2004 Olympics: Top Stories

10:09 PM CDT on Thursday, August 26, 2004

From Staff and Wire Reports

ATHENS, Greece – The United States women's basketball team carries a 23-game Olympic winning streak into Friday's semifinal against Russia (6:30 a.m., Dallas time). The Americans have dominated opponents by an average of 30 points in Athens, but this figures to be a much more difficult test.

When the teams last met in international competition, in the gold medal game of the 2002 World Championships, the Americans held only a 72-71 lead in the last three minutes before extending to a 79-74 victory.

Friday's winner faces the Australia-Brazil winner in Saturday's gold-medal game.

Russia, Japan and the United States were 1-2-3 after the Olympic team technical event, the same places they finished in the duet synchronized swimming competition a day earlier.

Russia was first with 49.667 points and Japan second with 49.167.

The Americans, including DeSoto's Sara Lowe, were third with 48.584, putting them in contention for their first team medal since 1996 when the United States received a perfect score of 100 in the free routine to claim the first Olympic gold medal in team competition.

Upset with the technical marks given to American Mary Sanders in rhythmic gymnastics qualifying, the U.S. team filed a protest with the International Gymnastics Federation seeking a review of her routines.

Sanders finished 18th out of 24 gymnasts in the first of two qualifying rounds. The top 10 gymnasts after Friday's second round advance to finals. Sanders received technical scores, which judge difficulty, of 4.6 in hoop and 6.8 in ball. The 4.6 was lower than anyone in the field except for competitors from Australia, South Africa and Cape Verde.

USA Gymnastics spokesman Brian Eaton said. the protest was filed before scores were made official and that FIG accepted the protest and was reviewing it. FIG spokesman Philippe Silacci did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press.

When American sailors John Lovell of New Orleans and Charlie Ogletree of Houston came ashore, the tension of trying to win an Olympic medal was replaced by an easy feeling.

After sailing in the Tornado class for 11 years, they know they'll be standing on one of the top two spots on the podium.

"Obviously we want a gold," said Lovell, the skipper. But "now that we're guaranteed a silver, it's just a sense of relief. We feel loose and ready to go for the gold."

Lovell and Ogletree had finishes of first and second in their fast catamaran on the Saronic Gulf, putting them within three points of the defending Olympic champions from Austria. The gold and silver will be decided between those crews in Saturday's deciding 11th race.

Americans Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell are assured of boxing medals. The color will be determined in separate semifinal bouts today. The winners advancing to gold-medal fights. As the last two Americans left from nine who started, they hope to leave Athens with more than just the bronze medals they're guaranteed.

Dirrell, a 20-year-old with a tattoo of his grandfather's face on his back, has the first chance to get to a gold medal fight when he meets Gennadiy Golovkin of Kazakhstan in a middleweight semifinal.

Ward follows in a light heavyweight fight against Utkirbek Haydarov of Uzbekistan.

Hamish Carter pulled away from Bevan Docherty on the final lap of the triathlon, giving New Zealand a 1-2 finish in the endurance race. Sven Riederer of Switzerland got the bronze after fading from the pack of leaders down the stretch. Hunter Kemper, the top American, finished ninth.

Andrey Moisev of Russia won the gold medal in modern pentathlon, beating out Andrejus Zadneprovskis of Lithuania. Libor Capalini of the Czech Republic took bronze.

Vaho Iagorashvili of San Antonio finished ninth in the modern pentathlon.

The other American in the competition, Chad Senior, 29, of Fort Myers, Fla., a U.S. Army lieutenant, placed 13th.

Frenchman Babak Amir Tahmasseb edged U.S. kayaker Rami Zur at the finish line, ending the American team's best hope for a medal. With a last desperate stroke, Tahmasseb launched his boat so violently that he fell into the water, but he managed to take third in the 500-meter single kayak race. Zur failed to advance to the finals.

Melania Grego's lob goal in the waning minutes of the second overtime gave Italy a 10-9 come-from-behind victory over Greece for the Olympic water polo gold medal.

Italy, which beat the United States with two seconds left to get to the final, kept up its heroics against the Greeks by rallying from two goals down in the extra periods to seal the victory.

The United States beat Australia, 6-5, for the bronze.

Ellen Estes scored three goals, including the tiebreaker in the final period after Australia rallied from a four-goal deficit.

Under suspicion of doping, Olympic hammer throw champion Adrian Annus of Hugary retired rather than deal with what he called a campaign to manipulate test results against him.

"I'm putting an end to my career," the 31-year-old Annus told the state-run news agency MTI in a statement. "It isn't worth going through all this even for an Olympic champion's title."

IOC officials told The Associated Press that Annus passed a drug test after winning the hammer throw Sunday, but doping control officials have been trying to track him down since then for further testing.

Resilient Russia is going to another gold medal in women's volleyball. It will take on a China team that ended Cuba's streak of three straight Olympic championships. The final is Saturday.

Hao Yang killed four of her team's last five points in the fifth set and finished with 23 points for the Chinese, whose powerful attack was ultimately too much for Cuba in a 25-22, 25-20, 17-25, 23-25, 15-10 victory.

Russia dropped its first two sets and trailed in each of the last three before coming back to beat Brazil, 18-25, 21-25, 25-22, 28-26, 16-14.

The Chinese earned another gold medal – their fifth of the Athens Games – when Guo Jingjing easily won the women's 3-meter springboard Thursday night. Teammate Wu Minxia made it a 1-2 finish for the world's diving superpower, taking the silver.

The bronze went to Russia's Yulia Pakhalina, who attends the University of Houston.

Rachelle Kunkel of West Valley City, Utah, finished ninth.

The U.S. team faces its most dismal Olympics since 1912, the only time the Americans failed to win at least one diving medal. An American has yet to climb the podium in Athens.

The United States managed only one medal at Sydney – Laura Wilkinson's surprising gold in platform.