Quit biting your medal, Aly! (Getty)Since winning two golds and a bronze in gymnastics at the London Olympics, Aly Raisman has been on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. She's been on the "Today" show, "The Colbert Report," and the red carpet for the E! Network. Her medals have been with her for every step, so it's not a shock that one of the gold medals is already dented.

"They're so heavy and I don't want to lose them and I've already dropped one of them so there's a little dent in them. It gives it a little bit of character," she said.

Raisman already admitted she doesn't know which medal is the gold she won for the team competition and which one is from the gold on floor exercise. The dent will at least keep them from being interchangeable.

She shouldn't feel bad as she's far from the only one to tarnish her medal. Brazilian judoka Felipe Kitada broke his just hours after competing by dropping it in the shower, and the International Olympic Committee replaced it. German luger David Moeller broke his tooth after biting his newly on medal in 2010.

Don't worry, Aly. It's better to have a dented medal than no medal at all.

Thanks, USA Today.

(Getty)

Usain Bolt has completed everything he could hope to as a sprinter. He has world records in the 100m and the 200m, six Olympic golds, and a set-in-stone legacy as one of the greatest sprinters of all time. Why not seek another challenge?

Though there were rumors of his retirement, Bolt dismissed the idea his track and field career was over. Instead, he mentioned a prospect that would mean the world's fastest man wouldn't even be in the sprints. Bolt is considering trying other events, namely the 400m and long jump.

"It's just about making different goals, there's a lot of things I can do in the sport," Bolt told Britain's Sky News television channel.

"My coach wants me to do 400 metres, I want to try long jump," said Bolt.

Seeing Bolt long jump would certainly be a sight to behold. One of the reasons why he is so dominant in the sprints is that he uses his height as an advantage. He uses every inch of his 6-foot-5 body to get to the finish line in a fast, efficient manner. Can you imagine what he will do to get that frame to jump farther?

When Liu Xiang went down with an injury during the 110-meter hurdles in London, the nation's most populous country was gripped by disappointment as its leading track star failed to finish a race for the second consecutive Olympic Games. Yet Xiang, 29, managed to salve those wounds and provide a touching epitaph to his Olympic career when he hobbled to the final hurdle on the London course and kissed it, providing a poignant capstone to his career that felt akin to a wrestler leaving his shoes in the center of the ring.

Liu Xiang kisses the final hurdle after failing to finish the 110-meter hurdles in London.

That entire scene played out across China to a touching piece of commentary on state run TV network CCTV. A commentator became so choked up that he was on the verge of tears, all while likening Liu's failure to finish to a soldier not having a gun. The raw emotion in the telecast was so vibrant that NBC and BBC played it on their own telecasts as well.

Weeks later, that seemingly spontaneous moment has been tarnished with revelations that the tear-filled, emotional commentary was apparently scripted by CCTV itself, creating outrage among Chinese citizens that has led to more than a million comments across different social media. Reports that the coverage of Liu's send-off was premeditated began to emerge on Tuesday (and were brought to Fourth-Place Medal's attention by USA Today's Chris Chase) when the head of CCTV's on-air commentary unit, Sha Tong, admitted to the Nanjing Oriental Guardian that the group had four scripted Liu endings.

Eventually, the primary commentator for the event, Yang Jian, employed the most dramatic possible conclusion when Liu collapsed after the first hurdle and limped to the final hurdle, ending his second consecutive unsuccessful run at an Olympic Games.

In fact, Jian may have been under fairly explicit instructions to provide just such an backdrop to the race; according to the South China Morning Post, via an Agence French Press report, a senior editor for CCTV's Olympic coverage group made it clear that commentary surrounding the event would have to take a very specific tone.

"Instructions were circulated among our colleagues saying it should be considered a victory as long as Liu showed up to the starting line," said the editor, who was quoted anonymously.

There is no concrete proof that Liu had already conceived of his hobble and kiss gesture before the starter's gun went off, though plenty on Chinese social media outlets have already rushed to that conclusion. The one thing that is certain is that Liu had to know that he would struggle to even finish a race in his heat due to a serious ankle injury that developed during his training for London.

According to Shaghaiist.com, CCTV was aware that Liu was unlikely to finish the event because Yang learned of that pre-existing injury before the event began. He then turned that information over to Sha, who informed CCTV deputy editor Li Ting. With the knowledge of those executives, Yang then scripted his four potential commentaries. According to Agence French Press, CCTV was barred from revealing details about the injury by the country's propaganda department.

