Auburn's Kerron Stewart won a silver medal in the 100-meter dash Sunday in Beijing, as part of a clean sweep by Jamaica in the event.

Stewart is the first Auburn woman ever to win an Olympic medal in track and field.

That's 14 medals now for current and former Auburn athletes.

Auburn won another three medals tonight in Olympic swimming, with Mark Gangloff winning gold as part of the U.S. men's 400-meter medley relay and Australia's Matt Targett taking silver for swimming for the same event. Neither of them actually swam in the final. They swam in the preliminaries, but were replaced by other swimmers in the final. Michael Phelps was one of the four U.S. swimmers who replaced the foursome from the prelims, winning his unprecedented eighth gold medal of these Olympics.

Same thing with Margaret Hoelzer, who was part of the U.S. women's 400m medley relay. She swam in the prelims and helped the U.S. qualify for the finals, but was replaced by Natalie Coughlin in the finals.

This was the third medal of these Olympics for Hoelzer -- two silvers and a bronze. It's the second for Targett -- a silver and a bronze.

Auburn finished the swimming portion of the Olympics with 13 medals. Auburn's previous high was six. Auburn had three more swimming medals than any other college. Cal-Berkeley was second with 10. From the SEC, Georgia won three and Tennessee two.

Man. That 50-meter freestyle is crazy. It's almost violent how these guys attack the water. Auburn's Cesar Cielo just won the Olympic gold in the event and broke his own Olympic record -- which pretty much makes him the world's fastest swimmer. That's the marquee sprint swim, one trip down the pool, fast as heck.

Good for him. I interviewed him this summer with a couple of other reporters and thought he was an interesting kid. His coach at Auburn, Brett Hawke, was going to be an assistant on Cielo's Brazilian team to go with him to Beijing.

That's 10 medals now for Auburn, which would put Auburn 10th if it were a country, one ahead of Great Britain and four behind Germany and Japan.

You know, it hasn't been a bad week to be an Auburn swimmer. Kirsty Coventry just reclaimed her world record in the 200-meter backstroke. She set it earlier this year, then her former Auburn roommate Margaret Hoelzer stole it and now Coventry has won it back -- taking an Olympic gold medal in doing so.

Coventry won gold in 2:05.24, beating Hoelzer's record of 2:06.09. Hoelzer took silver in 2:06.23. This is the first time ever an Auburn duo has finished 1-2 in an Olympic event. Unfortunately the United States' drought in the 200 back continues. The U.S. women haven't won that event since 1972 -- the longest goldless streak in any women's Olympic swimming event.

That's nine medals now for Auburn. Could be more soon. Cesar Cielo is swimming in the 50 free finals shortly.

The finals in the women's 200m backstroke will be held at 10:03 p.m. Eastern. Auburn's Kirsty Coventry and Margaret Hoelzer will both compete. Coventry qualified first and Hoelzer fifth.

Auburn's Cesar Cielo will also swim in the 50m freestyle finals at 11:39 p.m. He broke an Olympic record in the semifinals and also set Americas and South American records.

Also, former Auburn track star Marc Burns (Trinidad and Tobago) ran in the 100 meters tonight, placing second in his heat and advancing to today's quarterfinals at 7:45 p.m. He's the first of 12 Auburn track folks who'll compete in Beijing.

More Friday...

Link to story on official Auburn site.

Here's the gist:
Cesar Cielo and Kirsty Coventry broke two more Olympic records in event preliminaries in Beijing. Cielo's big event is the 50-meter freestyle and he broke the record in his heat. It fell in the next heat, but he still tied an Americas record and broke the South American record in the event.

Coventry set a new Olympic record in qualifying for the 200-meter backstroke semis.

In all, six Auburn swimmers advanced to an event semifinal today:
Cielo (50m free)
Coventry (200m back)
Margaret Hoelzer (200m back)
George Bovell (50m free)
Gideon Louw (50m free)
Fred Bousquet (100m fly)

The 50m free folks competed at 10:03 tonight (9:03 central). Hoelzer and Coventry swim in the same heat in the 200 back semis, tonight at 10:32 (9:32 central). Bousquet will be the last of the AU swimmers to compete tonight at 11:24 (10:24 central).

Auburn's Cesar Cielo won bronze tonight in the 100-meter freestyle, making it seven medals now won by current and former Auburn swimmers (a new AU record for a single Olympics). In other words, right this second, Auburn is tied with Great Britain for 10th in the medal count. Couple more and they'll tie Germany for ninth -- and I'm betting they win at least two more when Margaret Hoelzer and Kirsty Coventry square off in the women's 200-meter backstroke.

Cielo's a bad man. His time of 47.67 seconds in tonight's event was a new record for a South American swimmer. I wrote a story about him this summer around the time of the U.S. Olympic Trials (although he's Brazilian). He twice won NCAA Swimmer of the Year, won 10 NCAA titles and 19 SEC titles, all Auburn records. So he decided to forego his senior year at Auburn to go pro. That's how good he is -- he's skipping a year of eligibility to become a professional swimmer.

