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London Day 5 recap: She was told she was too 'manly'.

1. Sexism and the Olympics. Sigh.

Eighteen-year-old British weightlifter Zoe Smith – who can lift 121 kilos, just FYI – has responded to a series of sexist tweets from men (and women) who said she wasn’t womanly enough or that she was ‘manly’. She wrote on her blog:

[We] don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even WANT them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive?

What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?! Cause you are clearly the kindest, most attractive type of man to grace the earth with your presence.

2. Magnussen so close, wins silver

James Magnussen

Who else was on the edge of their seat this morning? James “The Missile” Magnussen went for gold in the 100m freestyle and was beaten by American swimmer Nathan Adrian by just 1/100th of a second. Ouch.

Twenty-one-year-old Magnussen qualified fastest for the final and was the favourite to take gold. After the race he said: “It hurts… I did my best tonight and and it was not quite good enough… To lose by that amount stings but I’ve had a lot of great support the last few days from people from back in Australia.”

Meanwhile, the women’s 200m freestyle team of Bronte Barratt, Melanie Schlanger, Kylie Palmer and Alicia Coutts also won a silver medal.

The women’s relay team

In other Olympic news, Sam Stosur and Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the next round of the mixed-doubles tennis, Australia’s women’s water polo team beat Great Britain, the Opals beat Brazil 67-61 (and Lauren Jackson became the highest scorer in women’s basketball history) and Aussie rowers Kate Hornsey and Sarah Tait won a silver in the women’s pairs.

3. This is why we love the Olympics.

The Tunisian basketball team lost to the US by 50 points in their recent match. But it wasn’t all disappointment. This Tunisian player approached Kobe Bryant (who’s probably the best player in the world) after the game and asked for his autograph – great to see that there’s still room for a bit of hero worship at the Games, even amongst the athletes themselves.

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4. Drama on the badminton court.

Four teams in the women’s badminton have been disqualified for ‘throwing’ their matches. Two Chinese top seeds, four South Korean athletes and an Indonesian pair were dismissed from the competition for deliberately losing by making simple errors.

Sorry, what? Why would you deliberately lose an Olympic match? We’re asking the same question. Apparently they did it in an effort to get an easier match-up for their quarter final games.

The disqualifications meant that the Australian women’s team of Renuga Veeran and Leanne Choo were given a second chance in the place of one of the disqualified teams. But they unfortunately lost against Canada.

5. And finally, just because they’re awesome.

It’s Olympic nail art. Impressive. Can you do one better? Show us by uploading a pic of your Olympic nail art in the comments.

What have you been watching?

For more on the London Olympics you can head on over to visit our friends at ivillage.com.au

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