2012 Olympics

After two weeks of victories and medals for Cal athletes at the London Olympics, the Games ended Sunday in a fitting fashion. Sophomore Aleksa Saponjic won a bronze medal with the Serbian men’s water polo team to bring Cal’s medal count at the London Games to a school record-tying 17. That total ties the record set in Beijing in 2008.

Over the course of 18 days in London, Cal’s 38 Olympians won 17 medals in six sports — 11 of which were gold, finishing off a record-tying fortnight with arguably the greatest Olympic performance in school history and one of the greatest showings of any sports institution in America. Cal’s Olympians continue to improve on their showing at each summer Games.

Cal won 17 medals at the London Olympics, but what if it turns out that number increases? What if Cal actually won 22 medals — 15 golds — and we didn’t even realize what was going on? What if the London Olympics really solidified Cal as the No. 1 school at which to be an Olympic athlete — instead of No. 2 or 3 — blowing Stanford, USC and every other American school out of the water? What if Missy Franklin comes to Cal?

Former Cal runner Alysia Montano ended her Olympic journey with an upsetting fifth place finish in the women’s 800 final on Saturday. After winning the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials in the event earlier this year, Montano was the American most favored to win a medal, but she came up short.

The chance to win her first gold medal nearly slipped out of Heather Petri’s fingertips when her coach made a blunder in Tuesday’s semifinal against Australia, but the U.S. advanced to its second straight Olympic gold medal game in an 11-9 overtime victory.

With less than a minute remaining in the final overtime, the former Cal standout took a cross from Heather O'Reilly and headed it into the back of the net just over the head of Canada goalkeeper Erin McLeod, sealing the squad's 4-3 win and its fifth consecutive spot in the Olympic gold medal match.

The Summer Olympics are essentially to the rest of the world what the FIFA World Cup is to America: an excuse to adopt some crazy fanaticism about sports one knows absolutely nothing about. There are, of course, countless “hell yeah!” moments in any given Olympics — most of which involve Team USA. But for every “hell yeah!” moment, there’s at least one that takes you by surprise and makes you stammer, “What the hell?”

Nathan Adrian wrapped up his Olympics with his second gold medal — and third overall — of the London Games, anchoring the American team with a time of 46.85 in the freestyle leg of the men's 400 medley relay. Dana Vollmer and two other Cal swimmers won gold medals for their performances in the women's 400 medley relay.