updated 7:39 p.m. ET Aug. 17, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Michael Phelps claimed his second and third gold medals of the Athens Games, winning the 200-meter butterfly and then helping the United States claim gold in the 800 freestyle relay Tuesday night.

Phelps held off Takashi Yamamoto of Japan in the butterfly to win in an Olympic-record 1 minute, 54.01 seconds. In the relay, Klete Keller narrowly held off Ian Thorpe at the wall to help the United States win gold over the Australians four years after finishing second to the Aussies at the Sydney Games.

The Americans picked up another medal when Amanda Beard took silver in the 200-meter individual medley. The three-time Olympian picked up the fifth medal of her career in finishing second to Ukraine’s Yana Klochkova, who defended the title she won in Sydney.

Camelia Potec of Romania won gold in the 200-meter freestyle.

In the morning, the Americans’ top sprinters, Jason Lezak and Ian Crocker, both failed to advance out of the preliminaries of the 100 free. Two-time Olympic champion Alexander Popov of Russia failed to advance from the semifinals.

This will be the first time the United States doesn’t have at least one swimmer in the 100 freestyle final of a nonboycotted Olympics.

Women's Gymnastics
The Americans settled for silver Tuesday, finishing behind Romania, which won its second straight gold medal. Russia won the bronze.

In the end, Romania needed to average only 9.35 points per floor routine to catch the Americans. Easily done.

The Americans started strong, fixing problems they’d had on vault in the preliminaries. Then they moved to their best event, the uneven bars.

Carly Patterson, normally at her best under pressure, faltered. Terin Humphrey and Courtney Kupets bailed her out, lifting the Americans into first place, but then came the balance beam — Romania’s best event.

Kupets was pulled out of the lineup with a sore right leg, and while replacement Mohini Bhardwaj gave a clutch performance on short notice, she made several slight errors, dropping the Americans behind the Romanians.

Women’s Soccer
Joanne Peters’ 12-yard header in the 82nd minute gave Australia a tie with the United States, breaking a 15-game Aussie losing streak that dates to the teams’ first meeting in 1987.

The Americans had already clinched a spot in the quarterfinals with wins over Greece and

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Brazil, and the tie assured them first place in their group. Kristine Lilly scored in the 19th minute for the Americans. They next play Japan on Friday.

Australia qualified for the quarterfinals with the tie, although it would have advanced anyway because of Brazil’s 7-0 win over Greece.

World Cup runner-up Sweden, facing first-round elimination from the Olympics, scored two goals in four minutes against Nigeria to win 2-1 and earn a place in the quarterfinals.

Germany beat Mexico i2-0 to top its group.

Men’s Soccer
Mexico beat Greece 3-2 in an action-packed and acrimonious soccer game, only to discover it had still been knocked out of the competition.

After celebrating a victory over the host, the Mexicans heard the other group game had finished in a 3-3 tie between Mali and South Korea — eliminating Mexico.

Mexico finished with four points and Greece one — a sad ending for the host after its senior team had won Euro 2004 six weeks ago. But the tie gave Mali and Korea five points each.

Argentina’s shutout of Australia, on Andres D’Allesandro’s goal in the ninth minute, was the team’s third in a row and confirmed the Argentines’ status as favorites for the gold medal.

Softball
Lori Harrigan allowed only a first-inning bunt single, and Crystl Bustos homered Tuesday as the United States defeated China 4-0 for its fourth straight shutout of the Games.

Harrigan struck out eight, Lovieanne Jung had two RBIs, and Leah O’Brien-Amico drove in a run as the Americans ran their winning streak to 74 games and their international record against China to 10-1. The United States has outscored its opponents 24-0 in the preliminary round of the tournament.

Stacy Porter and Natalie Titcume each hit two-run homers for Australia in an 8-0 victory over Italy in a game shortened to five innings by the mercy rule.

Canada's Lauren Bay shut out Japan 1-0 as Jackie Lance scored the lone run in the eighth inning on an error.

Taiwan got its first win in the tournament with a 2-0 triumph over Greece.

Basketball
An injured Allen Iverson scored 17 points as the United States rebouned from its opening loss with a 77-71 victory over Greece.

After losing in overtime to Argentina on a buzzer-beater by Manu Ginobili in its opener, Serbia-Montenegro beat Italy 74-72 when Italy's Gianluca Basile missed a 15-footer at the buzzer.
Milos Vujanic made two free throws with 5.6 seconds left to give Serbia-Montenegro the lead. Basile had tied the game 14 seconds earlier when he stripped Dejan Bodiroga near midcourt and went in for a layup. Igor Rakocevic had 19 points for Serbia-Montenegro, the reigning world champions.

