ATHENS, Greece - The U.S. men’s basketball team lost for only the third time ever in the Olympics on Sunday.

Puerto Rico, which had lost to the Americans five times in the past 13 months, took control in the first half, led by 22 points at halftime, and gamely held off a fourth-quarter comeback to win 92-73 in one of the biggest sports achievements in the island territory’s history.

The loss was a blow to the confidence of Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, and the rest of the Americans, but it did little to hurt their gold medal chances. They need only to finish in the top four of their six-team group to reach the quarterfinals.

Earlier, Manu Ginobili’s off-balance shot left his hand just a split-second before the final buzzer, dropping through the basket to give Argentina a thrilling 83-82 victory over Serbia-Montenegro.

Ginobili scored 27 points for Argentina, which avenged a defeat in the title game at the 2002 World Championships.

Pau Gasol had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead Spain to an 83-58 victory over China and Ya Ming.

In other action, Lithuania defeated Angola 78-73, Italy topped New Zealand 71-69, and Greece defeated Australia 76-54.

Swimming
South Africa spoiled the expected duel between the United States and Australia in the 400-meter freestyle relay, winning the gold medal in world-record time and ensuring that Michael Phelps won’t surpass Mark Spitz’s record of seven Olympic golds.

The best Phelps can do is tie Spitz after the South Africans cruised to a stunning win in 3 minutes, 13.17 seconds. The Netherlands won silver, and Phelps and his American teammates took bronze.

It was the worst showing in the event ever for the Americans, who had never lost an Olympic 400 free relay until they were upset by the Australians at the 2000 Sydney Games.

Earlier, Laure Manaudou of France won the women’s 400-meter freestyle, Kosuke Kitajima of Japan the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, and Australian Petria Thomas the women’s 100-meter butterfly.

Soccer
Iraq defeated Costa Rica 2-0 in a game where a boisterous crowd not only provided atmosphere but temporarily halted play as jubilant Iraqi fans ran onto the field.

Hawar Mulla Mohammed slammed a bouncing ball into the net from 18 yards out in the 67th minute to put Iraq ahead, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Mohammed jubilantly sprinted around the endline and up the sideline, where he was mobbed by his teammates.

Within moments, a couple of Iraqi fans jumped out of the crowd to join the celebration. About two dozen others followed suit, running around the field and the area surrounding it. Police and security personnel responded, but it took about three minutes to clear the pitch of fans and debris.

Shortly after the ensuing kickoff, Mohammed took the ball down the left side and crossed it to Mahdi Karim, who headed it in — prompting several fans to take to the field yet again.

Elsewhere, Ghana stunned Paraguay 2-1 by scoring two goals in the final nine minutes. Portugal bounced back from its opening-game loss to Iraq by beating Morocco 2-1, and Italy scored three times in the first half and then held off Japan for a 3-2 victory.

Archery
American and Ukrainian archers won the first Olympic competitions to be held in Panathinaiko Stadium since the marble facility hosted the first modern games in 1896.

Jennifer Nichols of Cheyenne, Wyo., defeated Rina Dewi Puspitasari of Indonesia and Tetyana Berezhna beat Greece’s Fotini Vavatsi in the opening matches of the women’s tournament.

Bhutan’s Tshering Chhoden, seeded 54th, upset No. 11 seed Lin Sang of China.

Tennis
Venus Williams overpowered Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-1, 6-2, and Andy Roddick made his Olympic debut with a 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory over Flavio Saretta of Brazil.

Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Barbora Strycova 6-3, 6-4.

David Nalbandian withdrew from the Olympics because of a strained left thigh.

Cycling
Sara Carrigan sneaked past Judith Arndt in the final straightaway to win the gold medal in the Olympic road cycling race through downtown Athens. The Australian finished the race in three hours, 24 minutes, 24 seconds.

Kristin Armstrong of the United States finished eighth, marking only the third top-10 finish by an American in the race since Connie Carpenter-Phinney and Rebecca Twigg won gold and silver for the United States 20 years ago at Los Angeles in the event’s Olympic debut.

Weightlifting
Halil Mutlu of Turkey won his third consecutive gold medal, while Udomporn Polsak’s was her first and the first for a Thai female athlete.

Mutlu won the 56-kilogram division to join Turkish predecessor Naim Suleymanoglu and Greece’s Pyrros Dimas and Khaki Kakiasvilis as three-time weightlifting gold medalists. Both Greek lifters go for their fourth consecutive golds later in the Athens Olympics.

Polsak won the 53-kilogram division.

Men’s Volleyball
Poland stunned Serbia-Montenegro with a three-set victory to start the men’s volleyball preliminaries.

Serbia-Montenegro returns seven players from the team that won the gold medal in the 2000 Olympic competition as Yugoslavia.

Another favorite fell when the Netherlands outlasted Russia in five sets. With the fifth set tied at 16, Guido Gortzen served an ace and then Alexander Kosarev’s kill attempt landed wide to give the Dutch the win.

Host Greece beat Tunisia in three sets in front of a loud crowd of 8,200 at the 14,000-seat Peace and Friendship Stadium — the biggest crowd so far in the tournament.

In other action, Brazil defeated Australia in four sets, and Argentina topped France in three sets.

Beach Volleyball
Top-ranked American beach volleyball duo Misty May and Kerri Walsh, teammates for just the second time in two months, defeated Japan’s Chiaki Kusuhara and Ryoko Tokuno 21-9, 21-16 in preliminary pool play.

Earlier, Americans Dax Holdren and Stein Metzger rallied from a set down to beat Australians Andrew Schacht and Josh Slack, staving off two match points in the second set and winning 22-24, 24-22, 15-13.

