updated 7:16 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Misty May and Kerri Walsh made it look easy, even in the end.

The top-ranked American beach volleyball pair defeated second-seeded Brazilians Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar 21-17, 21-11 on Tuesday night, capping the most dominant run in the sport’s history with a gold medal.

Earlier, Americans Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs won the bronze medal, beating Australia’s Natalie Cook and Nicole Sanderson 21-18, 15-21, 15-9.

May and Walsh didn’t drop a set in Athens, with the 6-foot-3 Walsh dominating at the net and the quick May scrambling and diving for every dig.

May and Walsh have been gold-medal favorites since last year, when they began an unprecedented 90-match, 15-tournament winning streak.The streak ended in June, the week after May pulled an abdominal muscle. May spent most of the summer rehabbing while Walsh continued to hone her game with other partners.

Men’s Soccer
Iraq's improbable run at a gold medal ended with a 3-1 semifinal loss to Paraguay.

The Iraqis still have a chance for a bronze, which would be their war-weary nation’s first medal in 44 years.

Paraguay made history of its own, getting two goals from Jose Cardozo and one from Fredy Bareiro to advance to Saturday’s gold-medal game against Argentina, a 3-0 winner over Italy. It will be the first Olympic medal of any sort for Paraguay.

Iraq and Italy will play for the bronze Friday night.

Carlos Tevez, Argentina's budding star, scored his seventh goal in five Olympic matches to give Argentina the lead in the 16th minute. Luis Gonzalez scored in the 69th and second-half substitute Mariano Gonzalez put the game out of reach six minutes from the end.

The South Americans, who have now outscored the opposition 16-0 in five matches, forced the play from start to finish, while the Italians resorted to their now familiar defensive tactics and occasional counterattacks.

Track and Field
Joanna Hayes of the United States won the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles in an Olympic-record time of 12.37 seconds. Olena Krasovska of Ukraine got the silver medal, and Melissa Morrison of the United States won the bronze.

Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic won the gold in the decathlon with an Olympic-record score of 8,893. Bryan Clay of the United States earned the silver medal with 8,820, and Dmitriy Karpov of Kazakhstan won the bronze with 8,725.

Reigning world champion Tom Pappas of the United States dropped out of the competition after injuring himself in the pole vault.

Four-time world 1,500 champion Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, a heartbreak loser at the past two Olympics, held off Bernard Lagat down the stretch to win in 3 minutes, 34.18 seconds.

El Guerrouj edged Lagat by .12 seconds. Rui Silva of Portugal won the bronze. El Guerrouj has lost just four races in the past eight years, but two of those defeats came at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

In the women's pole vault, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia broke the world record for the fourth time this year, easily clearing 16 feet, 1¼ inches (4.91 meters) to take the gold medal.

Isinbayeva bettered her own record of 16 feet, ¾ inches (4.90) set in London on July 30. The vault also broke by a wide margin the inaugural Olympic record of 15 feet, 1 inch (4.60); the event debuted four years ago in Sydney.

Her Russian teammate, Svetlana Feofanova, the 2003 world champion, won the silver with a vault of 15 feet, 7 inches (4.75). Anna Rogowska of Poland took bronze with 15 feet, 5 inches (4.70).

Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas won the gold medal in the 400-meter run with a time of 49.41 seconds. Ana Guevara of Mexico got the silver medal, and Natalya Antyukh of Russia won the bronze.

Kenyans swept the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Ezekiel Kemboi won the gold in 8:05.81. Brimin Kipruto got the silver medal and Paul Kipsiele Koech took the bronze.

Meanwhile, The Hungarian gold medalist in the men’s discus was stripped of his title for failing to provide a drug test sample in an apparent attempt to beat the screening system.
Robert Fazekas, who won the discus on Monday night with an Olympic-record throw of 232 feet, 8 inches, was disqualified from the competition and expelled from the Games by the International Olympic Committee executive board.

Baseball
Brendan Kingman’s sixth-inning single sent Australia to a 1-0 victory over stunned Japan, putting the Aussies in the gold medal game.

Australia will play Cuba, which defeated Canada 8-5 in the other semifinal, for the title. Japan will play the Canadians for the bronze.

Australian right-hander Chris Oxspring gave up five hits and struck out five in 6 2/3 innings. Oxspring, 27, pitched in the bullpen for the San Diego Padres' Triple-A affiliate in Portland before heading for Athens.

Japan’s best threat came in the bottom of the seventh, when Oxspring retired the first two batters. A pair of errors put runners on first and third, but right-hander Jeff Williams retired Atsushi Fujimoto on a popup.

Cuba exploded for six runs in the eighth inning to come from behind against Canada. It earned the Cubans their fourth straight trip to the gold-medal game.

Cuba took advantage of a throwing error by Peter Orr on a double-play ball in the eighth.

