Summer olympics briefs
Women’s basketball
The United States women’s basketball team hushed a boisterous crowd, putting six players in double figures and advancing to the semifinals with a 102-72 win over Greece.
Shannon Johnson and Tina Thompson led the Americans with 20 points each.
Russia beat the Czech Republic 70-49 and will meet the Americans in the semifinals, a rematch of the final of the 2002 world championships, which the U.S. team won.
Janeth Arcain went 6 for 6 from the free throw line over the final 37 seconds, and Brazil advanced to the semifinals for the third straight Olympics, beating Spain 67-63.
Lauren Jackson had 28 points and nine rebounds to lead Australia over New Zealand 94-55.
Track and field
Allen Johnson, a four-time world champion and the 1996 Olympic gold medalist, made a shocking exit from the second round of the 110-meter hurdles. He tripped over the ninth hurdle, then stumbled and fell underneath the last one.
Olga Kuzenkova of Russia won the gold medal in the hammer throw with an Olympic record of 246 feet, 1 inch.
Women’s Triathlon
Kate Allen of Austria passed half of the field during the final leg of the swim-cycle-run endurance test, finishing in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 43.45 seconds.
Closer to the rear of the pack than the front for most of the race, she passed everyone during the closing 10-kilometer run, including leader Loretta Harrop of Australia only a few strides before the finish.
Susan Williams, the last American to qualify for the race over the summer, won the bronze despite crashing early in the cycling leg.
Equestrian
Anky van Grunsven and her horse Salinero danced their way to gold in the Olympic individual dressage finals.
Van Grunsven of the Netherlands finished first in the musical freestyle to overtake Germany’s Ulla Salzgeber on Rusty, who had been leading. Final scores were 79.278 percent for Van Grunsven to 78.833 percent for Salzgeber. Bronze went to Spain’s Beatriz Ferrer-Salat on Beauvalais, who finished with 76.667 percent.
Cycling
Ryan Bayley of Australia added the Keirin title to his sprint gold medal, highlighting Australia’s overwhelming dominance of cycling at the Athens Games.
Bayley is the double individual gold medalist, and teammate Graeme Brown won gold in both the team pursuit and Wednesday’s Madison.
Brown teamed up with Stuart O’Grady for the Madison.
Russian veteran Olga Slyusareva controlled the points race from start to finish and finally added an Olympic gold to her impressive list of titles.
The United States failed to win a track cycling medal for the first time since 1976.
Diving
Yulia Pakhalina of Russia led the Olympic preliminaries of 3-meter springboard diving, beating out Canada’s Blythe Hartley and China’s Guo Jingjing.
The Americans had another frustrating day at the pool. Rachelle Kunkel advanced to the semifinals with a 12th-place showing, but Kimiko Soldati was quickly eliminated from her only event.
Canoe-Kayak
Atlanta Olympic champion Martin Doktor of the Czech Republic will get a chance to regain his flatwater canoe crown in a race against the man who took it from him in Sydney.
Doktor easily won his semifinal heat in the 1,000-meter single canoe (C-1), setting up a showdown in the finals with defending gold medalist and three-time defending world champion Andreas Dittmer of Germany.
Men’s Water Polo
Revaz Chomakhidze scored three first-half goals, and Russia overpowered Germany 12-5 to set up an Olympic water polo semifinal against defending champion Hungary.
Aleksandar Sapic scored three times — including twice in a minute in the last quarter to break a 5-5 deadlock — to propel Serbia-Montenegro past Spain 7-5 and into a semifinal against Greece.
Men’s Volleyball
Russia defeated defending Olympic champion Serbia-Montenegro in a four-set quarterfinal match – avenging a loss in the 2000 final in Sydney to the team then known as Yugoslavia.
Serguey Tetyukhin scored 22 points, including the winning kill in the crucial third set after Russia fended off game point twice.
Up next for the Russians in Friday’s semifinals is Italy, which beat Argentina in four sets.
The United States beat Greece with a wild five-set comeback and advanced to play Brazil in the other semifinal. The Americans overcame a 20-12 deficit in the fourth set and fended off match point in the fifth.
Beach Volleyball
Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos, the world’s top-ranked beach volleyball team, overpowered Spain’s Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera 21-16, 21-15 to capture the gold medal.
Synchro Swimming
Americans Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova earned a bronze medal in the Olympic duet final, finishing behind the Russians and Japanese.
Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova won the gold with 99.334 points. Miya Tachibana and Miho Takeda took silver with 98.417.
Bartosik and Kozlova totaled 96.918.
Field Hockey
Australia and the Netherlands advanced to the final of the men’s Olympic field hockey tournament, with the Aussies overcoming Spain 6-3 and the Dutch defeating Germany 3-2 in the semifinals.
Grant Schubert and Michael McCann each scored twice for Australia.
In a highly anticipated classification showdown, Pakistan won its sixth game in six meetings with India this year, 3-0.
Greg Nicol scored three goals for South Africa in a 5-1 win over Egypt.
Boxing
Andre Dirrell of the United States narrowly beat Cuba’s Yordani Despaigne to advance to the Olympic middleweight semifinals.
In another quarterfinal, Thailand middleweight Suriya Prasathinphimai upset Ukraine’s Oleg Mashkin 28-22.
Suriya next faces Russia’s Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov, the silver medalist four years ago in Sydney. Gaydarbekov beat Cameroon’s Hassan Ndam Njikam 26-13.