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OLYMPIC PROPOSAL
She didn't win the gold, silver or bronze -- but Britain's Holly Bleasdale is walking away from the Olympic pole vaulting competition with something pretty special: a fiance.
The 20-year-old pole vaulter has said she was disappointed by her sixth-place finish at the Olympic stadium on Monday night.
Soon after her finish, Bleasdale tweeted that she was "devastated" and "sorry for letting people down."
But just hours later, her message on the microblogging site took a turn for the positive.
"6th in the Olympics and (at)bradshaaaw proposes to me :) epic day!!!" she wrote.
Her boyfriend, Paul Bradshaw, also posted about his excitement, saying he had just proposed to Bleasdale and she'd said yes. "Best day ever!" he wrote.
--Cassandra Vinograd
http://twitter.com/CassVinograd
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JETER WANTS TO SEE
The U.S. women's soccer team can count Derek Jeter among their fans.
The New York Yankees star was following the women's Olympic match on TV in the visitors' dining room at Comerica Park in Detroit -- until he had to go for batting practice before playing the Tigers.
"It's 3-3, can someone get the game on up there?" Jeter asked, motioning toward the video board that looms over the left-field wall.
Alas, the game wasn't put up.
At least the U.S. women pulled it out at the last minute in overtime and avoided having to go to penalty kicks. Alex Morgan's header gave the U.S. a 4-3 win over Canada.
The Americans now head into the gold medal game against Japan at the London Olympics.
--Larry Lage
http://www.twitter.com/larrylage
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GRENADA CELEBRATES
People danced, cheered and waved flags in the streets of Grenada after Kirani James won the gold medal in the 400-meter run with a time of 43.94 seconds -- giving the small Caribbean nation its first-ever Olympic medal.
Hundreds of people had gathered at outdoor viewing sites to watch the race.
The government of Grenada has declared Tuesday afternoon a holiday to mark the feat. Prime Minister Tillman Thomas calls James' victory an inspiration to the country.
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BETTER BE ON TIME
Two American runners missed out on their chance to compete in 100-meter dash in the 1972 Munich games when they arrived late to the second round heat. An assistant coach had misread the scheduled start time of 1615 as 6:15 p.m. (It was actually 4:15 p.m.) Eddie Hart and Rey Robinson were co-world record holders in the 100-meter dash, but they were relaxing in the Olympic village when they saw their competitors lining up on TV and, despite their speed, didn't make it to the stadium in time.
--Source: "Pursuit of Excellence, The Olympic Story" by The Associated Press and Grolier
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WAITING GAME
American Michael Tinsley paced back and forth underneath Olympic Stadium, making call after call on his cell and doing anything else he could to stay busy.
The wait was agonizing.
Tinsley was ready to go celebrate his silver medal in the men's 400-meter hurdles. But he couldn't leave until Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic finished some media obligations. Tinsley was getting impatient, so much so that he started pleading with officials to let him get his drug test out of the way.
Eventually, they obliged, and Tinsley emerged from doping control with a piece of folded-up paper above his head.
"Got it," he said.
He still had to wait for Sanchez, but that test cleared the way for him to get to the party.
--Mark Long
http://twitter.com/APMarkLong
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HERO'S WELCOME
Gold medalist fencer Ruben Limardo returned home to Venezuela to find dozens of cheering fans waiting for him at the airport with flags and balloons.
In tears, Limardo said: "I never imagined they'd receive me like this."
Limardo's gold medal was Venezuela's first since boxer Francisco "Morochito" Rodriguez won the light flyweight division in the 1968 games. Rodriguez was among the crowd that welcomed Limardo at the airport.
President Hugo Chavez announced last week that he will present Limardo with the country's highest honor, the Order of the Liberator, and will give him a replica of a sword once used by South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
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NOTE -- "Eyes on London" shows you the Olympics through the eyes of Associated Press journalists across the 2012 Olympic city and around the world. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item, and get even more AP updates from the games here: http://twitter.com/AP_Sports.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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