Diving
China’s Peng Bo held off Canadian teenager Alexandre Despatie and four-time Olympian Dmitri Sautin of Russia to win the 3-meter springboard, giving the Chinese men their third straight gold medal in the event.

Overall, the Chinese have won four diving golds in Athens, putting the powerful team in position to equal or beat its five golds from Sydney in 2000.

The Americans have yet to win a medal of any color, setting up the possibility of their first Olympic diving shutout since 1912. Troy Dumais climbed to fourth with a strong opening dive but couldn’t follow it up, slipping back to sixth at the end.

Weightlifting
Dmitri Berestov of Russia took advantage of a weakened field and a series of missed lifts by the favored Said Saif Asaad of Qatar to win the Olympic 231 pounds (105 kilogram) weightlifting gold — his first title against world-level competition.

Ferenc Gyurkovics of Hungary was an equally surprising silver medalist, putting up an Olympic record 429 pounds in the snatch that was quickly matched by Berestov.

Berestov took the gold with a 506-pound lift in the clean and jerk, while Gyurkovics missed twice before raising 495 pounds. Bronze medalist Igor Razoronov of Ukraine missed a final attempt of 511½ pounds in the clean and jerk that would have given him the gold.

Boxing
Andre Ward saved the U.S. boxing team from its most embarrassing Olympics ever by upsetting two-time world champion Evgeny Makarenko of Russia in a light heavyweight bout few gave him a chance to win. Ward won 23-16.

Ward was smaller, less experienced and entered the ring to resounding boos from the crowd. By the time he left, though, he had guaranteed himself at least a bronze medal — and quite possibly made himself a favorite for the gold.

Ward and middleweight Andre Dirrell are the only two Americans left in the boxing competition, and the United States was looking at the real possibility of being shut out of medals for the first time ever in the Olympics.

Wrestling
Rulon Gardner, trying to become the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win two golds, had a busy day.

He started in the 264½-pound (120 kilogram) competition with a workmanlike 3-0 victory over Lithuania’s Mindaugas Mizgaitis. He followed it with a tie-breaking decision over 1996 Olympic bronze medalist Sergei Moreyko of Bulgaria and, about five hours later, a 3-0 decision over Poland’s Marek Mikulski.

The other three Americans to wrestle all were eliminated. Dennis Hall, of Plover, Wis., trying for a second Olympic medal eight years after winning his first, beat Petr Svehla of the Czech Republic 3-2 at 121 pounds (55 kilograms) but was eliminated with a 3-0 loss to pool winner Aleksey Vakulenko of Ukraine.

Brad Vering, from Howells, Neb., was ousted from a three-man pool at 184 pounds (85 kilograms) pool with a 4-0 loss to Egypt’s Mohamed Mohamed, who won both his pool matches.
Oscar Wood, of Fort Carson, Colo., lost three bouts at 145½ pounds (66 kilograms).

Women's Volleyball
Erika Coimbra scored 20 points to lead unbeaten Brazil to a five-set quarterfinal victory over the United States.

The Americans overcame erratic serving and several unforced errors to rally from two sets down and send it to a fifth set. The drama quickly disappeared when the Brazilians took an 8-2 lead in the fifth set, and the gold medal hopes of the U.S. team vanished a few minutes later.

The United States and Brazil were the top two ranked teams in the world when the tournament began, but the Americans lost three of their five preliminary matches and got stuck with the lowest seed for the quarterfinals.

The Brazilians advance to play Russia, a straight-set victor over South Korea, in the semifinals on Thursday.

China moved a step closer to its first gold medal in volleyball since 1984, sweeping Japan in three sets.

China will face Cuba in the semifinals. The Cubans outlasted Italy in five sets, led by 22 points from Zoila Barros Fernandez.

Women’s Water Polo
Manuela Zanchi scored with two seconds left as Italy upset the United States 6-5, setting up a matchup against Greece in the final.

Greece beat defending Olympic champion Australia 6-2. The United States, which is the reigning world champion, will play Australia for bronze in a rematch of the Sydney 2000 final.

Russia scored twice in overtime to edge Hungary 12-11 for fifth place.

Cycling
Ryan Bayley rallied from behind to upset Dutch world champion Theo Bos 2-1 in the track sprint final, taking his first major title and confirming Australia’s dominance of the Olympic cycling tournament. Rene Wolff of Germany won the bronze.

In the women’s event, Canadian veteran Lori-Ann Muenzer beat Russia’s Tamilla Abassova for Canada’s first cycling gold medal, capping an injury-marred career for the 38-year-old.
Australia’s Anna Meares, the time trial gold medalist, took bronze.

Russian teenager Mikhail Ignatyev upset the favorites to win the points race, relying on his endurance to beat Spain’s Joan Llaneras (silver) and German Guido Fulst (bronze).

Sailing
American sailors Tim Wadlow and Pete Spaulding lost their chance to win a medal in their first Olympics because of the fickle shifts in the Meltemi wind.

