updated 7:43 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Michael Phelps won his first Olympic gold medal and broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley Saturday, an impressive start to his quest to eclipse Mark Spitz’s 1972 record of seven gold medals.

Phelps won with a time of 4 minutes, 8.26 seconds, breaking the record of 4:08.41 that he set last month at the U.S. Olympic trials.

Elsewhere, Ian Thorpe of Australia won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle.

Jenny Thompson lost out on a record-tying ninth Olympic gold medal, giving up the lead on the final lap as Australia won the women’s 400-meter freestyle relay with a world record of 3:35.94.

Thompson still managed to tie the record for most career swimming medals. She now has 11, equaling the mark already shared by Spitz, Matt Biondi, and Carl Osburn.

Yana Klochkova of Ukraine won her second straight women’s 400-meter individual medley.

Women’s Soccer
Abby Wambach scored her 16th goal in 17 games to help the United States beat Brazil 2-0. Wambach made a brilliant run in the 77th minute after Mia Hamm opened the scoring in the 58th minute on a penalty kick.

The U.S. team became the first side to earn a berth in the quarterfinals. The Americans can clinch their group with a win or a tie against Australia in their final first-round match Tuesday.

Elsewhere, Australia beat Greece 1-0 on a lone goal scored by Heather Garriock. Nigeria beat Japan 1-0 on a goal from Vera Okolo. China and Mexico played to a 1-1 tie.

Men’s Soccer
Mali upset Greece 2-0 to put the host team in danger of exiting the Olympic soccer tournament in the first round.

First-half goals by Mamadi Berthe and Tenema Ndiaye put the Africans in control while Greece squandered chances to get back in the game and even missed a penalty kick in injury time.

The win gave Mali four points in two games. Greece has one point and must beat Mexico in its final game to have any chance of advancing.

In other matches Carlos Tevez and Javier Saviola scored to put Argentina into the quarterfinals with a 2-0 victory over Tunisia.

Australia routed Serbia-Montenegro 5-1 thanks to two goals each from John Aloisi and Ahmad Elrich. South Korea edged Mexico 1-0 on a goal from Kim Jung-woo.

Gymnastics
Eight teams advanced to the finals after men’s preliminaries, including the United States, Japan, and reigning world and Olympic champion China.

Most top athletes competed without issue, although a few had a tougher time.

Blaine Wilson, the top American gymnast of the past decade, banged his head on the mat after missing a move on the high bar. He needed smelling salts to finish the meet. Russia’s Anton Golotsutskov got hung up on the parallel bars and dislocated his finger. Spain’s Victor Cano fell off the high bar and straight onto his coach.

European champion Romania, Russia, Ukraine, South Korea, and Germany also qualified for the final. The U.S. team placed second, but its rank matters little because preliminary round scores will not count in Monday’s final.

Shooting
Li Du of China won the Summer Games’ first gold medal Saturday, setting an Olympic record in the women’s 10-meter air rifle.

Li scored 10.6 on her final shot, surpassing Lioubov Galkina of Russia. Galkina had led throughout the round, but got only 9.7 on her final shot — her lowest mark. Katerina Kurkova from the Czech Republic won the bronze.

Li’s overall score of 502 points set an Olympic record. Galkina, who set an Olympic record in the qualifying round, finished at 501.5 points.

Wang Yifu got China’s second gold medal, winning the men’s 10-meter air pistol on the final shot. Russians Mikhail Nestruev and Vladimir Isakov took the silver and bronze.

Wang finished with an Olympic-record 690 points. Nestruev’s 689.8 was the second-highest total in the games’ history.

Women’s basketball
The U.S. women’s basketball team routed New Zealand 99-47 in its Olympic opener. Five Americans scored in double figures, turning it on after a slow start.

Favored to win its third straight gold medal, the United States extended its Olympic winning streak to 18. Swin Cash, playing her first game in the Olympics, led with 19 points. Angela Marino led New Zealand with 13 points.

The U.S. team won without starting guard Katie Smith, who was sidelined by a bruised right knee. She hasn’t practiced since the WNBA season ended July 31 and it’s uncertain when she’ll play.

Brazil set the women’s Olympic basketball record for points and tied the mark for margin of victory with its 128-62 win over Japan. Alessandra Oliveira had 25 points and 13 rebounds to lead Brazil in its opening game.

The record for points was held by Japan, which beat Canada 121-89 in 1976. The other 66-point win was the Soviet Union’s 119-53 victory over Italy in 1980.

Lauren Jackson, the WNBA’s MVP last season with Seattle, scored 27 points to lead Australia, which won the silver medal in 2000, over Nigeria 85-73.

Chen Nan scored 17 points to lead China to a  71-54 victory over South Korea.

In other action, Spain edged the Czech Republic 80-78 in overtime, and Russia defeated Greece 69-62.