Here's where AU's medal count stands right now:
Kirsty Coventry, Zimbabwe: Silver x 3
Fred Bosquet, France: Silver
Cesar Cielo, Brazil: Bronze
Margaret Hoelzer, United States: Bronze
Matt Targett, Australia: Bronze

Ex-Auburn swimmer Kirsty Coventry won her third silver medal of these Olympics tonight, placing second behind Australia's Stephanie Rice in the 200-meter individual medley. Both swimmers beat Rice's previous world record, with Coventry clocking a 2:08.59 and Rice a 2:08.45.

Coventry has also won silvers in 400m IM and 100m backstroke in Beijing. She also won three medals in 2004, giving her six for her career -- three more than the previous record for an Auburn swimmer.

In other Auburn Olympics news, Eric Shanteau, who gained international attention when he announced that he'd been diagnosed with testicular cancer after the Olympic Trials, failed to qualify for the finals in the 200m breastroke. He clocked a personal-best time, but finished in 10th place in 2:10.10. He needed to place eighth to advance to the finals.

Also, Auburn's Matt Targett and Cesar Cielo qualified for the 100m freestyle finals by finishing fourth and eighth, respectively, in the semis. I believe that finals race is Thursday.

From Auburn's release, previewing Wednesday's action:
Incoming freshman Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace gets things started at 5:39 a.m. CT as she competes in the 100m freestyle prelim. Wallace will swim in the third heat, occupying lane four, and enters with a seed time of 56.01.

Former Auburn swimmers get in on the action beginning at 6:22 a.m. CT as two are set to compete in the men’s 200m individual medley preliminary. Nick Bovell (Trinidad & Tobago) goes first in heat two, swimming in lane two, with a seed time of 2:03.02. Jeremy Knowles (Bahamas) follows in heat three, occupying lane eight, with a seed time of 2:02.79.

Rounding out the Auburn contingent in the session will be incoming freshman Stephanie Horner. She is part of the pool of swimmers available for the Canadian 800m freestyle relay. Canada is scheduled to swim at 7:06 a.m. CT, going in lane one in the first heat. The team enters with a seed time of 8:04.19.

Schedule

Glenn Eller, who was a student at Auburn a few years back, won a gold medal in double trap shotgun an hour or so ago and set a couple of Olympic records. Eller is a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, which is based here at Fort Benning.

Here's a story on Eller that ran before the Olympics in his hometown Houston Chronicle.

The story I just posted for the Ledger.

Just got home from Auburn. Auburn's Kirsty Coventry and Margaret Hoelzer took silver and bronze, respectively, in the women's 100-meter backstroke about an hour ago. America's Natalie Coughlin, whose world record in the event Coventry broke yesterday, took the gold.

That's pretty cool for Coventry and Hoelzer, who were roommates at Auburn. They're also probably the top two contenders for the 200m backstroke. Both set a world record in the event this year, Coventry first and then Hoelzer broke it at the U.S. Olympic Trials. They'll compete in that one in a couple days.

Coventry continues to tear it up in these Olympics. A few minutes ago, she set an Olympic record in the 200m individual medley semifinals with a time of 2:09.53. She'll compete in the finals Tuesday night. Coventry won bronze in 200 IM in 2004. She's already medaled twice in Beijing, taking silver in 400 IM and 100m back.

Schedule

Anybody see that 4x100 freestyle final? What a comeback by the U.S. men to win the gold when Jason Lezak touched the wall just before France's Alain Bernard. What a race. That's another gold for Michael Phelps.

The U.S. win makes former Auburn swimmer Fred Bosquet a silver medalist. Auburn's Matt Targett swam the anchor leg for the Australian team, which won bronze. More swimming tomorrow.

Schedule

Auburn's Kirsty Coventry is the new owner of the world record in the women's 100-meter backstroke after swimming the event in 58.77 seconds in the semifinals tonight. She beat Natalie Coughlin's previous record by two-tenths of a second. Earlier in the day, she set an Olympic record in the event in the prelims.

Auburn's Margaret Hoelzer also qualified for Monday's finals. She was third in her heat and sixth overall.

Auburn's Mark Gangloff also swam tonight. He took eighth in the 100-meter breaststroke finals.

Four more Auburn swimmers are about to compete in the 400-meter freestyle relay. I'll post results here if anyone does anything big.

Kirsty Coventry set an Olympic record in the preliminaries of the Olympic 100m backstroke today. Auburn's Margaret Hoelzer also advanced to tonight's semifinals.

The relevant portion of the AU release:
First up was Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe) in the 100m backstroke as she won the preliminary with an Olympic-record time of 59.00. The time is a personal best and ranks second all-time in the event. She will occupy lane four in the second heat of the 100m back semifinal tonight.

Also advancing in the 100m back was American Margaret Hoelzer as she finished third in her heat, seventh overall, with a time of 1:00.13. She will swim two lanes over from her former teammate in tonight’s semifinal as she will occupy lane six in the second heat.

