WaybackWire

BEIJING, Sunday.—Michael Phelps won the 400m individual medley in a world record 4:03.84 on Sunday morning, the first gold of his bid for eight at these Games.

The time was more than a second under his own previous mark. Laszlo Cseh of Hungary took silver and Ryan Lochte of the United States the bronze.

Phelps is chasing Mark Spitz’s seven golds from Munich in 1972. In Saturday’s heats he broke his own Olympic record with 4:07.82 to qualify fastest, 1.5 seconds clear of Cseh.

“I didn’t think I’d swim that fast in the preliminaries,” he said.

US television showed the final in the evening, and not every American viewer was pleased to learn the result first. “hey thanks for spoiling it in your headline. some of us like to watch it as it happens on the broadcast,” one user, theo2112, wrote in a comment on the website Reddit.

KUQA, China, Sunday.—Attackers struck a dozen government sites in Kuqa, in China’s far western Xinjiang region, before dawn on Sunday, leaving eight people dead, the Xinhua news agency said.

A tricycle loaded with explosives was wheeled into a public security bureau, Xinhua reported. Seven attackers and one security guard died; authorities said some attackers killed themselves when confronted by security forces.

The county of about 400,000 people has been sealed off, and soldiers have been sent in.

It is the second deadly attack in the region in less than a week. On Monday in Kashgar, two men drove a dump truck into paramilitary police at morning exercises, then threw homemade explosives and attacked with knives. Xinhua said 16 officers were killed. Voice of America reported that no civilians were hurt.

“This is the most serious incident recorded in years,” Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch said after the Kashgar attack.

Organisers insist the Games are safe. “I do not believe this will have an impact on the Olympic games,” said Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing organising committee.

China accuses Uighur militants of the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement of plotting Olympic attacks.

BEIJING, Saturday.—A Chinese man stabbed an American tourist and the family’s Chinese guide at Beijing’s Drum Tower on Saturday, the first full day of the Games, killing the American.

The victim was a relative of the coach of the US men’s volleyball team. His wife was seriously injured. The attacker then jumped from the tower’s 40m viewing platform.

“They are deeply saddened and shocked,” said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the US Olympic Committee.

“Laura and I were also saddened by the attack on an American family and their Chinese tour guide today in Beijing,” President Bush said on Saturday. The US government has offered the family any assistance it needs, he said.

BEIJING, Sunday.—President George W. Bush attended a Sunday service at a Beijing Protestant church and met Chinese President Hu Jintao, raising human rights and religious freedom, the White House said.

The choir at the Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church sang “Amazing Grace” and “Edelweiss,” Bush said afterwards. He said that “no state, man, or woman should fear the influence of loving religion.”

Before the cameras, Bush struck a warm note with Hu. “I congratulate you on the opening ceremonies,” he said. “As you know, our relationship is constructive and it’s important.”

“The President raised human rights and religious freedom,” said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asian affairs.

In Bangkok on Thursday, Bush said: “So America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists.”

BEIJING, Friday.—Beijing declared Friday an unofficial holiday and encouraged residents to stay home or use public transport as the Games opened, the Associated Press reported.

Giant screens were set up in parks. But at one park in the north of the capital, guards locked the gates, leaving several dozen residents outside. “You’re not letting ordinary people into the park,” said an elderly woman carrying a foot stool, who would not give her name.

Near the Lama Temple, Zheng Zhifeng, 29, had no customers at his tailor shop: everyone was at home watching the ceremony on TV. “We didn’t think the Olympics would be this grand,” he said.

Not everyone could stop to look. “I don’t have time to watch. I have to make money,” said Cui Dajie, who owns a fruit shop a few blocks from Tiananmen Square.

Speaking from his home, human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong was blunter. “It’s not my Olympic Games. It’s not the games for the ordinary people,” he said.

SINGAPORE, Saturday.—Southeast Asia watched Friday’s opening ceremony with awe and, in Singapore and Brunei, some anger, according to a roundup of the region’s bloggers by Global Voices. Close to 200 athletes from Southeast Asia are taking part in the Games.

In Singapore, bloggers complained that the national flag touched the ground and that the flagbearer was not born and raised in the city-state. “I couldn’t say I am a patriotic Singaporean. In fact, I never was. But when I saw how my country flag is treated, I am disgusted,” wrote the blogger Chronicles of SGnia.

“I feel a bit disgrace when our national flag is being carried by a foreign talent during the Olympic opening ceremony. Why are we buying talents to bring an Olympic medal back?” asked another blogger.

Brunei was left out of the ceremony altogether after failing to register its two athletes on time. “How could Brunei’s Olympic Committee miss the deadline to register our athletes?” asked the Brunei blogger Kati-Ella.

BEIJING, Thursday.—IOC president Jacques Rogge said on Thursday that China had done all it could to clean Beijing’s air, as the city’s air quality index stood at 88, below the 101 that Chinese authorities regard as unsafe.

Some 300,000 high-polluting vehicles are banned, alternate-day driving halves the 3.3m vehicles on the road, and over 100 factories and 56 power plants are shut. “What they have done is extraordinary,” Rogge said. But outdoor endurance events such as the marathon could be postponed if smog is too high, he said.

Heavy pollution had returned on Monday after four days of clear skies. Simon Clegg, chef de mission of the British Olympic Association, said no British athlete had needed the smog masks on offer. “It’s not a concern to us,” he said.