Meanwhile, two Chinese reporters -- CCTV's own Dong Rina and an unnamed correspondent from Xinhua News Agency -- both reported that Liu was administered two numbing injections in his ankle shortly before lining up for the race. Those painkillers would have helped Liu finish the race, whether or not they could have kept him competitive, though the head coach of the Chinese athletic team, Feng Shuyong, has denied that Liu was given any injections on race day.

There is ample reason to believe that the Chinese government would have an incentive for making Liu's Olympic ending as dramatic as possible, too. According to CNN and Forbes Magazine, Liu's endorsement contracts skyrocketed after his unexpected gold medal in Athens, leading to a windfall of more than $25 million annually as he pushed every product from Nike to BMW, with smaller deals with Chinese milk companies and nutrition supplements mixed in for good measure.

Because all these deals were made in China, the government received a healthy cut of the endorsement action, which continued to prosper, albeit at a slightly decreased rate, following the Beijing Games, despite Liu withdrawing from the hurdles with an injury.

Nonetheless, both the sprinter and government authorities have vehemently denied that Liu's actions in London were premeditated, with the track star himself insisting that he felt healthy before the race and offering up a personal narrative to CCTV about why he did what he did.

The common perception of the Paralympics is that they provide the international competition of the Olympics without any of the messy corporate overtones or attempted cheating. For the most part, that first aspect is largely true. But the idea that Paralympians never cheat couldn't be further from the truth.

Boosting is said to be rampant in wheelchair rugby, with as many as 55 percent of athletes having tried it — Getty Images

That became clear just days before the Aug. 29 opening of the Games after the publication of a BBC report which cited a series of experts who claimed the practice of "boosting," or hurting oneself to increase blood pressure and performance, is rampant among elite Paralympic athletes. According to the BBC, a study conducted during the Beijing Paralympic Games found that approximately 17 percent of the athletes on hand admitted to using boosting in the past to gain a competitive advantage. More troublingly, one scientist estimated that a more accurate account of Paralympians might find as many as 30 percent have boosted, despite serious side effects.

The tactics used to bring the pain that leads to increased blood pressure are startling, too. According to BBC sources, they run the gamut from not releasing urine to cracking or breaking toes with a hammer. In between, athletes have tried sitting on a drawing pin, using tightened leg straps and sitting on their own scrotum.

At least one athlete has even stepped forward to admit that he used electrical currents attached to his body to jump start his boosting.

While the concept might seem strange, the results are backed up by simple science. Athletes with spinal chord injuries do not get the blood pressure and heart rate increases that come from vigorous aerobic exercise as able-bodied athletes typically do. To make up that difference -- and allow the body to train harder, thereby increasing fitness and results -- paraplegics will intentionally cause their bodies harm, which increases their blood pressure and allows them to compete more vigorously.

The ways these athletes hurt themselves are both everyday and much more elaborate, as one competitive climber attested to the BBC.

Quadriplegic rock climber Brad Zdanivsky has admitted to boosting to improve performance — Twitter

"I tried several different ways of doing it. You can allow your bladder to fill, basically don't go to the bathroom for a few hours and let that pain from your bladder do it," Canadian quadriplegic climber Brad Zdanivsky told the BBC. "Some people do that in sports by clipping off a catheter to let the bladder fill -- that's the easiest and the most common -- and you can quickly get rid of that pain stimulus by letting the urine drain out.

"I took it a notch further by using an electrical stimulus on my leg, my toe and even my testicles."

That's right, a paralyzed athlete was using electrical stimuli on his testicles to help him perform better. That certainly seems about as sinister as some of the more traditional methods of cheating endorsed by able-bodied athletes.

Wieber before throwing out the first pitch at a Tigers game. (Getty)Now that the Games are over, it's just fun for Jordyn Wieber.

The gold medal-winning Olympic gymnast has been relaxing and enjoying time with friends in her hometown of DeWitt, Mich., since returning from London last week.

"Now that the pressure is off, we just hang out," Wieber said Wednesday during an event at the AT&T store in Novi, Mich., which is about an hour away from her home.

The sprite and smiling 17-year-old said she now sleeps in a bit longer, spends much needed time with family, but still has commitments for interviews and events.

