Olympics Highlights: Day 8

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The United States got its first weightlifting gold medal since 1960 after two more Bulgarian lifters tested positive for banneddrugs. Women’s gold medalist Izabela Dragneva — the first women’s weightlifting champion in Olympic history — and men’s bronze medalist Sevdalin Minchev were the second and third Bulgarianlifters to test positive for banned diuretics.

The action gave Tara Nott of Stilwell, Kan., the gold medal in the women’s 105-pound class. Bulgaria’s entire lifting team was kicked out of the games. (See below.)

Archery

South Korea won the Olympic gold medal Friday in men’s teamarchery by defeating Italy, 255-247.

The United States, led by silver medal winner Vic Wunderle, gotthe bronze medal, beating Russia in a shoot-off.

Badminton

Gong Zhichao of China won the women’ssingles badminton gold medal. Gong defeated Camilla Martin of Denmark, who took the silver. The bronze went to Ye Zhaoying of China.

Baseball

A reliever’s throwing error in the eighth inning gave the UnitedStates two runs and a 4-2 victory over Italy, keeping theAmericans unbeaten heading into their showdown with Cuba.

That break meant that for the first time in Olympic baseballhistory, the United States (5-0) will have a better record thanCuba (4-1) when they play their round-robin game Saturday.

In other games, Japan beat South Africa 8-0, Cuba blanked Australia 1-0, and South Korea defeated the Netherlands 2-0.

Basketball

The U.S. women’s team scored four seconds into its game with NewZealand and rolled to a 93-42 victory, clinching at least a tie forfirst place in its preliminary group.

The 42 points were the fewest allowed by a U.S. women’sbasketball team in the Olympics. The fewest previously had been 47on three occasions, most recently in a 107-47 victory over Zaire in1996.

Every U.S. player scored, led by Katie Smith’s 14 points. OK,Chamique Holdsclaw didn’t score, but she’s out with a stressfracture.

Beach Volleyball

Americans Rob Heidger and Kevin Wong won on a forfeit to moveinto the quarterfinals when their Mexican opponentsdropped out due to injury.

They next face fellow Americans Dain Blanton and EricFonoimoana, who defeated Jorre Kjemperud and Vegard Hoidalen ofNorway.

Swiss brothers Martin and Paul Laciga overpowered the top-seededAustralian team of Julien Prosser and Lee Zahner 15-8 to reach thequarterfinals.

Also advancing were defending bronze medalists John Child andMark Heese of Canada.

Boxing

For the second straight fight, Jeff Lacy of St. Petersburg,Fla., used smashing right hands to dominate Pawel Kakietek ofPoland. Lacy advanced to the 165-pound quarterfinals with a 21-7victory.

Three Americans now have advanced to quarterfinals. Five othershave won bouts and two have yet to fight. David Jackson of Seattlewas disqualified for not making weight.

Diving

Fifteen-year-old Sang Xue of China was first after totaling374.79 points on five dives, while teammate Li Na, 16, held secondat 366.60 in the preliminaries of the 10-meter platform diving.

American Laura Wilkinson, 22, of The Woodlands, Texas, was infifth and advanced to the semifinals.

Sara Reiling of Roseville, Minn., slipped into the semis as thetop 18 move on.

Equestrian

David O’Connor of The Plains, Va., gave the United States itsfirst equestrian gold since 1984 when he captured the individualthree-day event. Riding Custom Made, O’Connor had a margin of twojump rails over Andrew Hoy of Australia as he entered the ring asthe last rider and took down only one to beat Hoy.

Handball (Team)

South Korea’s Lee Sang-eun scored a record 18 goals as her teamroared back from an 11-goal deficit to beat Hungary 25-14 in thebattle for first place in Pool A.

Hungary led by seven midway through the first half, paced byBojana Radulovic’s six goals, but South Korea cut it to three byhalftime.

In other games, defending champion Denmark beat Australia 38-12,Romania held off Angola 35-25 and Austria routed Brazil 45-19.

Rowing

Lightweight rowers Christine and Sarah Garner won theirsemifinal heat to advance to the Olympic double sculls medals raceas the Americans qualified nine boats for the weekend finals.

Sailing

J.J. Isler reclaimed first place in the women’s 470 fleet, andmen’s 470 skipper Paul Foerster guided the third U.S. boat to afleet race victory in the Olympic regatta.

With the breeze picking up, Jonathan and Charlie McKee led atall five turning marks to win the 11th fleet race in the 49erclass. Coupled with two third-place finishes earlier in the day,they held onto first place.

