Gold

WOODWARD, Penn. -- Robbie Miranda of Newport Beach captured his first gold medal in the downhill BMX race of X Games VIII, the super bowl of extreme sports, Sunday at Woodward Camp near the Penn State campus. Miranda finished in 47.35, slightly ahead of the pack of the other seven riders. He topped a field of 34, and built momentum from winning in his heat, then in the quarterfinals and the semifinals. "I could feel all the riders behind me the whole way, and I never counted anyone out," Miranda said in a press release.

STRATHCLYDE, Scotland — Esther Lofgren, a Newport Harbor High product, won gold along with three others in the women's quadruple sculls at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships on Sunday. According to worldrowing.com, the race began with a boat-stopping crab and finished the same way. A crab is a faulty stroke that causes the blade of the oar to strike the water on the recovery stroke. Logfren and the U.S. women's team handled it the best. At the start, the Netherlands flew out of the blocks to take an early lead.

Former Newport Harbor High swimming standout Aaron Peirsol had a rollercoaster of a day Thursday at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, winning gold in the men's 200-meter backstroke, then being disqualified, and finally being reinstated as the winner. Peirsol was getting ready to conduct interviews after he beat Markus Rogan of Austria by more than two seconds when he found out he had been disqualified for violating rule 6.4 for propelling himself while on his stomach going into his last turn.

BEIJING, China ? Newport Harbor High product Aaron Peirsol began his quest for a second gold medal at the Beijing Olympics Wednesday by winning his preliminary heat and qualifying second for today?s semifinals of the 200-meter backstroke. Peirsol, who defended his 100 backstroke title by breaking his own world record earlier, won the fifth preliminary heat in 1 minute, 56.35 seconds Wednesday. Peirsol, also the defending Olympic champion in the 200 backstroke, saw his qualifying time bested only by American teammate Ryan Lochte, who posted a time of 1:56.

A near-perfect game and a clutch performance were some of the highlights Costa Mesa resident Tennelle Milligan produced on her way to two gold medals in bowling at the Pan American Games last week in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Milligan bowled a 299 in the final game of women's doubles, when Team USA won gold. She left the 10 pin standing. Milligan and Diandra Asbaty of Chicago finished with a 12-game total of 5,356 to win the event by 387 pins. Before bowling 299, Milligan said in a press release that her coach, Jeri Edwards, inspired her. "Coach said before that game, 'Enjoy the moment,' and we did," said Milligan, who averaged 216.58 in doubles.

LUCERNE, Switzerland ? Esther Lofgren, a Newport Harbor High product, won a gold medal as part of the U.S. women?s eight team at the World Cup Regatta in Lucerne on Sunday. The victory for the women?s eight team was a close one. The crew grabbed the lead in the first 500 meters and never trailed, but had to edge Australia to win. The Americans finished ahead of the Australians by 0.42 seconds. Team USA crossed the line at 6 minutes, 7.49 seconds, Australia finished second in 6:07.

BERLIN, Germany — Reigning Olympic champions Misty May-Treanor, a Newport Harbor High product, and Kerri Walsh set a record for team gold medal finishes on the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball World Tour Saturday, as the beach volleyball tandem for the United States defeated Jia Tian and Jie Wang of China for the Smart Grand Slam title. Played before a capacity crowd of more than 5,000 in front of the German capital’s main train station at the Washingtonplatz, the top-seeded May-Treanor and Walsh posted a 21-18 and 22-20 win in 45 minutes over the seventh-seeded Chinese pair to share the $43,500 first-place prize.

This weekend of April 21 and 22 was a big one for the local high school sailing teams competing in the Gold and Silver Pacific Coast championships. Newport Harbor High School qualified for the National Championship with a fifth place overall finish in the Pacific Coast Interscholastic Sailing Assn. (PCISA), narrowly beating out rival Corona del Mar after a close regatta at the Gold Pacific Coast Championship (PCC) in San Francisco. In the Gold PCC Regatta at Treasure Island, Corona del Mar placed fifth and trophied, finishing just ahead of Newport Harbor, which placed 6th. But the course wasn't enough for CdM to go on to the national championship.

