Olympic Updates

BEIJING - They came to the Beijing Olympics as a team trying to find its way, still adjusting to a new coach and each other, still smarting from a loss that brought humiliation on and off the field.

BEIJING - Tyson Gay stuck his left hand behind him, waiting to feel the red baton's cool metal make contact.

BEIJING - The U.S. women's basketball team passed its first test of the Olympics, beating Russia in its closest contest in Beijing. Now it's on to a fourth straight gold medal game.

BEIJING - Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor were prepared for the downpour, just as they were for a young Chinese team that was the latest to challenge their four-year reign over women's beach volleyball.

BEIJING - LaShawn Merritt has upset defending champion Jeremy Wariner to lead a U.S. sweep of the medals in the 400 meters at the Olympics.

BEIJING - IOC president Jacques Rogge criticized Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt on Thursday for showing a lack of respect to other competitors after his record-breaking gold medal performances in the 100 and 200 meters.

BEIJING - Dayron Robles of Cuba has won the 110-meter hurdles, claiming a gold medal that Chinese organizers had long hoped would belong to Liu Xiang.

BEIJING - Police descended on a group of foreign pro-Tibet activists and some disgruntled business owners from Hong Kong on Thursday, taking both groups away minutes after they displayed protest signs in central Beijing.

BEIJING - The U.S. women's volleyball team has advanced to the gold medal game, defeating Cuba in three sets to guarantee the Americans their best Olympic finish since 1984.

BEIJING - Athens men's beach volleyball champions Ricardo and Emanuel of Brazil have added a bronze medal, beating Georgia in the third-place game.

BEIJING - The International Olympic Committee will investigate whether the Chinese women's gymnastics team that won the gold medal had underage athletes, saying "more information has come to light."

BEIJING (AFP) - Jamaica's world record-setting double Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt will look to complete a golden treble Friday in the men's 4x100-meter relay at the Beijing Games.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Jamaica's Usain Bolt could run away with a third gold on Friday to complete the Caribbean island's dominance of the Olympic athletics track.

NEW DELHI - Sania Mirza has pulled out of the U.S. Open due to an ongoing wrist injury that flared at the Olympic Games.

-Ratings Breakdown: Once again, it is all about NBC, with the 2008 Summer Olympics from Beijing at a significant 18.0 rating/29 share in the overnights for the prime-time (8-11 p.m.) portion. Comparably, that beat the four competing networks combined by 75 percent. Here is the half-hour breakdown:

BEIJING (AFP) - Nelson Evora added the Olympic title to his world crown when he won the men's triple jump here on Thursday, handing Portugal its first Olympic gold medal in 12 years.

BEIJING - Crystl Bustos rocked slowly from side to side, kicked away some dirt, then started rocking again. As she and her U.S. softball teammates waited to receive their silver medals — yes, silver — the slugger clearly wanted to get this over with.

BEIJING (AFP) - Teenager Chen Ruolin defied last-dive nerves to win the Olympic women's 10m platform diving gold here on Thursday, giving China its seventh gold from seven diving events so far at the Beijing Games.

NEW YORK - Trying to keep the Michael Phelps glow, NBC has agreed to televise next year's World Swimming Championships from Rome, along with the 2009, 2010 and 2011 national championships.

HONG KONG (AFP) - Canada's Eric Lamaze, riding Hickstead, won the individual jumping gold medal Thursday in a dramatic jump-off in searing heat and humidity as Hong Kong waited for Typhoon Nuri to make a direct hit.

BEIJING (AFP) - Defending champions United States produced an extra-time winner to claim Olympic gold after a 1-0 win over Brazil in the women's football tournament here on Thursday.

BEIJING (AFP) - The US women played their toughest game yet at the Beijing Games, beating Russia 67-52 behind 21 points from Diana Taurasi in a hard-fought and physical semi-final basketball match up Thursday.

BEIJING - Christian groups who flouted a Chinese ban on foreign missionaries are calling their underground evangelizing during the Olympic Games a success.

PARIS (AFP) - Chinese troops fired on Tibetan protesters this week, as Beijing hosted the Olympics, and 400 people have been killed since unrest erupted in March, the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying in an interview published Thursday.

BEIJING (AFP) - The United States called on China Thursday to allow peaceful protests, after Beijing police detained six foreigners amid a wave of demonstrations by pro-Tibet activists during the Olympics.

LONDON (AFP) - The plane bringing Britain's Olympic team home next week is to get a golden nose job in honour of the record gold medal haul for Team GB in Beijing, British Airways said Thursday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Australia used its defensive strength and accurate shooting to humble a spirited China 90-56 on Thursday, advancing to the Olympic Games gold medal match up against a powerful United States.

BEIJING (AFP) - America's Beijing Olympics campaign blundered into fresh humiliation on Thursday when their much-vaunted sprint squads suffered a relay horror show and Japan broke their traditional domination in softball.

