Consolation golds for USA in both 4X400 relays

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from China

OLYMPICS: BEIJING, Aug. 23 - The United States, having lost all four men’s and women’s 100 and 200m sprint golds to Jamaica, has consolation wins in 4x400m relays on the penaltimate day of the XX1Xth summer Olympic Games here today.

The US men’s 4x400m team won the gold with a new Olympic record while their 400m women’s relay team turned a possible silver to a gold with a blistering run in the last 25m by Sanya Richards.

The Americans showed a vastly improved performance to win both men’s and women’s 4x400m gold medals in a desperate bit to rebuilt their lost prestige. Though both the American men’s and women’s 4x100m teams made baton change blunders to be disqualified, their 4x400m teams made amends to paint a different picture.

Even then, it was in the last 25m that USA gained lead to win women’s 4 x 400m relay with a season’s best timing of three minutes and 18.54 seconds.

The reigning 200m World champion Allyson Felix did an impressive second lap before Richards turned the race in America’s favour. Richards, the 2005 Helsinki World Championship 400m silver medallist, made a thrilling comeback from behind to anchor the win for the defending Olympic champions. It was Russia which was in the lead until the last 25m of the anchor lap but Anastasia Kapachinskaya could not meet Richard’s challenge in a crunch finish. Thus, Russia settled for the silver in 3:18.82 while Jamaica won bronze in 3:20.40.

The United States also retained men’s 4x400m title with a new Olympic mark - two minutes 55.39 seconds to win the gold medal. Bahamas and Russia won the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Athens 2004 champion in men’s javelin throw, Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway defended his title in style with a new Olympic record. Thorkildsen’s throw of 90.57m erased the previous mark of 90.17m held by Jan Zelezny of Czech Republic since Sydney 2000 Games. Coming behind the Norwegian for the silver was Ainars Kovals of Latvia (86.64m), followed by Tero Pitkamki of Finland.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele accounted for the men’s 5,000m gold with a new Olympic record - finishing in 12 minutes and 57.82 seconds. Today’s win gave Bekele a memorable long distance double with men’s 10,000m title he won.

Kenyan Wilfred Bungei took the men’s 800m title with a season’s best performance of one minute and 44.65 seconds. Sudan’s Ahmed Ismail claimed silver, ahead of reigning world champion Alfred Kirwa Yego of Kenya, who has to be satisfied with the bronze.

Belgium’s Tia Hallebaut, the reigning indoor and outdoor European champion, cleared 2.05m on her first attempt to claim women’s high jump gold medal. Croatian Blanka Vlasic also jumped 2.05m, but only after failing her first attempt, to take the silver. The bronze medal went to Russian Anna Chicherova (2.03m).

Defending Olympic champion and record holder Elene Slesarenko of Russia failed to stand on the podium this time around. She was only able to get over 2.01m, putting her in fourth place.

First boxing gold for Thailand

Thailand’s Somjit Jongjohor won the first boxing gold medal of the Beijing Olympics when he defeated Cuban Andris Laffita Hernandez on points 8-2 in the flyweight category. The bout started conservatively, with Hernandez being the more aggressive boxer but struggling to keep his footing on a couple of occasions.

The experienced Thai boxer held back and waited for the Cuban to open up his defense in the second round. Jongjohor picked up four points in the second round, while Laffita Hernandez remained scoreless. One punch by Jongjohor connected solidly with Laffita Hernandez’s head.

Hernandez accounted for his second point in the fourth round, while Jongjohor was content to stay out of harm’s way, knowing that he had secured the first gold medal of the Olympic boxing competition.

Chinese dominance in TT

China underlined its table tennis supremacy at the Peking University Gymnasium, making a clean sweep in the men’s single event. The home team paddlers Wang Hao, Ma Lin and Wang Liqin stood together in the men’s singles victory podium. That marked China’s clean sweep of all four TT gold medals and all six medals in the singles events.

Ma Lin scored a hard-fought win over compatriot Wang Hao 4-1 to finally add Olympic gold to his medal collection. Ma was fierce and aggressive from the start and enjoyed a 2-0 lead before Wang, who also won the men’s singles silver medal in Athens, found his pace in the third game. But Ma came back to win the next two games for the gold medal.

Hockey gold for Germany

A solitary match winning goal early in the 16th minute of the first half by Christopher Zelller helped Germany to edge out Spain by one goal to nil in the final to win the Olympic hockey gold.

Hosts take unbeatable lead

The curtain of the 2008 edition of the summer Olympiad comes down with a spectacular closing ceremony at the Bird’s Nest of Sunday night.

It will be a double celebration for the hosts China. They not only fulfilled their century-year-old dream of hosting Olympics but also ended American dominance.

By the close on the penultimate day, China takes an unbeatable lead in the medals table with a rich haul of 49 gold medals, 19 silver and 28 bronze.

Even if the USA wins all five final disciplines they are down to compete on the final day on Sunday, they would still be behind the hosts as China leads by 16 gold medals in the latest standings.

The second-placed has bagged only 33 gold, 37 silver and 36 bronze medals.

Russia displaced Great Britain from the third spot to end the day with 21 gold medals, 21 silver and 27 bronze medals. In the fourth place is Great Britain, followed by Germany, Australia, South Korea and Japan.