The gold crucifix and rosary studded with Colombian emeralds is known as "The Atocha Cross. " In 1986 — 364 years after the Nuestra Señora de Atocha ("Our Lady of Atocha") went down during a hurricane in the waters off what is now Key West, Fla. — a treasure-hunting expedition recovered the cross and rosary from the Spanish ship's sunken cargo. The glistening artifact now belongs to a private collector, but it's about to make a public appearance at the Bowers Museum as an appendage to a larger exhibition titled "Sacred Gold: Pre-Hispanic Art of Colombia.

BLED, Slovenia — Esther Lofgren, a former Newport Harbor High and Newport Aquatic Center standout, helped the U.S. women's eight win the gold medal at the World Rowing Championships Friday on Lake Bled. Rowing in the bow seat for the United States, Lofgren helped the Americans post a winning time of 6 minutes, 3.65 seconds, three-quarters of a second faster than second-place Canada. It is the second straight world title for Lofgren and the sixth in a row for the United States in the event.

Coastline Community College's new $48-million campus in Newport Beach is starting to take shape. The first phase of construction - demolition, grading and installing underground utilities - is complete for the campus at 1515 Monrovia Ave. Workers have started construction on the three-story building and are expected to start on the first story's walls Friday, said Dave Cant, director of maintenance and operations. "It's actually moving along really well," he said.

Newport Beach resident Connor Turnbow-Lindenstadt led his SOCAL 12-and-under boys' teammates to the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics title in Irvine, scoring six goals in a decisive 12-4 victory over Foothill Water Polo Club on Aug. 2. SOCAL won its seven games by outscoring its opponents by a combined 109-39, in a field of 48 teams from throughout the U.S. members of the SOCAL championship team included Campbell Gorlinsky, Jack Denny, Mason...

COSTA MESA - The O.C. Fair is a chaotic mass of blaring music, thrilling rides, larger-than-life stuffed animals and deep-fried ecstasy. But after passing the foot-long corn dogs and dodging the chocolate-covered bacon, there is an area where the intensity eases to the speed of window shopping. That is were Eduardo Oliva, 68, can be found. It isn't Eduardo who catches the eye of fairgoers; he is a slight man with a weathered face. The soft-spoken Eduardo has an intensity for his craft that could make customers wanting his attention think they are being intentionally ignored.

Ronnie Shaeffer and Brian Hernandez helped lead the UC Irvine baseball team to the brink of a College World Series berth. They both recently received prestigious honors. Shaeffer and Hernandez have been named 2011 Rawlings Division I Gold Glove winners by the American Baseball Coaches Assn. Shaeffer, the Los Angeles Regional Tournament Most Outstanding Player, was one of the top catchers in the nation, holding opposing teams to a .429 stolen-base percentage. Shaeffer cut down 36 of 63 stolen-base attempts, including snuffing out a season-high seven consecutive attempts.

April Ross, a former Newport Harbor High standout, and Jen Kessy posed for photos with Viking swords after winning the FIVB Grand Slam Stavanger in beach volleyball Saturday. Ross and Kessy, the No. 3 seeded team, beat the No. 13-seeded team of Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig of Germany, 21-16, 21-15, using just 40 minutes. The semifinal proved to be more of a challenge for Ross and Kessy. They dropped the first set, 27-25, to the No. 6-seeded team of Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel of the Netherlands earlier in the day. But Ross and Kessy battled back to win the next two sets, 21-11, 15-11.

Misty May-Treanor posted a video on her Facebook page for all her fans, and titled it, "Off to the Finals!" In the video, she is riding on a bus approaching Chaoyang Park in Beijing, China, site of the beach volleyball competition at the 2008 Olympics. "It's a bit of a surreal moment. It's like déjà vu," May-Treanor said in the video. "Getting ready I got goose bumps just thinking about it. Wish us luck and Kerri and I are going to play hard. " The duo that won gold in Beijing in 2008 did play hard.

COSTA MESA — Coach Doug Nichols can count the number of goals his Carden Hall Elementary girls' soccer teams have allowed the past two years at Daily Pilot Cup on two fingers. This year, Nichols can just use his fingers to form a big zero. No team scored on Carden Hall in the tournament. The Eagles turned in a dominant performance on defense. The Eagles capped their run Sunday by shutting out Pegasus, 2-0, to defend their fifth- and sixth-grade gold division title at the Costa Mesa Farm Complex.