The New Nation - Internet Edition

Americans out to halt Reggae golden beat

AFP, Beijing

The US sprinters aren’t used to playing second fiddle at major championships but having been trounced by Jamaica in both the men’s and women’s 100m finals they will be desperate to bounce back in the relays.

The American men have been the dominant force in their relay in the history of the Olympics, landing it 15 times, while surprisingly Jamaica have yet to win the title and own just one silver.

The Americans will be out for revenge after losing to Britain in the 2004 Games and their pain will only have increased as they could only take a bronze in the individual event here - Olympic debutant Walter Dix finishing way behind Jamaican speed machine Usain Bolt.

The relay will also give America’s world champion Tyson Gay the opportunity to at least leave the Games with some form of consolation after the 26-year-old American recordholder failed to get past the semi-finals.

Gay is keen to prove that he is still a force to be reckoned with and that only a lack of races over the past month cost him that extra edge to challenge for the Olympic crown.

“I gave of my best, so there is nothing to regret,” said Gay, who suffered the hamstring injury in early July at the US trials.

“Now I have the opportunity to set the record straight and show that I am well on the way back to top form. It is also very important for the American team that we bounce back and beat the Jamaicans.”

Jamaica for their part look stronger on paper than the Americans with all three of their 100m entrants reaching the final, former world recordholder Asafa Powell finishing fifth and 2005 world silver medallist Michael Frater third.

Powell will like Gay be keen to leave with something hanging round his neck as he desperately tries to prove that he is not a choker and can handle the big occasion.

“Like I say why should I consider myself a failure? Okay I ran fifth but that was because while I felt good my legs just weren’t on the same wavelength.

“I still ran under 10 seconds which is the barometer of a top class sprinter. Obviously I would have preferred to medal, but I am lucky as I still have a chance here and we are keen to give Jamaica their first ever Olympic title,” said the 25-year-old, who is the only man to have run under 9.80sec on five occasions.

German, Dutch men through to hockey semi-finals

AFP, Beijing

World Cup champions Germany and strong contenders the Netherlands cruised into the Olympic men's field hockey semi-finals with convincing wins today.

The Germans fought off New Zealand 3-1 to end the preliminary league with three wins and two draws in pool A.

The Dutch, who were gold medallists in Atlanta and Sydney, overcame a sluggish start to beat rejuvinated Pakistan 4-2 in pool B to finish with four wins and a draw.

The remaining two semi-final spots will be decided when the last round of matches are played later on Tuesday with four teams still in contention.

Spain and South Korea square off in pool A with the Spanish men needing a draw to advance while the Asian Games champions, who are two points behind, must win.

In pool B, defending champions Australia need a draw against Britain, who face the uphill task of securing a massive win to go through.

Three-time champions Pakistan played their best hockey of the competition in the first half which ended with a 1-0 lead over the Dutch through a penalty corner goal by Muhammad Imran.

The Dutch surged ahead in the second session with three goals in 17 minutes, two of them through their penalty corner ace Taeke Taekema.

Jeroen Hertzberger increased the tally one minute before the final whistle to hand Pakistan their third defeat in five matches.

Pakistan, who last won an Olympic gold at Los Angeles in 1984, failed to make the semi-finals for the second successive Games.

Their fourth place finish in the pool meant Pakistan will miss next year's elite Champions Trophy reserved for the top six teams in the competition.

Taekema blamed the first half blues on the early 8.30 am start, a complaint also made by Spanish coach Maurits Hendriks last week.

"I have been up since five in the morning and found it tough to take the field so early in the day," said Taekema.

"I think we improved as the game went on because we were a little more awake."

Taekema said he had no preference on which side the Dutch met in the semi-final.

"You are never going to get an easy team at the Olympics," he said. "These are the 12 top teams of the world and it will be hard and challenging on who we play."

Pakistan coach Naveed Alam said his team should have finished higher in the competition, but for several missed chances.

"We should have scored more goals in our previous matches because we had the chances, but never made use of them," he said.

"This has been a great learning experience for the youngsters in the side and I am confident they will do well in future."