Field Hockey
Two-time defending gold medalist Australia was upset by Germany 2-1 on the first day of women’s field hockey pool play.

Nadine Ernsting Krienke and Silke Mueller scored in the first half for Germany, while Julie Towers scored in the second half for Australia.

Netherlands opened with an easy 6-2 win over South Africa. Mijntje Donners scored three goals for the Dutch, who are ranked third in the world and are hoping to improve on their bronze medal from Sydney four years ago.

Ageeth Boomgaardt, Fatima Moreira de Melo and Maartje Scheepstra also scored for the Netherlands, while South Africa got both of its goals from Jenny Wilson.

China got goals from Baorong Fu, Chunling Tang and Qunqing Chen in its 3-0 victory over Japan. Argentina defeated Spain 4-0.

Handball
Juan Garcia scored six goals, and three other players added four goals each as Spain edged South Korea 31-30 to open the men’s handball competition.

Manual Colon, Talant Dujshebaev and Fernando Hernandez scored four goals apiece. South Korea was led by Paek Won-chul and Yoon Kyung-min with six goals each.

Elsewhere, Istvan Pasztor scored nine goals to lead Hungary to a 33-28 win over Egypt, and Eduard Kokcharov scored nine for Russia in its 28-25 triumph over Slovenia. Olafur Stefansson scored 10 times for Iceland in a 34-30 loss to Croatia.

In other action, France crushed Brazil 31-17, and Hungary defeated Egypt 33-28.

Judo
Tadahiro Nomura of Japan won the gold medal in men’s 60-kilogram judo for the third straight Olympics. Teammate Ryoko Tani won her second-straight gold in the women’s 48-kilogram class.

Nomura beat Nestor Khergiani of Georgia. Choi Min-ho of South Korea and Tsagaanbaatar Khashbaatar of Mongolia shared the bronze.

Tani defeated France’s Frederique Jossinet in a repeat of the 2003 world final where Tani won her sixth straight world crown.

The 48-kilogram bronze medals went to Julia Matijass of Germany and Feng Gao of China.

Softball
Jennie Finch didn’t allow a hit in three innings, and the Americans began their run toward a third-straight gold medal with a 7-0 victory over Italy in a game that was ended after five innings.

Natasha Watley went 4-for-4, hitting a two-run triple in the fifth inning to put the United States up by seven runs, invoking the mercy rule that ended the game. Three-time Olympian Lisa Fernandez had an RBI single as the U.S. team extended its winning streak to 71 straight games since July 2003.

Tanya Harding bailed out Australia in a 4-2 victory over Japan by pitching 6 1/3 innings of no-hit relief, and Natalie Titcume hit a two-run homer. Harding came off the bench in the first inning to replace starter Brooke Wilkins, who walked five to force in two runs for Japan. Harding, a three-time Olympian, shut down the defending silver medalists the rest of the way, retiring 19 of the 20 batters she faced.

Harding and Wilkins combined on the fourth combined no-hitter in Olympic play.

Lauren Bay pitched a four-hit shutout and Jackie Lance hit a two-run double to lead Canada to a 2-0 victory over Taiwan. 

In other competition, China defeated Greece 5-0.

Cycling
Italy’s Paolo Bettini pulled away in the final 100 meters to win the men’s cycling road race, while one of the deepest groups of American riders ever to compete in an Olympics failed to reach the medals stand.

Bettini made a desperate surge past Portugal’s Sergio Paulinho, who led much of the final lap around the 8.2-mile circuit

Bettini, a former world champion who built his training for the year solely around this one race, finished the 139.4-mile test in 5 hours, 41 minutes, 44 seconds. Paulinho finished a second behind. Belgium’s Axel Merckx, son of cycling legend Eddy Merckx, won the bronze medal.

The U.S. men’s road squad, with four accomplished international riders on the five-man roster, was paced by Tyler Hamilton’s 18th-place finish.

Temperatures reached 104 degrees on sunny sections of the course, and several riders were unable to finish.

Women’s Volleyball
China overcame the loss of one of its top players to defeat the United States in four sets in preliminary-round competition.

The Chinese were paced by the power of outside Hao Yang, which made up for the loss of top middle blocker Zhao Ruirui, who limped off the court after reaggravating an injury to her right leg. The Chinese finished of the U.S. squad 25-21, 23-25, 25-22, 25-18.

Elsewhere, Angelina Grun had 20 points, including 14 kills, to help Germany rally for a five-set upset of three-time defending gold medalist Cuba.

Grun, the German captain, served an ace on match point to seal the victory in the first Pool B match of the day. Zoila Barros Fernandez had 12 kills to lead the Cubans, who blew a two-set lead. The results: 20-25, 24-26, 25-22, 25-15, 17-15.

