I wasn't all that surprised by Paula Radcliffe's failure to finish the women's marathon today. While her results have been stupendous, she's only run in London and Chicago, both flat courses in cool climes. With 100 degree heat and hills that make Boston look flat by comparison, it'd almost have been more surprising if she had won. Look for her in 2008, though, as course designers come in to play rather than history.

Very surprising was the American medal, as marathoning here hasn't been world class since, well, Joan Benoit took the first women's Olympic marathon 20 years ago.

Speaking of which, kudos to NBC for their piece on the women's marathon prior to the race, and for covering the event live. The taped piece was well done and had some good historical context. The coverage was OK, but they really should have trucked in a crew from Boston - we know how to cover marathons on TV.

In vaguely related news, being in Maine this weekend subjected us to more Presidential campaign ads than we get in Massachusetts, and we saw an Olympic-themed one that Bush is running, about the growing number of worldwide democracies and how Afghanistan and Iraq are here thanks to him. It was vaguely irritating, in the gratutitous use of sports for political means sort of way.

Besides, given that an Afghan soldier interviewed for yesterday's Olympic Moment said he would kill his sister if she paraded herself around like one of the Afghan female athletes, there's clearly more work to be done in some corners.

And, surprising, I give props to Jimmy Roberts and crew for today's Olympic Moment on Pyrros Dimas, the Albanian-born Greek weightlifter who went for and missed a fourth straight gold medal in his weight class. These are the sorts of things these spots should cover, not more repetitive crap about overhyped American athletes.