Ramunas Siskauskas scored 23 points to lead Lithuania to a 98-90 win over Puerto Rico, which had upset the United States in its opener.

Yao Ming bounced back from a rough opening game with 39 points and 13 rebounds to lead China to a 69-62 triumph over New Zealand. The 7-foot-6 center from the Houston Rockets had 12 points and eight rebounds in an opening loss to Spain, but he took over from the start against New Zealand, finishing 15-for-20 from the field and keying China’s effective zone defense inside.

Australia led 45-29 at halftime and cruised past Angola 83-59 behind Shane Heal’s 18 points.

Fencing
For the first time in a century, the United States won a gold medal in Olympic fencing, and it added a bronze for good measure.

Mariel Zagunis beat Tan Xue of China 15-9 in the saber final, and American Sada Jacobson was third, beating Catalina Gheorghitoaia of Romania 15-7.

The United States had never won a medal in women’s fencing. The last American medal in the sport was in Los Angeles in 1984, when Peter Westbrook won the bronze in men’s saber.

Marcel Fischer of Switzerland took gold in the men’s epee.

Tennis
The world’s top two men's tennis players found themselves struggling against low-ranked opponents in the second round of the Olympics — No. 1 Roger Federer flopped, and No. 2 Andy Roddick flourished.

Federer was beaten 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 by 18-year-old Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic on Court 1. Roddick saved three match points and overcame 2000 silver medalist Tommy Haas of Germany 6-4, 3-6, 9-7 before a raucous crowd at the main stadium.

Venus Williams beat Maja Matevzic of Slovenia 6-0, 6-0 earlier — the first shutout for a man or woman since tennis returned to the Olympics as a medal sport in 1988.

Two other major champions lost: Feliciano Lopez of Spain eliminated No. 9 Marat Safin 7-6 (4), 6-3, while Mardy Fish of the United States came back to upset No. 5 Juan Carlos Ferrero 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

Boxing
Ron Siler opened his quest for a gold medal with a convincing 32-18 decision over Australia’s Bradley Hore in a first-round flyweight fight.

The win kept American boxers undefeated in the Olympics.

Cuban and Russian boxers remained undefeated, too. Both are 6-0 in the first round, though that will change Wednesday when Cuba’s Odlanier Solis meets Alexander Alekseev of Russia in a rematch of the heavyweight final of the 2003 world championships.

Men's Volleyball
The U.S. men bounced back from their opening loss with a straight-set victory over the Netherlands.

Opposite Clay Stanley led an all-around effort with 21 points, and the Americans ended a nine-match Olympic losing streak with very few errors, strong defense, and excellent serving.

Brazil beat Italy in a five-set match that couldn’t have been any closer. Brazil moved alone into first place at 2-0 when Gilberto Godoy Filho blocked Samuele Papi’s kill attempt to end the marathon final set.

Argentina survived a five-set match with Tunisia, thanks to 29 points from Jorge Alberto Elgueta. In other action, Serbia-Montenagro won in striaght sets over France, Russia swept Australia, and Greece won in four sets over Poland.

Beach Volleyball
Americans Misty May and Kerri Walsh beat Dutch duo Marrit Leenstra and Rebekka Kadijk 21-11, 21-13.

All four Brazilian teams stayed unbeaten and clinched berths in the medal round.

In the men’s draw, Norwegians Bjorn Maaseide and Iver Horrem beat Americans Daxton Holdren and Stein Metzger.

Baseball
Daisuke Matsuzaka shut out Cuba for eight innings, leading Japan to an impressive 6-3 victory.
The round-robin win was a breakthrough for Japan, which sat on the sideline while Cuba and the United States won the first three golds in Olympic play.

Matsuzaka allowed only four hits as Japan pulled ahead 6-0 after eight innings. Ariel Pestano’s two-run double with one out in the ninth broke the shutout.

Peter Orr, Pete Laforest, and Stubby Clapp homered to lead Canada to a 7-0 victory over the Netherlands. Canada improved to 3-0 in the eight-team competition and has outscored its opponents 23-3 in the Games so far.

Taiwan scored five times in the seventh to break away for a 7-1 win over Greece, while Australia allowed just one hit in a 6-0 win over Italy.

Water Polo
Wolf Wigo scored four goals as the United States rallied for a 9-6 win over Kazakhstan.

The Americans improved to 2-0, including a last-second 7-6 win over Croatia in their opener.
Sergey Drozdov scored three goals, twice giving Kazakhstan the lead in the first period and then adding a third as the game wound down.

