BEIJING 2008

VIEWERS GUIDE

TIMING: Beijing is 15 hours ahead of Los Angeles. That means as you grab your morning paper at 8 a.m. today, it’s already 11 p.m. in Beijing. Much of the action takes place from about 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. Pacific time. The Times’ daily special section Beijing 2008 has all the information from events that conclude by about 10 p.m. Los Angeles time.

CATCHING UP: For up-to-the-moment news with your morning cup of French roast, go to latimes.com/olympics and pull up the “While you were sleeping” entry on The Times’ Olympic blog, Ticket to Beijing. Times Sports Editor Randy Harvey will fill you in on the big events that took place after you finally turned off coverage of women’s handball and hit the sack.

LIVE TV? Because of the time difference, virtually no competition we see on NBC on the West Coast is live. When you see “Live” in the upper right of your TV screen, that means it’s live on the East Coast, so it’s three hours delayed here.

COMING UP

TRACK AND FIELD: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, who ran a world-record 9.69 to win the 100 meters, now takes on an event he knows something about -- the 200. He had run the 100 in competition a mere five times before he set his first world record in the event, in June in New York. Michael Johnson predicts his world record of 19.32 set 12 years ago in Atlanta will fall to Lightning Bolt.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Misty May-Treanor of Long Beach and Kerri Walsh of Los Angeles are out to defend their gold medal. They meet China’s Tian Jia and Wang Jie, who were second to May-Treanor and Walsh in the 2007 world championships. The U.S. team has won 107 consecutive matches.

BASEBALL: The United States faces Japan in a game that will determine seeding for the medal rounds. South Korea and Cuba, which both beat the United States and Japan, have also advanced.

-- Randy Harvey