There has been a pitched battle for Olympic gold going on 1,222 miles from Beijing this week, but it’s likely only aficionados or little girls have watched. The equestrian competition ended in Hong Kong with Germany coming out on top with three gold medals (the U.S. won two, including a gold). Anyone who watched the events marveled at the sheer strength, skill and hutzpah of horse and rider, but in case Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin distracted you, there are lots of little girls who live and breathe horses. One person even attempts to decipher the riddle of why girls love horses on Yahoo!Answers. Now all these girls are going to need a horsey fix: If she’s around 6 to 8 years old, get her the “Fashion Angels” equestrian sketchbook ($15) from Toys’r'Us, or the Equestrian Challenge for PC for $20. If Barbie is her thing, the omnipresent doll has a complete equestrian outfit for $50 from etoys (if you want the horse and tack, that’s extra). There’s even a lovely book from the American Girls library, Girls and their Horses for $9. Mom, do you remember how much you loved horses? Maybe it was because of the classic movie National Velvet. Lest we forget that Jackie Kennedy made equestrian style chic, England’s Equestrianism.net maintains the standard. More recently, the O’Halloran Co. turned it into couture styling. (If you pay attention to fashion, you’ve noticed the riding boots that designers are churning out, such as Burberry’s $995 pair.) If the grown-ups have become enamored of dressage, this classy coffee table book shows you how to put the horsey into your home décor ($41). Finally, to make sure the holiday’s are just right, grab a Little Girl Riding Horse ornament from Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland for $6.

Your badminton is probably suitable for the suburbs: You and a buddy running around with a beer in one hand and a flimsy racquet in the other until the plastic shuttlecock gets stuck in a tree. In Asia, especially China, badminton is serious business, and you can see it in the Olympic competition. Even Bill Gates has been watching the action in Beijing. The birdie (or shuttlecock) can travel 200 mph, and pros can cover 4 miles at high speeds in a single game. If you want to try some serious badminton, start with serious equipment.  Yonex is the premiere manufacturer of pro badminton goods, and Badminton Alley is a good place to start. At the top of the heap is the Yonex Arc-Saber 10 racquet for $230 (on sale!) which weighs about 85 grams and is made of graphite, carbon and has custom strings. At a lower price point is the Muscle Power 99 racquet for $175, used by lots of pros and several world champions. Ditch the plastic and get a real goose-feather shuttlecock (16 feathers glued to a cork base), such as the Yonex AS Professional for $26. A less expensive but still fancy Black Knight 6600 yellow shuttlecock is $17 (it should be humidified before use - don’t ask us why). You can pay around $180 for carbon nano-fiber strings and a professional-level net will run $65. Perhaps you didn’t know there are badminton shoes that look like lightweight flat running shoes with curved toes, as well as grip tape for $3.50 and grip powder spray. To really bring the heat to the back yard, put it all in a pro bag for $65. And, yes, you can buy a whole badminton set at lower prices if you must. Now, just toss in some badminton lingo, like “flick,” “push shot” and “kill” and you’re ready to roll.

Has a weekend of watching amazing athletes inspired you to leap off the couch and get into shape? Don’t be hasty. Gather some gadgets to get started with, or just to make you look cool in the trials. Impressed by the way the Olympic gymnasts fling their bodies around the pommel horse? Your variation on the rings competition could be the Perfect Pushup ($99), with rotating handles and adjustable swing arms to give you the feel for holding your body suspended in mid-air. Uhmm, yea. Ready to run? Don’t leave without a Sportline HydraCoach “intelligent” water bottle (pictured) that tracks your hydration level based on your weight, exercise level and your personal hydration goal.” It even factors in heat and altitude, for $27.95. You want to wear earphones while you sprint, but when in unfamiliar territory (like a running path), ambient awareness earphones ($80) will let you jog along with Lil Wayne and still hear sounds around you, such as screeching brakes and screaming. Now you’re starting to get serious, and this is a seriously odd device: a “core body temperature monitoring system” that consists of a data recorder you wear, which gets its information from a pill-shaped sensor that you swallow. We can’t find a price, but you may want to discuss that one with others before purchasing, anyway.  You’ll want a new scale to measure your progress, and a Tanita Inner-Scan scale will track not only your weight but body fat and body water percentage, muscle mass, physique rating, amount of visceral fat and, well, enough said. It’s $110. Is all this talk of exercise too exhausting? Then you probably just need to strengthen your remote-control muscles with an Xtensor hand exerciser ($40 from ThinkGeek).  It’s made for video gamers, but you wouldn’t want to get a thumb cramp and miss the synchronized swimming.