In other matches, Francesco Postiglione scored three goals as Italy rebounded from an opening loss to Spain with a 8-4 win over Australia. The Australians led twice in the first two periods and were tied 3-all at the break, but Italy scored three consecutive goals in the third period and took control.

Germany led 9-0 at halftime and added two goals in the third period before Egypt scored in a game that finished 13-3.

Serbia-Montenegro edged Russia, the Sydney silver medalist, 4-3, and Greece upset 1996 Olympic champion Spain 8-5.

Tamas Kasas and Peter Biros scored three goals apiece for Hungary in a 10-8 win over Croatia.

Judo
Ilias Iliadis of Greece thrilled the home crowd, beating Roman Gontyuk of Ukraine to win the gold medal in the 81-kilogram class.

Japan’s Ayumi Tanimoto beat Claudia Heill of Austria to win the 63-kilogram division. Japan has won four gold medals and a silver in the first eight judo events.

Rowing
Single sculler Jennifer Devine advanced to the semifinals by finishing second in a preliminary.

Devine broke out in front early and led at 500 meters, but was caught at the finish by Frida Svensson of Sweden.

Devine must finish in the top three in her semifinal to advance to the six-boat final.

The Harvard-MIT tandem of Steve Tucker and Greg Ruckman rowed into a semifinal in the men’s lightweight double sculls, finishing behind the team from Japan.

The U.S. men’s four also advanced to a semifinal by finishing second in its heat.
Lisa Schlenker and Stacey Borgman advanced to the lightweight double scull semifinals.

Archery
Americans Jennifer Nichols and Vic Wunderle advanced to the quarterfinals of the Olympic archery tournament.

Nichols beat Tetyana Berezhna of Ukraine 163-160, rallying with two 10s in her final three shots.

Wunderle, the No. 43 seed, upset No. 11 Ming Huang Liu of Taiwan 164-160.

Second-seeded Magnus Petersson of Sweden and world champion Michele Frangilli of Italy were both eliminated.

Kayaking
Former whitewater kayaking world champion Rebecca Giddens used a clean first run through the first-ever salt-water course in an Olympic Games to advance to the single kayak semifinals.

Giddens now moves into a 15-boat semifinal field on Wednesday, with the top 10 boats getting into the finals later that day.

Jennifer Bongardt of Germany was the leader on first day. Two-time defending gold medalist Stepanka Hilgertova of the Czech Republic finished in 11th place.

Sailing
The 49er made its colorful entrance into the Olympic sailing regatta, and Norway won the first race.

The high-performance skiffs — nicknamed for their 4.99-meter length — were a big hit in their Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 and should be again, as long as the wind isn’t as light as it was Tuesday. The 49ers are fast and easily identifiable on downwind legs after they hoist their asymmetrical spinnakers imprinted with their country’s flag.

Equestrian
The French three-day event team, leaders after the opening dressage competition, maintained its strong grip on the Olympic event after the cross-country portion.

French riders are also in contention for individual medals, with Nicolas Touzaint on Galan de Sauvagere and Jean Teulere on Espoir de la Mare adding no cross-country penalty points to their dressage scores. Touzaint holds the lead with 29.4 penalty points, and Teulere is in fourth with 38.4.

Bettina Hoy of Germany on Ringwood Cockatoo added 3.6 time points and is in second with 35.6, while Kimberly Severson of the United States had a faultless round on Winsome Adante and is in third with 36.2.

France’s current team total is 113.4, with Germany in second with 119.6.

Table Tennis
The last American was knocked out of Olympic table tennis when Gao Jun lost to Ai Fukuhara of Japan 4-0 in women’s singles.

Field Hockey
Pakistan’s men easily downed Egypt 7-0, scoring five times in the first half. Sohail Abbas scored the last four goals of the game.

Lee Jung-seon scored late in the second half to give the South Korea a 3-2 win over Britain.

Australia tied Argentina 2-2 on a late goal by Jamie Dwyer.

India scored four straight to rally past South Africa 4-2, and Christoph Bechmann scored in the second half to help Germany tie Spain 1-1.

Handball
Defending gold medalist Denmark tied South Korea 29-29 on Mette Vestergaard’s third goal of the game. Hungary, the silver medalist in Sydney in 2000, won its second straight match, 33-20 over Greece.

Oxana Rayhel led Ukraine with nine goals in a 26-21 win over China.

Badminton
Top-seeded Zhang Jiewen and Yang Wei of China advanced in the women’s doubles tournament, defeating Jo Novita and Lita Nurlita of Indonesia.

Second-seeded Chen Hong of China advanced to the quarterfinals in men’s singles.

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