Water Polo
Hungary opened its Olympic water polo title defense with a 6-4 win over Serbia-Montenegro, coming back with three unanswered goals in the last quarter.

Hungary is a seven-time Olympic champion and the reigning world champion.

Spain, the 1996 Olympic champion and world champion in ’98 and 2001, held off Italy 5-4.

Earlier, Australia thrashed Egypt 14-3 behind three goals by Craig Miller. Dmitry Gorshkov scored twice in Russia's 5-2 victory over Kazakhstan.

Softball
Lisa Fernandez allowed one hit and the United States dominated Australia, blowing out the two-time bronze medalists 10-0 in a game called after five innings because the Aussies were too far behind.

After an eight-run fourth inning, all Fernandez had to do was get three outs in the fifth to finish off Australia, the only team to beat the United States twice in Olympic competition.

Earlier, Jennifer Spediacci pitched a shutout into the fifth inning, and Italy hung on to beat China, one of the medal favorites, 7-5.

Hiroko Sakai pitched a two-hitter and Noriko Yamaji had three hits for Japan in its 6-0 triumph over Taiwan.

Gymnastics
The U.S. gymnastics team began its quest for an Olympic gold medal with an up-and-down qualifying round Sunday that included some nice moments — mostly from Carly Patterson — but also left plenty of room for improvement.

Most of the Americans can use the off day to improve on vault and floor before Tuesday’s finals. The reigning world champions hardly looked the part on those events, stumbling around and turning a 0.99-point lead halfway through the meet into a deficit of 0.588.

Patterson scored a 9.725 on beam en route to a 38.337, which left her in first place in qualifying for the all-around. Teammate Courtney Kupets was in fourth at 37.937 and also qualified.

Boxing
American welterweight Vanes Martirosyan battered Algeria’s Benamar Meskine in a 45-20 victory in the preliminaries to earn a second-round match with Cuba’s Lorenzo Aragon.

Women's Handball
Hungary, the 2000 silver medalist, beat China 28-24 in the women’s Olympic handball tournament behind Anita Kulcsar’s eight goals.

Brazil beat Olympic debutante Greece 29-21 in the other match.

Men's Field Hockey
Jamie Dwyer scored three goals, leading Australia’s men to a 4-1 win in their opening match. Darren Smith scored for New Zealand.

Greg Nicol scored twice in the second half to help South Africa rally to a 2-1 victory over Argentina.

Shooting
Alexei Alipov of Russia won the gold medal in trap shooting with a perfect final round. Alipov shot all 25 targets in the final to finish with an overall score of 149, tying the Olympic record. In qualifying, Alipov also matched an Olympic record, scoring 124 out of a possible 125.

American Lance Bade of Vancouver, Wash., who won a bronze medal in trap in Atlanta in 1996, finished fifth.

Olena Kostevych of Ukraine won the gold in women’s 10-meter air pistol after a shoot-off.

Judo
Japan finished the second day of the Olympic judo competition with a total of three gold medals.

Matato Uchishiba took Japan’s third gold medal with a victory in the men’s 66-kilogram division. Yuki Yokosawa failed to make it four-for-four with a loss to China’s Xian Dongmei in the women’s 52-kilogram division.

Baseball
Cuba, one of the favorites in the Olympic baseball tournament, defeated Australia 4-1. Adiel Palma pitched eight shutout innings to pick up the win, giving up just two hits.

Japan’s 12-0 rout of Italy was halted after seven innings because of the mercy rule. Starting pitcher Koji Uehara threw six scoreless innings for the win, giving up four hits and one walk while striking out four.

In other action, the Netherlands crushed Greece 11-0, and Canada defeated Taiwan 7-0.

Rowing
The U.S. women’s and men’s eights teams both set world bests in rowing along with Australian pair Sally Newmarch and Amber Halliday.

In the women’s eights competition, the American crew set a time of 5:56.55.

The men’s eights also set a world best in their heat, completing the course in 5:19.85.

Competing in the women’s lightweight double sculls heats, the Australians completed the 2,000-meter course in 6:49.9 to break a mark that had stood for nine years.

A 20-mph tail wind pushed the boats but also made waters choppy. Organizers ended Sunday’s races before noon and said second-chance races wouldn’t be held Monday because of forecasts calling for gusts to pick up to more than 30 mph.

Sailing
The notorious Meltemi wind came whipping out of the north, bringing mayhem to the Olympic sailing courses on the Saronic Gulf, capsizing at least 10 boats.

Americans Paul Foerster and Kevin Burnham moved up a spot to second overall in the 470 class with finishes of second and 15th. Both are former silver medalists.

Equestrian
The first day of dressage competition ended with American Darren Chiacchia in fourth on Windfall 2 after scoring 44.6 penalty points. Germany’s riders claimed two of the top three places, with Bettina Hoy well ahead, earning 32.0 on Ringwood Cockatoo.

Badminton
Britain’s Tracey Hallam defeated former world champion and Sydney silver medalist Camilla Martin of Denmark 11-2, 5-11, 13-10 in the second round.

Fencing
Timea Nagy of Hungary defended her Olympic epee title, beating France’s Laura Flessel-Colovic 15-10.

Nagy also beat Flessel-Colovic in the 2000 semifinals in Sydney.

American Kamara James lost her opening match to Tatiana Logounova of Russia 15-11.

Table Tennis
A pair of American doubles teams won 4-0.

Tawny Banh and Gao Jun beat Luisana Perez and Fabiola Ramos of Venezuela, and Mark Hazinski and Ilija Lupulesku beat Nigeria’s Monday Merotohun and Segun Toriola.

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