By DAVID LASSEN, Scripps Howard News Service

BEIJING -- Bob and Mike Bryan can still win an Olympic medal, but it's not the one they were aiming for.The Bryans will play for the bronze medal in men's doubles Saturday after losing 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 to Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in a Friday semifinal at the Olympic Green Tennis Center.

BEIJING -- The idea is to make each little victory add up to something much bigger.The U.S. men's water polo team claimed the first such win Sunday -- and so, to a degree, did the host team.

At one end of the Olympic spectrum -- measured in terms of fame and fortune -- you have the U.S. men's basketball team, swimmer Michael Phelps and handful of others across a range of sports.At the other end you have people like Tim Morehouse.

Merrill Moses had left water polo behind.After being cut from the U.S. men's national team prior to the 2004 Olympics, the Pepperdine graduate had traded his swimsuit for a suit and tie, running a mortgage firm at a time, as he says, "when mortgages were good."

At the start of this decade, the phrase "U.S. distance running" was a sporting oxymoron on a par with "Brazilian ice hockey" or "Belgian surfing."No more.

Pia Sundhage knew it was a pivotal moment. She didn't quite know how to express that.Sundhage had just been named as the coach of the U.S. women's national soccer team. Coming to a team that had a turbulent experience in the 2007 World Cup -- as the first foreign coach in charge -- she knew first impressions were important in her initial meeting with her players.

The U.S. women's softball team may have been too good for its own good. The truth is, it doesn't really know.What the team does know as it enters the Beijing Games is this could be its last chance to perform on the Olympic stage. And while it is determined to win a fourth gold medal, it also wants to do whatever it can to restore its sport to Olympic status.

Alicia Sacramone is the grizzled veteran of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, the voice of experience, the team leader."She's really like our mom," says teammate Bridget Sloan. "When our real moms aren't there, Alicia's my mom."Sacramone is all of 20 years old.

This comeback stuff is apparently more difficult than it looks -- and it didn't look all that easy in the first place.After dipping their toes in the pool marked "retirement," twins Paul and Morgan Hamm returned to men's gymnastics to make a run at the Beijing Olympics. It's been a successful return -- both appear to be heading to China -- but a bumpy one.

This idea that Olympic swimmers practically live in the pool, that they could almost swim from here to China if you added up the distance they've covered in workouts? It's not always true.Natalie Coughlin has a different approach.