The bar crashed to the ground, making the sound of a distant cannon, and for a moment Chermerkin was still, almost in disbelief With a modest wave to the crowd, he hugged his coaches. Weller, meanwhile, buried his head in his hands."I just thought of winning," Chermerkin, 26, said. "If someone had gone higher I could have done more." As his total for the snatch and the clean and jerk was an Olympic record of 456kg (1,008lb), it would have been a brave man to argue.Whatever you think about weightlifting - and the International Olympic Committee are so concerned about the incidence of steroid abuse that consideration is being given to its exclusion from the Games - there is no doubt it is magnificent theatre.These boys are no shrinking violets, taking the stage with such a swagger that in comparison Eric Cantona looks as self-deprecating as Uriah Heap They pose, they strut, they pout. Only if you put Suzy Ellis, the cox for Britain's women's eight, into the equation would you get near the burden that waited, mockingly, on the floor of the Georgia World Congress Center.Chermerkin, a great bear of a man weighing 165kg and big enough to have a postal code, prowled round the bar before putting his shovel-sized hands at either end. To give an idea of what was confronting Chermerkin, imagine trying to lift Steve Redgrave and hold him above your head But Chermerkin faced much more than that. Add Matthew Pinsent, Redgrave's partner in the coxless pairs boat, and still it is not enough. While Weller was celebrating, the nagging thought was that one man, Andrei Chermerkin, was waiting in the wings. The Russian world champion had no choice.

To get gold he had to not only lift what Weller had just raised above his head, he had to add another 5kg to the loads on the ends of the bar. Except in weightlifting, particularly in the super-heavyweight class, anyone can explode out of the warm-up room, hoist the improbable and dump a heavy load of depression on an erstwhile leader. All they had to do was hang the gold around his neck. Ronny Weller was so sure he had won the right to call himself the world's strongest man he rolled around the floor with delight. Then, emulating the athlete Michael Johnson, he threw his wooden-soled shoes to the crowd One to the left The other to the right. The German had just lifted 255kg, breaking the world record for the clean and jerk in the process Gold medals have been earned for a lot less than that Let's get on with the ceremony. "We're keeping our fingers crossed," he said yesterday.Matthias Beaumann, the Germany event rider, has sent a fax and has also submitted two photographs to the international federation, the FEI, in order to substantiate his allegations that the Argentinian show-jumping team have used illegal training methods at their pre-Olympic site at Pine Top Farm.In a meeting yesterday afternoon, the FEI Appeals Committee decided that it had insufficient evidence to disqualify the Argentinians..

And Whitaker thinks the horse's back has also been troubling him. "He was feeling tired but he still tried hard," said Davison.The order for Britain's show jumping team into today's Nations Cup to decide the team medals is Nick Skelton (Show Time), Michael Whitaker (Two Step), Geoff Billington (It's Otto), and John Whitaker (Welham).Blood tests carried out on Two Step after his poor performance on Monday indicates that he has suffered a slight virus. Van Grunsven will start as the clear favourite for the individual gold in Saturday's freestyle competition for which she has had a new music score specially composed.Richard Davison, who is Britain's sole representative in the Grand Prix special, failed to qualify for the freestyle on the nine-year-old Askari.But this was only the second international Grand Prix special of Askari's career and Davison was quite pleased with the youngster. Riding the 13-year-old Bonfire, with his familiar high knee action, Van Grunsven, 28, scored 1670 for her Grand Prix special test which, combined with Saturday's Grand Prix result, has put the Dutch rider a mere 1.3 marks ahead of Germany's Isabell Werth on Gigolo. There has been intense rivalry between these two riders since the 1994 World Championships in The Hague when van Grunsven, who is trained by Sjef Jannssen, won the world free-style title and Werth won the Grand Prix special.For the first time in Olympic dressage the scores from both these tests and from the Grand Prix will be combined to give a single medal winner. Anky van Grunsven's outstanding performance yesterday at Georgia's international horse park, Conyers, has put the Netherlands in line for its first Olympic gold medal in dressage. But whatever the outcome of the match, I shall cherish the memories."n Rahim Khan struck five minutes from the end to give Pakistan a 2-1 victory and send Britain tumbling further down the final rankings in Atlanta yesterday. Calum Giles had lifted Britain's hopes when he scored from a seventh-minute corner to notch his sixth goal in six matches in Atlanta Britain can now finish no higher than seventh place..

"I've been involved in the game as an international player and coach for 26 years, and reaching the medal stages here has been the highlight of my career," she said "I shall consider the future when I return from holiday There have been many, many lows and too few highs. It doesn't help that they have to wear so much kit in the heat and humidity, and I believe that has affected their judgement."Britain's goalkeeper, Hilary Rose, of Sutton Coldfield, is expected to have returned to full fitness after injuring a rib in Tuesday's 5-0 win against Argentina, and the return to form of striker Jane Sixsmith, who scored a hat-trick in the game, has given the squad confidence."We've had some ups and downs and it feels like we've been here an eternity," said the captain, Jill Atkins, one of eight players who were bronze medallists at Barcelona in 1992.Slocombe, a university lecturer from Bristol, said she had not yet made a decision about her future. "There isn't a lot to choose between both sides in terms of skill and technique, and I think they've both shown that they're coping well with the pressures of playing in the Olympics. "They have several players we'll have to watch very carefully, but in the end I think it will come down to fitness and mental toughness."It's also essential to get shots on target because a lot of goalkeepers have proved to be vulnerable here. Sue Slocombe, the Great Britain coach, says her team have a score to settle when they take on the Netherlands, the European champions, in today's play-off for the Olympic bronze medal Britain have not beaten the Dutch for seven years. I was lucky to be in that move.""Maybe I went a little too early, but if I had not done that, I wouldn't have had a chance of winning the gold.He was, however, the driving force that finally broke up a very influential group and he rode the race of his life to vindicate any criticism of his selection..