They were wetting themselves on the Monday night edition of TVE's Telediario. Spain had won their first gold medal of Athens 2004. And where else could it be but in the gymnasium? It was Gervasio Deferr who won the men's vault to become only the 20th Spanish gold medal winner in summer olympics history (including 13 at Barcelona 1992). Here is El Mundo's pre-Games profile, in Spanish and including a video clip in Windows Media, and a report (in Catalan) of his victory.

There was more excitement for Spain as they beat Egypt 3-0 in the men's hockey to qualify for the semis. Read Mervyn Fernandis' latest Dribble Scribble about India's 2-2 draw with Argentina. Get ready for an India v Pakistan clash on Wednesday, even if it's only in the 5th-8th classification section.

Ah, parochialism. What would the Olympics be without it? If it's not Auburn University crowing that it has more gold medals than Germany, it's my local free weekly, the Inner Western Courier, giving us five pages of Olympic coverage of athletes from local suburbia. Inner Western Sydney's medal count to date? 0 gold, 1 silver (Loudy Tourky on the 10 metre platform), 2 bronze (four members of the men's rowing eights, Steven Barnett on the 3 metre springboard). It transpires that doing tertiary studies at Sydney University or the University of Technology Sydney counts for the Courier as being a local resident.

The first day of the decathlon is over and it is fairly clear that Erki Nool is not going to retain his title. Currently in 13th position, 531 points behind Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Karpov.

Australia's men's volleyball team ended stone motherless after the Dutch beat them in straight sets 25-22, 25-17, 25-16. The Netherlands, like their honkballing compatriots out of the tournament, finished with two wins.

Angola got flogged 53-89 by The Dream Team. Read The Guardian's report of the game. Jornal de Angola reported the game in Portuguese.

Table tennis hasn't quite been the same for me since they switched to best-of-seven first-to-11 games. Ryu Seung Min of South Korea won a thrilling men's singles table tennis final four sets to two (11-3, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-13, 11-9) over China's Wing Hao. Here are the match stats of the final. This is how the Xinhua News Agency reported the final. Meanwhile, over at the Korea Times...

But over in the land of the World's Greatest Ynglers and Women Curlers, the agony of Paula Radcliffe's non-finish in Sunday's marathon was at least partly erased by Kellie Holmes' victory in the 800 metres.

I started this column with Deferr, and finish it off with Defar. Meseret Defar of Ethiopia won the women's 5000 metres with a time of 14:45.65. Ireland's great hope, Sonia O'Sullivan, finished last.

Quote of the day from Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad Majeed:

"You cannot talk about a peace symbolism, since there is still war in Iraq and military is everywhere in the country."

Take that, GWB!