The olympic careers of Kostas Kederis and Katerina Thanou appear to be over. They announced their retirements, protesting their innocence, before the IOC disciplinary committee could ban them. Read The Guardian's report of proceedings. Enough of that saga already...

Another upstart Caribbean nation was at it on Wednesday. The Dominican Republic's women's volleyball team beat the US 26-24, 22-25, 27-25, 23-25, 19-17.

Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel won the women's cycling individual time trial and equalled Fanny Blankers-Koen's record for the most gold medals by a Dutch women, ie, four. She has a chance for five when the women's individual pursuit begins on Sunday.

South Korea won the gold and silver in the women's individual archery again! They've done it every time since Los Angeles 1984. Congratulations to Park Sung Hyun and Lee Sung Jin. Is this how they plan to keep North Korea at bay?

The quarter-final draw in the men's soccer, with all matches set down for Saturday: Italy v Mali, Argentina v Costa Rica, Paraguay v South Korea, and Australia v Iraq. I'm still mulling over that last one...

The Olympic News Service made the following observation from Japan's 6-0 softball victory over Greece:

In a highlight for the Greek team and its fans, Aikaterini KOUTOUGKOU (GRE) made her first plate appearance slapping a ball toward third base. She successfully made it to first but the play scored an error on third baseman UTSUGI so KOUTOUGKOU was not officially credited with a hit.

Friba Razayee, the only Afghan women competing in Athens, lost her first round 70kg judo bout to Cecilia Blanco of Spain and was eliminated.

And the lead story on the TVE evening news (which I get to see on SBS every morning at 8.30)? Spain's 29-26 men's handball win over defending champions Russia!

Meanwhile, in Crete, the following incident, as described by the ATHOC Media Officer:

"According to the statement issued by the Ministry of Public Order and the Police Department of Crete, yesterday two persons visited the Hotel Pilot in Georgioupolis, Hania, Crete and asked to see a U.S. athlete. They told her that they were there to conduct an anti-doping test. The athlete consented and provided a urine sample after her training session. Afterward the two persons were taken to the Police Station, where they declared they were employees of the International Doping Tests and Management company acting under the authorisation of USADA. ATHOC confirmed that they were indeed authorised to conduct such tests and their method of operation was legal. After their identification was checked, they were released."

Yngling. Pardon my ignorance of things nautical, but I have never heard of Yngling before these Olympics. Which led me to visit the International Yngling Association website for about 20 seconds.

There's something about Norway's fascination for Sandvolley, as they call it, that I find remarkable. Here is Aftenposten's report in Norwegian on Kathrine Maaseide and Susanne Glesnes's loss to the Canadian pair on Wednesday, which eliminated them from the tournament.

The Kleenex moment of Day Three was the US men's gymnastic team's silver medal performance.