(Jordyn Wieber slideshow)

On this particular day for example, she'll spend the morning signing autographs and meeting the hundreds of fans that lined up around the phone center store. Then she and her mother, sister and best friend will go shopping at a nearby mall for a dress for Wieber to wear at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards, where she and her U.S. teammates will present an award.

Then she and her group will head to the Detroit Tigers game, where Wieber will throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Sam Oldham poses with the bronze medal (Getty Images)UPDATE: Betfred spokesman Mark Pearson tweeted Thursday afternoon that the company has decided to pay Linda Aldred for her bet. That's probably a wise choice. The ongoing negative publicity wasn't worth the money Betfred was saving by not compensating Aldred.

Family pride wasn't the only reason Linda Aldred was elated to see her grandson Sam Oldham win a surprise bronze medal in men's gymnastics at the London Olympics.

The 66-year-old England native also had made a lucrative bet before the Games began that Oldham would take home a medal.

According to the Thanet Times, Aldred placed a £5 bet ($7.90) at 200-to-1 odds with Betfred in honor of her late husband and Oldham's grandfather, Eric, whom she described as "a betting man. She attempted to cash in her bet after the Olympics, but bookmakers said they wouldn't pay her the £1,000 ($1,580.30) she thought she was due because Oldham's medal came in the team competition rather than as an individual.

"I was stunned," Aldred told the Times. "I am really happy Sam won, it is more the principle than the money, but I could have used the winnings to pay for my ticket to see Sam at the 2016 Olympics in Rio."

It's tempting to suggest that a grandmother who has never bet before might have simply misunderstood the wager she was making, but the picture of Aldred's betting slip in the Times appears to corroborate her argument.

Earlier on Tuesday, endurance swimmer Diana Nyad was pulled out of the water during the fourth day of a monumental attempt to swim between Cuba and Key West, Fla. The swimmer had aimed to traverse the waterway between the two countries -- an incredible distance of 103 miles -- without a shark cage, any long rest breaks or contact with any person. She had spent three years training for the ordeal.

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad after being pulled from an attempt to swim between Cuba and Florida — Reuters

Sadly, she was pulled from the water a day before she was scheduled to arrive in Florida on her 63rd birthday. Yet hours later, the wear that the journey had on the swimmer became apparent as photos of her condition were circulated by her support team, which cited jellyfish stings, hypothermia, storms and, perhaps most gratuitously, swollen lips as reasons why the swimmer couldn't continue.

Diana Nyad was forced to abandon her swim after storms struck her route — Reuters

The photos you see above and at right document the ravages of all those maladies, with the 62-year-old's face far more weathered and beaten than it appeared just days earlier on the Cuban coast.

You can see the dramatic difference between Nyad's face above and the way it appeared before she began, in the photo below.

At the time of her removal, Nyad had traveled 55 miles, more than half of the distance between the two countries. Still, the distance she had to continue and the severe threats she faced, sharks among them, were far too great to allow her to continue.

Incredibly, Nyad didn't agree after first being pulled from the water due to passing storms. Instead, it was only after a few hours of reflection that she, too, became convinced that trying to finish the swim would be too dangerous.

Diana Nyad prepares to depart from Cuba — Associated Press

"When can I get back in?" Candace Hogan, a crew member on the boat following Nyad, quoted the swimmer as saying, according to the Associated Press. "I want full transparency that I was out. But I have plenty left in me and I want to go on.

"[But] she realized that the obstacles against this swim were too great and agreed at dawn to return to Key West by boat."

Ten seconds into his television acting debut, Ryan Lochte was already shirtless and had uttered his catch phrase, "Jeah!"

The five-time London medalist will play himself in an upcoming episode of "90210." We'd go into plot details, but you don't care. You either want to see him shirtless or to see how well-versed he is in acting's Donaghy Method.

Verdict: Lochte is to Donaghy like Brando is to Stanislavski.

It's been a week full of firsts for Lochte. On Thursday, he appeared on "The Tonight Show." Lochte is so laid back he makes Phelps seem like Missy Franklin.

While on the show, actress Kristen Bell stole Lochte's medals.

Lochte seems confounded by the words Bell spoke. Can't say I blame him; I'd also turn into a puddle of nerves if Veronica Mars ever chatted me up.

Also, if Lochte isn't the next "Bachelor," then we've failed, America. We've failed.