I've been away from home/the computer all evening, so I don't know when this happened, but former Auburn swimmer Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe took silver in the 400-meter individual medley tonight in the Olympics. The three-time medalist in 2004 took second behind Australia's Stephanie Rice (who isn't hard on the eyes, by the way, if you ever saw the Facebook photos of her floating around the Internet), who set a new world record in the event. Coventry's time also beat the previous world record. She'll swim three more events in Beijing.

Also, ex-Auburn swimmer Mark Gangloff will swim in Sunday's finals in the men's 100-meter breaststroke. Gangloff took seventh in the semifinals to slip into the finals. He placed fourth in the event in the 2004 Olympics.

From the Auburn release, here's what is on tap for Sunday:
Swimming action in the 2008 Olympics continues at 5:33 a.m. CT with Sunday’s preliminary session. The session features two events that will pit current, former and future Auburn swimmers against one another.

Fred Bousquet (France), Cesar Cielo (Brazil) and Matt Targett (Australia) will compete against future Tigers Adam Brown (Great Britain) and Gideon Louw (South Africa) in the 400m freestyle relay. Each of the five swimmers are part of their respective country’s relay pool and are not necessarily guaranteed to swim in the heat.

Also on the program is the women’s 100m backstroke, an event that will feature Coventry (Zimbabwe), Alana Dillette (Bahamas) and Margaret Hoelzer (United States). The last Tiger to take to the pool in the session will be incoming freshman Stephanie Horner (Canada) as she suits up in the 400m freestyle.

And the schedule.

Hi everybody. I guess today's my last day of relative peace for the next four months. I spent it driving around Auburn between introductions with members of the football coaching staff, trying to find a halfway decent rental property that isn't already spoken for this fall. (No luck so far. Feel free to make any suggestions because I could use all the help I can get).

Anyway, I met the entire coaching staff today. Got to sit down with Tommy Tuberville and his son Tucker in his office for a good while and get to know him a little bit. It's nice to put the introductions behind you so you have at least met these guys before you start asking them questions. I'm looking forward to getting started with practices, and you can tell they are too, although I'm betting my enthusiasm will be dampened a bit by about Day 15 of the 17 consecutive days of practice they're about to start Saturday without a break.

Couple notes from the day and then I'm going to post a couple of amusing pictures a friend e-mailed me today at the bottom from the coaches tour in the Middle East.
* Tuberville said they still haven't heard back from the NCAA Clearinghouse on Daphne RB Reggie Hunt. He said they otherwise expect smooth sailing when everyone reports Friday. I'll be writing something from that and will post some extra quotes from the new guys on here sometime tomorrow night, so look for that.

* Auburn basketball forward Josh Dollard has been kicked off the team for breaking team rules. They put out a press release on it today. I'm not sure if that's part of why Jeff Lebo seemed so unsure over whether Dollard would be ready for the start of the year on the SEC coaches summer teleconference a couple weeks ago. But it doesn't matter. He's done at Auburn now.

Lebo's statement in the press release:
"Josh understood his requirements and responsibilities to be an Auburn student-athlete, and he has fallen short in fulfilling what was clearly communicated to him."

* Also, the official Auburn site has a new page up and running detailing all 25 of the current and former Auburn folks who will be participating in the Beijing Olympics. It's got what they'll be competing in, when, all that good stuff. Check it out here.

* Now onto the pictures from the Middle East. I'm sure these have been making the rounds among Auburn fans, so they may or may not be new to you. I'd hope nobody minds me posting them here (if they do, I'll take them down). According to the e-mail I received, they were sent by Lt. Justin Cobb, who is stationed in Bahrain. I assume he's the guy in the pictures with the coaches. I thought a couple of them were neat and a couple of them were funny.

It's crazy to me how much was being made of Tuberville's seven-finger thing after their touch football game. If it wasn't obvious to you before, it should be obvious when you see a picture of Mark Richt posing with a guy hoisting an Auburn flag -- these guys didn't have to play up team loyalty over there, they were just there to visit the soldiers. If somebody asked Richt to pose with an Auburn flag, obviously he did it. If some Auburn fan asked Tuberville to throw up seven fingers while they carried him off the field, he just wanted them to have a good time while he was there. Even when one of them held up a sign mocking how Nick Saban wasn't there and Tuberville posed with him, who cares? I mean, really...who cares? (And I guess I should point out you could photoshop whatever you want that sign to say on there. I didn't take that picture, so I'm not 100 percent sure it's legit). Either way, it's a good thing those coaches did to go over there and visit those guys. There's nothing wrong with a little good-natured fun, no matter what you might read to the contrary in some anonymous mongoloid's message board rants.

Also included in the e-mail forward were photos of the front and back sides of a coin Tuberville was handing out to those guys over there. Apparently he was the king schwag distributor over there.

This is a pretty incredible story about former Auburn swimmer Eric Shanteau, who only recently qualified for the Olympics shortly after discovering he has testicular cancer. Amazing stuff.