Germany, meanwhile, took a 2-0 lead by the ninth minute against New Zealand through goals by Timo Wess and Matthias Witthaus.

Penalty corner specialist Hayden Shaw pulled one back for the Kiwis in the 46th before Florian Keller sealed Germany's domination with his team's third goal in the 55th.

New Zealand ended the competition with two wins, two losses and a draw.

Nigeria power into Olympic final

BBC Online

Nigeria's Olympic team has powered into the final of the men's competition with a 4-1 win over surprise semi-finalists Belgium in Shanghai.

It means they are guaranteed at least a silver medal from the Games.

Olubayo Adefemi gave Nigeria an early lead and Everton's Victor Anichyebe set up Chinedu Ogbuke Obasi for the second after half-time.

Obasi scored his second and Chibuzor Okonkwo hit the fourth before Laurent Ciman claimed a late consolation goal.

Nigeria had been given an ultimatum over their lax approach to the tournament by coach Samson Siasia and the team responded in style.

The so-called "Dream Team" are hoping to match the achievement of their compatriots who won gold in 1996 in Atlanta.

They started with a bang as Peter Odemwingie forced a save from the Belgian keeper in the opening minute of the game.

Adefemi opened the scoring on 16 minutes with a low drive from the edge of the box, which Logan Bailly in the Belgian goal got a hand to but could not keep out.

The score at half-time was 1-0 but in the second period Nigeria cut loose.

Just after coming on as a substitute, Anichebe created the second with a perfect pass for Obasi to fire home.

He missed a glorious chance of his own a few minutes after that, but with 20 minutes to go a huge strike from distance from Obasi put the game beyond Belgium.

Okonkwo grabbed the fourth with an even longer-distance shot, and despite Belgium's late goal from Ciman the Nigerians went through in style.

Smaller countries also celebrate wins

BSS, Beijing

Not only China, other smaller countries which also won medals join the hosts to celebrate their achievements here.

Country like Singapore on August 17 delayed broadcasting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s annual national address because it clashed with the island’s push for the first Olympic gold medal in Beijing.

Although Singapore’s women’s table tennis team could not win against China, the silver medal was the first since 1960 for the Southeast Asian nation. There was another landmark in Beijing, where a Mongolian martial artist and Indian shooter struck the historic golds for their countries, and Tajikistan and Togo got their first medals.

“This medal is Singapore’s first in 48 years and this means a lot to the country,” Singapore’s top-ranked player Li Jia Wei told reporters. “This medal will give a boost to the development of sports in Singapore.”

At the top of the medal tables, China leads the U.S. 39-24 in total golds after its best start to an Olympics.

The home team yesterday surpassed their record haul of 32 golds in Athens and moved into the final phase seeking to become the first nation other than the U.S. or former Soviet Union to top the medal standings since Germany in 1936.

Cui Dalin, Secretary General of the Chinese team, played down the hosts’ chances, pointing out that they snatched eight golds in weightlifting and five each in shooting, diving and gymnastics. “The sports that we have advantages in were mostly completed in the first half,” Cui said. “During the second half there are not many sports that we have advantages in. The pace of winning gold medals is expected to slow down.”

Even so, China won its first rowing gold in history yesterday. The U.S. leads China 72-67 in total medals after holding a 56-46 lead heading into the second week in Athens.

China four years ago led the U.S. 22-21 in the gold medal count after the first nine days of competition.

“The latter half of the Games will be even more spectacular and the competition will be more fierce,” Cui said.

Britain, ramping up ahead of the 2012 Games in London, is third behind China and the U.S. in gold medals with 13, matching its best showing since 1920. The Britons took six in the first week of competition in Athens and finished with nine.

Greece, after notching four first-week golds as the host nation four years ago, is still searching for its first title in Beijing. Hungary, which ranks sixth with 156 Summer Olympic titles is yet to win a gold.

With 72 total medals through 10 days of competition, the U.S. now has won 2,260 at the Summer Games in the past 112 years. And Togo and Tajikistan have found places in the medals table for the first time in Beijing. Togo’s four-member team got a bronze medal from Benjamin Boukpeti in the K1 kayak event, while Tajikistan’s Rasul Boqiev finished third to bag a bronze in the men’s 73Kg (161- pound) judo category.