Also in Pool B, Russia defeated Dominican Republic in three sets (25-17, 25-13, 25-16). Ekaterina Gamova had 22 points for Russia, the 2000 silver medalist in Sydney.

In Pool A, second-ranked Brazil beat Japan 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-21) behind 11 kills from Virna Dias. Greece gave the partisan crowd of 2,650 plenty to cheer with a 25-7, 25-22, 25-14 sweep of Kenya. Maria Gkaragkouni had 16 points for Greece.

Boxing
Middleweight Andre Dirrell got the U.S. boxing team off to a strong start, beating China’s Ha Dabateer 25-18.

A left-hander from Flint, Mich., Dirrell counterpunched his way to an easy victory in the second fight of the day.

In the first bout of the Olympics, Algeria’s Nabil Kassel beat Glaucelio Abreu of Brazil 41-36.

The light heavyweights also got started, but U.S. hopeful Andre Ward received a first-round bye. Ward and Dirrell generally are considered the Americans’ top gold medal prospects.

Beach Volleyball
Americans Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs, seeded No. 4, cruised past Norwegians Susanne Glesnes and Kathrine Maaseide 21-14, 21-14 under the lights at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre.

Dain Blanton and Jeff Nygaard, the top American men’s team, were not nearly as sharp in a 21-16, 21-14 loss to 17th-seeded Australians Julien Prosser and Mark Williams.

Canadians Guylaine Dumont and Ann Martin upset the ninth-seeded Swiss pair Simone Kuhn and Nicole Schnyder-Benoit 21-16, 21-13.

Weightlifting
Turkey’s Nurcan Taylan pulled off a surprise, turning a world-record lift into an upset of heavily favored Li Zhuo of China in the 105½-pound weight class.

The loss was a stunning start for China’s women’s weightlifting powerhouse, whose assistant coach had predicted a sweep of all four events it entered. China was 4-for-4 in the sport’s debut in Sydney.

Defending gold medalist Tara Cunningham of the United States wasn’t a factor, dropping the bar on her left leg on her second lift en route to finishing 11th of 14. Thailand’s Aree Wiratthaworn won the bronze.

Taylan broke Li’s 2003 world snatch record of 205½ pounds by slightly less than nine pounds — or almost one-tenth her own weight.

Taylan followed that with a lift of 248 pounds in the clean and jerk.

Fencing
Italy’s Aldo Montano rallied to defeat Zsolt Nemcsik of Hungary 15-14 in the men’s saber final. Keeth Smart, who last year became the first American to be ranked No. 1 in the world, lost in the round of 16.

Montano trailed by four points early in the gold-medal match, but came back to take the lead at 12-11. With the score tied at 14, Nemcsik retreated slightly and Montano thrust forward to make the last touch and win.

Smart lost to Montano 15-7. In the same round, American Ivan Lee lost to four-time gold medalist Stanislav Pozdniakov 15-9. Jason Rogers, the third member of the U.S. team, lost 15-3 in the round of 32 to Luigi Tarantino of Italy.

Vladislav Tretiak of Ukraine defeated Dmitri Lapkes of Belarus to win the bronze.

Rowing
Britain’s Matt Pinsent started out well in his attempt for a fourth-straight gold medal by winning his heat in the men’s four. In the past three Olympics, Pinsent has won two gold medals in men’s pairs and one in men’s four.

There were heats in four men’s and three women’s events with some boats advancing directly to semifinals and others moving to repechage, or second-chance, races.

Americans Aquil Abdullah and Henry Nuzum advanced to the semifinals in the double sculls and the men’s pair of Artour Samsonov and Luke Walton also advanced.

Sailing
The Olympic sailing regatta began with two races in four different events with Greeks doing well on home waters.

Greece’s duo of Sofia Bekatorou and Aimilia Tsoulfa had the top performance of the day, placing first and second in the women’s 470 class to give them the lead in that event. Aimilios Papathanasiou had a second-place finish behind Mateusz Kusznierewicz of Poland in the men’s Finn class.

The French crew topped the Yngling class, which was making its Olympic debut. Britain topped the men’s 470 class.

Table Tennis
Americans Ilija Lupulesku and Jasna Reed each won their first-round matches.

Lupulesku advanced with a 4-0 win over Juan Papic of Chile in men’s singles, while Reed beat the Czech Republic’s Renata Strbikova 4-2 in women’s singles.

Lupulesku and Reed won medals for Yugoslavia at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

American Tawny Banh also advanced, but Khoa Nguyen of the U.S. lost to Australia’s William Hentzell.

Badminton
France’s Pi Hongyan, the No. 8 seed in women’s singles, lost her first-round match against Seo Yoon-hee from South Korea, 11-6, 6-11, 11-7 in the biggest upset on the opening day of badminton competition. Top-seeded Gong Ruina of China trailed Singapore’s Li Li in the first set before rallying to win 11-9, 11-4.

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