Beijing - This day in Olympic history: August 9. 1992 - The Barcelona Games draw to a close and the Olympic Flame is passed to the mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson, whose city will be hosting the next games. Izzy, the Atlanta mascot, is introduced to the public for the first time.
1992 - South Korean Hwang Young-Cho, who was running in only his fourth marathon, wins the last gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in a time of 2 hours 06 minutes 50 seconds, beating Japan's Koichi Morishita into second place. South Korea had earlier won the first medal of the Games as well.
But if Hwang and Morishita had plenty of reason to celebrate, there was less joy for Mexican Salvador Gracia, who, in the year before the Olympics won the New York Marathon. Garcia, who was in the presidential guard, was promptly promoted to lieutenant. After finishing ninth at the Olympics, he was demoted back to sergeant.
1984 - British decathlon athlete Daley Thompson becomes only the second athlete to successfully defend the Olympic decathlon title as he beats three Germans who finish in the next three places. Thompson was close to breaking the world record, but eased up on the final metres of the 1,500m to finish with a 4:35.00 minutes, just 0.02 seconds slower than the time he needed to break the record.
He runs a victory lap with a sweat shirt that says: "Thanks America for a good games and a great time." On the back it had the message: "But what about the TV coverage? in reference to the strong nationalistic TV coverage of the games.
1936 - American athlete Jesse Owens becomes the first American to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games as he is part of the American 4x100m relay that wins the gold. His achievements ridicule Nazi propaganda that blacks are inferior.
It has been claimed that Adolf Hitler snubbed Owens by refusing to shake his hands after his success, but that is not true as Hitler was not scheduled to shake hands with the winners. He did though, say earlier that he would not have shaken Owens' hand, nor posed for a photograph with him.