Austrian sailors Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher clinchedthe Tornado class gold medal with two races to go.

The 49ers raced on one of the innermost courses on SydneyHarbor, within sight of Sydney Opera House, the Harbor Bridge andseveral spectator vantage points on shore.

Shooting

Yang Ling of China protected a slim lead throughout the final toedge Moldova’s Oleg Moldovan and win the 10-meter running target.

Maria Grozdeva of Bulgaria broke the Olympic record in thewomen’s 25-meter pistol, after double-medalist Tao Luna set theOlympic qualifying mark. Tao ended up second.

Softball

A day after having a ceremony in the athletes’ village tocleanse themselves of a “voodoo curse,” the Americans snapped athree-game losing streak with a 2-0 victory over New Zealand.

Jennifer Brundage was 3-for-3 with a homer, and struggling starLisa Fernandez snapped an 0-for-the-Olympics slump with a single asthe defending Olympic champions moved one victory from the medalsround.

Swimming

Brooke Bennett, a 20-year-old from Plant City, Fla., became thefirst woman since Janet Evans in 1988 to sweep the 400 and 800freestyles.

Bennett captured the marathon of women’s swimming in an Olympicrecord 8 minutes, 19.67 seconds — lowering the old mark of 8:20.20set by Evans 12 years ago.

Americans Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony Ervin shared Olympic gold inthe 50-meter freestyle, tying in 21.98 seconds. They beatPieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, who won the 100 and200 freestyles earlier.

Hall, of Phoenix, and Ervin, of Valencia, Calif., are trainingpartners in Arizona. Ervin, who at 19 was the youngest swimmer inthe eight-man final, is the first swimmer of black heritage to makea U.S. Olympic team.

Alexander Popov of Russia was sixth in 22.24, failing to win anunprecedented third consecutive Olympic title.

Lars Froelander of Sweden won the men’s 100-meter butterfly andDiana Mocanu of Romania the women’s 200-meter backstroke.

Inge de Bruijn of Netherlands set a world record in the women’s50 freestyle semifinals of 24.13.

Tennis

Chelsea Clinton watched as Venus Williams, seeded second,extended her winning streak to 29 matches and advanced to Sunday’squarterfinals, where she’ll face fifth-seeded ArantxaSanchez-Vicario, the last player to beat her. Sanchez-Vicario, afour-time Olympic medalist from Spain, beat Colombian FabiolaZuluaga 6-2, 6-0.

Meanwhile the American men finished to 1-5 after second-seededAlex O’Brien and Jared Palmer were upset in their opening doublesmatch and Jeff Tarango went out in singles to Argentine MarianoZabaleta 6-2, 6-3.

Track and Field

Marion Jones, Maurice Greene and Michael Johnson all strolled towins in first-round heats as track and field began.

The first medal of the games went to Robert Korzeniowski ofPoland in the 20-kilometer walk after Bernado Segura of Mexico, whocrossed the line first, was disqualified. He was accused ofimproperly breaking contact with the ground three times during therace. Olympic officials rejected an appeal by Mexico.

Arsi Harju of Finland won the shot put with Americans AdamNelson and John Godina taking the silver and bronze.

Jones began her quest for five golds with a leisurely win in11.20 seconds in her heat of the women’s 100.

Greene breezed to an easy victory in 10.31 seconds in his men’s100 first-round heat and Johnson won easily his first-round heat ofthe men’s 400 with a 45.25.

Nearly all Americans qualified for the final round. The majorcasualty was the Czech Republic’s women’s 800 world championLudmila Formanova, who had to drop out during her heat.

Trampoline

Russia’s Irina Karavaeva bounced her way to a goldmedal in a new Olympic sport, trampoline. No Americans made it tothe final.

Water Polo

Next stop for the U.S. women’s polo team: Thegold medal game. The United States beat the Netherlands 6-5 toadvance to Saturday’s final against Australia.

Weightlifting

Ding Meiyuan of China broke world records in the snatch, theclean and jerk and total lift to win the gold medal in the165-pounds plus women’s event, totaling 661¼ pounds to edge19-year-old Agata Wrobel of Poland by 11 pounds.

Cheryl Haworth of Savannah, a 5-foot-9, 300-pounder nicknamed“Fun” took the bronze, although she finished 66 pounds behind,

Nott took the first American weightlifting gold in 40 years. She initially took the silver at105 pounds on Sunday, then was awarded the gold when Bulgaria’sDragneva was stripped of the medal for using a banned drug.

Zhan Xugang of China won the men’s 170 pounds with a total of810 pounds.