HONG KONG - Eric Lamaze of Canada has ridden Hickstead to the gold medal in Olympic equestrian individual jumping.

BEIJING - Americans Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser will play for the gold medal in beach volleyball.

BEIJING - Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine is under investigation for a positive doping test and could be stripped of her silver medal in the Olympic heptathlon.

BEIJING - The Russian synchronized swimming duo of Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova has repeated as Olympic champions.

BEIXIAOYING TOWN, China - Larisa Ilchenko of Russia has won the gold medal in the women's 10-kilometer marathon swim, an event making its Olympic debut.

QINGDAO, China - Chinese windsurfer Yin Jian has won the host nation's first-ever Olympic sailing gold medal with a win in the women's RS:X class. Italy's Alessandra Sensini won the silver and Britain's Bryony Shaw scored bronze.

BEIJING - Clear some more space in that pile of pretty Olympic medal boxes. Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin are bringing home more loot, including a gorgeous gold of Johnson's very own.

BEIJING - Lolo Jones was supposed to take the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title. Other entrants knew it. Jones knew it. Even told herself so right before the start, mouthing, "I can win this race," when she was introduced to the crowd.

BEIJING - Jamaica's Usain Bolt has won his semifinal in the 200 meters, moving closer to becoming the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the Olympic sprint titles.

BEIJING - Sylvia Fowles and the U.S. women's basketball team were too big for South Korea to handle. Fowles scored 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead the U.S. to a 104-60 rout of South Korea on Tuesday night and advance to the semifinals of women's basketball.

BEIJING (Reuters) - India's Sushil Kumar won the bronze medal in the men's 66kg freestyle wrestling event at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Ukraine's heptathlon silver medallist Liudmyla Blonska has failed a drugs test, the IOC confirmed Wednesday as the first high-profile doping failure hit the Beijing Olympics on the 13th day.

BEIJING - World champion Ramazan Sahin of Turkey has won the Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medal at 66 kilograms by scoring a tight victory over Andriy Stadnik of Ukraine.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Digital media and dazzling sport have won unprecedented ratings, Olympics bosses said on Wednesday as they debuted two events aimed at the young and adventurous.

BEIJING - Russia's Buvaysa Saytiev has won a record-tying third Olympic freestyle gold medal.

BEIJING - Dzhakhon Kurbanov, the light heavyweight from Tajikistan who bit his opponent on the shoulder in a quarterfinal bout, won't face additional sanctions or suspension by the International Boxing Association (AIBA).

BEIJING (Reuters) - Five American blogger-activists and a foreign artist have been detained in Beijing as the government intensifies a crackdown on pro-Tibetan protests in the home stretch of the Olympics, rights groups said on Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Italy edged Poland 3-2 in a men's volleyball quarter-final thriller at the Beijing Olympic Games on Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - China has detained six American pro-Tibet activists, including an artist who planned to project a giant laser beam onto a Beijing building at the Olympics, a group said Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - A dominant United States ensured their place in the last Olympic softball final ahead of the sport being dumped from the Games by beating Japan 4-1 Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Two elderly Chinese women who applied to demonstrate at official Olympic protest zones have been ordered to serve one year each of reeducation through labour, a close relative said Wednesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - South Korean Olympic athletes have been given detailed guidelines to avoid friction with their North Korean counterparts in Beijing, officials said Wednesday.

BEIJING - Chinese authorities have ordered two elderly women to spend one year in a labor camp after they applied to hold a protest during the Beijing Olympics against being forced from their homes, a relative said Wednesday.

QINGDAO, China - New Zealand windsurfer Tom Ashley has won the gold medal in the men's RS:X class, while France's Julien Bontemps has taken the silver and Israel's Shahar Zubari the bronze.

LONDON (AFP) - Newspapers were positively giddy Wednesday morning after "Team GB" won four gold medals, celebrating the country's unexpected levels of success in Beijing.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Defending champions Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego were knocked out of the Olympic beach volleyball on Wednesday, leaving fellow Brazilians Marcio Araujo and Fabio Luiz Magalhaes to play the U.S. favorites for gold.

BEIJING (AFP) - Cuba crushed China 17-1 in Olympic baseball on Wednesday with the trouncing called to a halt in the seventh inning under the sport's mercy rule.

URUMQI, China - As police with riot clubs patrolled nearby, a merchant whispered that he feared a sweeping crackdown in China's northwestern Muslim region once the Olympic spotlight fades.

BEIJING (AFP) - Russia's Larisa Ilchenko won the gold medal for the Olympic Games women's 10 kilometres marathon swim here on Wednesday in a time of 1 hour 59.27 minutes.

BEIJING (AFP) - Taiwan's defending Olympic champion Chu Mu-yen and world champion Juan Antonio Ramos of Spain stayed on course for a high-profile -58kg semi-final clash at the Beijing Games Wednesday.