Did you make it to Lollapalooza last weekend in Chicago’s Grant Park? Were you in the crowd for Wilco, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails or Kanye West? No? Sigh. Neither were we. But that’s fixable. Read the Blogapalooza, take crib notes from the 2008 set lists, buy the shirt and say you went. The Lolla Coat of Arms women’s T (pictured) would do the job nicely, with its black and gold eagle stretched above a Lollapalooza banner ($20). You can get that same coat of arms on a Lollapalooza onesie ($15). A little more cash will get you extreme eye candy with the limited-edition custom-made Lollapalooza skateboard by Element ($95). If you’d rather be the center of attention for having not attended the CMA Festival, you can accomplish that with the 2008 official event shirt, which splashes the logo across your chest and lists the musicians down your back ($20), or even the official 2008 CMA shooter glass (and yes, that is its actual name) for $10. Wishing you’d gone to Bonnaroo? The 2008 limited-edition silk-screened event poster will help with that, since it’s got cool funky art and lists all the musicians who performed ($30). You say you’re more of a Coachella kind of girl? Then it’s the “Sound Waves and Heat Waves Unite” Hula Hula T that is calling your name ($35.) And if you’re really holding out for the music itself, you can still get single-day passes to the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival Sept. 26-28 ($80 per day) or grounds tickets to the 2008 Monterey Jazz Fest Sept. 19-21 ($35 Friday, $45 Saturday or Sunday). The longest-running jazz festival in the world already has its own official black, electric blue and gold 2008 event shirt online as well ($25), so regardless of whether you go, check it out. It’s as cool as Coltrane. — by Diane Porter

With the Olympics only two weeks away (Aug. 8 to 24, in Beijing), the world’s focus is on American swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals and two bronze medals during his last Olympic outing in Athens in 2004. For all things Phelps to show your support, SpeedoUSA is the place to start. While in Beijing, the Phelps and the rest of the American swim team will be wearing the Speedo LZR Racer Bodyskin (pictured), billed as the world’s fastest swimsuit — since its release in February, swimmers wearing these form-fitting suits have set nearly 40 world records. The LZR Racer can be pre-ordered for October delivery ($550). The Speed Socket goggles are like the ones Phelps wore in Athens; they have shatter-resistant polycarbonate lenses with UV protection ($25). A Michael Phelps silhouette T-shirt ($24) has an image of Phelps on the back, along with his signature, and the Speedo USA logo on the front. Zazzle sells a grey and blue “Team Phelps” T-shirt ($21) with a more basic design. Put up this “Michael Phelps One More Time” poster with a striking photo of Phelps underwater ($10). Get a look at Phelps’ rivalry with fellow swimmer Ian Crocker in the DVD Unfiltered ($20) or improve your technique with the instructional DVD Personal Best: Butterly Instructional DVD with Phelps and his longtime coach Bob Bowman ($35). For the full story on Phelps, check out his autobiography, Michael Phelps: Beneath the Surface, ($16.50), which he wrote with Sports Illustrated writer Brian Cazeneuve.

When GPS devices first came out, I was characteristically ho-hum about them. An early adopter of tech gadgets I’m not.Well, I’m here to say that people a lot smarter and more adventurous than I have dreamed up a clever use for these units. Think of a scavenger hunt, throw in the connectivity/community of the Internet, add a GPS receiver (or a GPS-enabled mobile phone containing Geocache Navigator software, which costs around $7 per month) and you’re on your way to understanding the increasingly popular activity known as geocaching. Briefly, the term combines the words “geography” and “caching,” which, according to Geocaching.com, “is the process of hiding a cache.” The one who hides the cache is the “owner” and those who set out to find it are the players. The fun begins when the owner selects a location for his or her cache that is a challenge to reach, even with a GPS receiver. Some caches require the players to be scuba divers or rock climbers, and some are concealed on well traveled city streets. To give it a try, you’ll need a GPS unit. The site recommends the Garmin eTrex GPS ($90) or the Magellan GPS 315, We couldn’t find that model so we recommend the new Magellan Triton 300 instead ($150); it lets you add detailed maps and applications. In addition to the thrill of the hunt, players may find themselves rewarded with items left in the cache. Or maybe not. The only thing a cache has to contain is a logbook, but that doesn’t mean it won’t contain jewelry, money, tickets, or other valuables. Players must be prepared to leave something in the cache if and when they take something from it. Read the FAQ page for more about this fascinating new form of recreation.