Naidan Tuvshinbayar gave Mongolia its first gold in the 100kg judo event. “There are no words to describe my happiness,” Tuvshinbayar said.

Three days earlier, Abhinav Bindra ended India’s 108-year wait for an individual gold medal by winning the men’s 10-meter air rifle event in Beijing. The bespectacled Bindra said afterwards that he hopes his victory will “change the face of Olympic sport” in the nation of 1.1 billion people.

Japanese pair third in synchronized swimming

AP, Beijing

Emiko Suzuki and Saho Harada finished in third place in the duet technical routine in the synchronized swimming competition at the Beijing Olympics on Monday.

Suzuki and Harada, members of the squad that won the silver medal in the team event at the Athens Games four years ago, got a total of 48.250 points, 1.084 behind Russia's defending champions Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova.

Spanish pair Andrea Fuentes and Gemma Mengual were in second place with 48.834, while Chinese twins Jiang Tingting and Jiang Wenwen trailed Japan by 0.166 point.

"We came to this competition with resolve, so we wanted to show our liveliness," Suzuki said. "We were really concentrated while swimming today. Seeing the Japanese spectators holding the Japanese flag helped us."

Davydova and Ermakova performed flawlessly to a Russian public dance tune in the opening session, and led the duet technical routine.

The Russians recorded a score of 49.334 before a full crowd at the Water Cube.

Korean fighter pulls out to save life

AFP, Beijing

South Korean boxer Baik Jong- Sub has been forced to sacrifice his dream of an Olympic medal after being told he could die if he continued to fight, according to reports here on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old Baik has been suffering from chest pains, a legacy of the damage from an earlier bout, and has pulled out of his lightweight quarter-final against Hrachik Javakhyan of Armenia.

"After checking with both team and local hospital officials, we figured he should no longer fight because it could threaten his life," Baik's coach, Chun In-ho told the Yonhap news agency.

Chun said his fighter's respiratory organs are believed to have been damaged during an earlier bout, allowing air to penetrate into his cardiovascular system.

Baik, who finished fifth in the 60kg division in Athens four years ago, defeated Pichai Sayota of Thailand to earn a place in the quarter-finals.

"Baik wanted to fight, but we stopped him from doing so," Chun added.

China, Canada lead way into diving finals

AFP, Beijing

Chinese world number one He Chong kept his gold medal chances on track Tuesday, taking a comfortable lead into the final of the men's 3m springboard.

World champion and team-mate Qin Kai was third in the semi-finals as China look to continue their domination of the diving after winning five-out-of-five golds in the competition so far.

Canada's Alexandre Despatie, a silver medallist in the event in Athens, finished second to also qualify, storming back in the semi-finals after finishing a lowly ninth in the preliminaries.

He, who is known for pulling off difficult dives, finished with 547.25 points, 28.50 points ahead of Despatie with Qin 38.75 points behind his teammate on 508.50.

He, 21, performed one of the toughest dives of the semis, pulling off a forward two- and-a-half sommersault with three twists in a pike position to earn 102.60 points from the judges.

Despatie said he tried to just shrug off his Monday's poor performance in his attempt to win gold.

"My point was to forget about what happened in the prelims and I did. I came in this morning and it's a brand new day, and I felt better and mentally I felt much better than I did yesterday," Despatie said.

"I came back to priorities and what to think about at the right moment and it seems to be working out better for me," said Despatie, who made Commonwealth Games history as the competition's youngest gold medal winner at Kuala Lumpur in 1998 aged just 13.

China's Li wins parallel bars gold

AP, Beijing

Li Xiaopeng overpowered the parallel bars, and the competition Tuesday, winning the sixth gold medal for the Chinese men at the Beijing Olympics.

The 2000 gold medalist on the bars and a two-time world champion began with a sensational leap forward from one end of the apparatus to the other - using only his arms to catapult him.

His score of 16.45 beat South Korea's Yoo Won-chul. Yoo used a collection of high flips and steady handstands to get a 16.250.

Anton Fokin of Uzbekistan won bronze.