Originally Posted by ChickShhh (Post 34446)

Originally Posted by wiki

Two months after Gravenstijn won the bronze medal at the Olympics her younger sister Merghery died.[4] Still she finished the year 2004 with a Dutch Championship title in Rotterdam. She was also awarded the Faas Wilkes Trophy.[3] In 2005 she started with a third place at the Super World Cup in Hamburg and she became second in the World Cup in Rotterdam. At the European Championships, also held in Rotterdam she became seventh.[3]

In May 2005 she fell during a match and suffered a double neck hernia. A return to the tatami was very unlikely, but she was determined to return and foughty hard to make her comeback.[4] One month before she eventually made her comeback in March 2007 her mother Carmen died, her second loss in her direct family since she won her Olympic medal.[4]

Comeback

Her comeback to the international judo circuit was no success from the start. The death of her family members and her recent injuries still had a huge impact on her performances. Also due to these happenings her coach Jan de Rooij was no longer able to give her the aggression she needed to compete.[4] National coach Marjolein van Unen took over from De Rooij in February 2008. Since then Gravestijn achieved a total of three top 5 rankings in World Cup meetings, inclusive the second place in Budapest and the first place in Warsaw.[4] During the 2008 European Judo Championships in Lisbon she qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics.[4] She lost in the second round of the tournament after a mistake made by the referee, who changed the score of her match the exact other way, just 40 seconds before the end of the match.[5] Thanks to one of her main rivals in former years Isabel Fernandez who eliminated Inga Kolodziej just four seconds before the end of the game Gravenstijn qualified for the Olympics.[4] Due to Fernandez's win Gravenstijn remained on top op Kolodziej for the Olympic rankings.[4] One month before the start of the Olympics she was hit by a medicine ball during a training session. The ball which weights 5 kilogrammes landed with a high speed at her head, giving her recently recovered neck another big smack.[6] The injury almost forced her to miss the Olympics, but Gravenstijn recovered faster than expected.[6]

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing Gravenstijn had a bye in the first round and defeted Ketleyn Quadros in the second round.[1] In the quarter finals she faced Fernandez and in a tactical game with just one koka Gravenstijn advanced to the semi finals in which she won against local hero Xu Yan.[1] In the final and gold medal match Giulia Quintavalle won with a yuko and left Gravenstijn with the silver medal.[1][7] Afterwards Gravenstijn dedicated the medal to her deceased sister and mother as well as to her still living family members.[4]

Originally Posted by Maou (Post 34307)

Jason Kidd is worthless. LeBron is doing a much better job running the team.

Originally Posted by cjhobbies00 (Post 34451)

I'm not really excited about the Olympics, swimming and running are not really exciting to watch. Basketball is the only thing I tune in for and even that is lackluster due to the fact that USA will run pretty much every other country into the ground.