack to passing them all and heading the final few metres in the lead, even though he'd get caught, gave many Canadians their most enduring Olympic moment of these Olympics.

2. Eric Lamaze – Or his horse. Still not sure how I feel about a horse winning a gold medal. Or, for that matter, a rider who missed two Olympics due to positive drug tests. But there's no denying it was quite the ride for Canadians as Lamaze rode clean through both runs as well as a third trip around to decide first and second. It was delicious drama.

And it was gold.

3. Carol Huynh – Very similar to the gold won in Athens, in a lot of ways, by Lori-Ann Muenzer in cycling four years ago. Few had circled her women's wrestling event on the Olympic calendar as a must-attend event where a Canadian becomes an Olympic golden girl. Just watching her go through virtually every emotion possible during the playing of O Canada and the raising of the flag was wonderful stuff.

STEVE SIMMONS

1. Historically dominant Team USA losing softball final to Japan.

2. Seemingly unflappable flag bearer Adam van Koeverden succumbing to the pressure and falling apart in his two kayak events.

3. Enigmatic Emilie Heymans leaving her past behind and diving brilliantly, coming within one dive of gold.

ROB LONGLEY

1. Adam van Koeverden finishes eighth in men’s 1,000. The look on van Koeverden’s face as he walked along the dock was of shock and disbelief. He wasn’t alone. While he wasn’t a sure thing for gold in that event, missing the podium was something that seemed out of the question prior to the Games. The Oakville paddler acknowledged as much, his voice cracking, in the post-race interview.

2. Priscilla Lopes-Schliep. If you followed her progress the past year, you could see the Whitby hurdler moving torwards a big performance here. But four, three or even two years ago, who could have figured she would medal in the event before Pickering’s Perdita Felicien, the Canadian darling of the Games four years ago but unable to compete here due to injury? Sometimes surprise medals are the sweetest.

3. Ryan Cochrane. He is just a teenager, but the B.C. distance swimmer put the punctuation on what was a strong meet for the Canadian team. On the last day of competition at the Water Cube, Cochrane captured bronze in the 1,500-metre freestyle. The medal, Canada’s first in the pool since Sydney in 2000, was symbolic of the 27 Canadian records set by the revamped Swim Canada program.

THANE BURNETT

1. I would have lost a 100 RBM bet ($15.29 Cdn) that there would have been some ethnic attack within Beijing during these Games. The prize seemed too good with the timing not likely to come again for perhaps years.

They had the world's press here, and yet didn't or couldn't strike at the heart of Communist China.

2. That a medaling athlete did not make a profound and loud pro-Tibetan or Darfur related gesture. And, as a bald man, I don't count the Polish medalist who shaved his head before taking the podium, without elaborating that it was in support of the monks of Tibet.

3. That people can - aside from what governments do - be nice to one another for long days on end. Volunteers honestly and deeply loved having the world come to their door. Into the last hours, they were as happy as the clams they were before the athletes and world press arrived.