In one race, they picked the left side of the course and watched the wind swing dramatically to the right. In the next race, they went to the right and the wind went left. They won their third race, but it was too late.

Crews from Spain, Ukraine and Britain have locked up the medals, with only the order to be decided in Thursday’s final race. Wadlow, of Boston, and Spaulding, of Miami, can do no better than fourth after finishing 10th and 11th in the first two races.

America’s Cup star Paul Cayard and crew Phil Trinter battled the same shifting breeze, and managed to keep themselves in medal contention in the Star class by rallying again to finish sixth in the day’s only race.

Canoe-Kayak
Kayak racer Rami Zur, a former Israeli Olympian with dual citizenship, looks like the U.S. canoe-kayak flatwater team’s best chance for its first medal since 1992. He nearly won his 500-meter single kayak (K-1) heat race, finishing only .26 seconds behind winner Alan van Coller of South Africa, meaning Zur will race in a semifinal Thursday.

Zur also raced with Bartosz Wolski in the K-2 500, finishing fourth, about 2.8 seconds behind heat winners Marek Twardowski and Adam Wysocki of Poland. That meant a second semifinal berth for Zur.

Meanwhile, seven-time gold medalist Birgit Fischer of Germany continued to make a case that, at 42, she’s still the world’s best in her sport. Setting the pace from the front of her pairs kayak, Fischer and 22-year-old Carolin Leonhardt (born four years after Fischer’s first gold in Moscow) led their 500-meter race from beginning to end, getting a bye straight to Saturday’s final.

No American boats have been eliminated yet, but none made it straight to the finals.

Women’s Water Polo
Manuela Zanchi scored with two seconds left as Italy upset the United States 6-5, setting up a matchup against Greece in the final.

Greece beat defending Olympic champion Australia 6-2. The United States, which is the reigning world champion, will play Australia for bronze in a rematch of the Sydney 2000 final.

Russia scored twice in overtime to edge Hungary 12-11 for fifth place.

Synchronized Swimming
The Russians and Japanese have a lock on the top two spots in synchronized swimming and Americans have a chance at third.

Russia was first with 99.001 points and Japan second with 98.000 after the Olympic duet free preliminary routine. Americans Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova were third with 96.751.

The top 12 teams advanced to Wednesday night’s final.

The Americans are in contention for the first U.S. synchro Olympic medal since 1996. Kozlova was fourth in duet with a different partner at the Sydney Games four years ago, while the United States finished fifth in team competition. They will try to hold off the duo from Spain, who were fourth with 96.084.

Men’s Basketball
Shane Heal was carried off the court on his teammates’ shoulders after Australia defeated New Zealand 98-80 to take ninth place. Heal, a four-time Olympian who announced his retirment before the Athens tournament, scored 30 points in his last game.

Heal was 6-of-7 from 3-point range. Like five-time Olympian Andrew Gaze, who retired after the Sydney Games, Heal will retire without a medal because Australia’s best finish remains fourth — in 1988, 1996, and 2000.

Serbia-Montenegro, the two-time defending world champion, beat Angola 85-62 to finish 11th in the tournament.

Women’s Basketball
Nigeria earned its first win of the competition, beating winless South Korea 68-64 to finish 11th.
China outscored Japan 31-15 in the fourth quarter on its way to a 82-63 victory and ninth place in the Games.

Equestrian
The Germans clinched their third equestrian team gold in as many Olympics — even before their last rider finished with eight total faults — followed by the United States and Sweden for silver and bronze.

Five teams were hoping for their last riders to jump clean to win the silver, with U.S. hopes riding on Beezie Madden and Authentic. Madden, of Syracuse, N.Y., came through, tying for silver with Sweden at 20 faults each and forcing a jump-off.

Madden’s teammates flew as well, with three clean rounds to match three from Sweden, but in a faster total time. The Americans saved precious seconds by cutting across decorative stones that were supposed to be circled, and Sweden caught on to the shortcut too late to catch up.

Women’s Field Hockey
In a matchup of 2000 medalists, Netherlands defeated Argentina on penalty strokes after playing to a tie score after regulation and overtime.

Argentina, which won the silver in Sydney, tied the game 2-2 in the 68th minute on when Maria Magdalena Aicega scored off a penalty corner. After 15 minutes of extra time couldn’t break the tie, the game progressed to penalty strokes.

The Dutch, who have won bronze medals at the past two Olympics, will face either Germany or China for the gold medal on Thursday. Argentina will face the loser of the other semifinal for the bronze.

In the first classification game, New Zealand needed overtime to defeat South Korea 3-2.

Men’s Team Handball
Hungary beat South Korea 30-25 to advance to the semifinals. Hungarian captain Istvan Pasztor scored seven times. Carlos Perez, one of two former Cubans on the Hungarian team, added four goals. Yoon Kyung-shin scored nine goals for the Koreans.

Hungary will face 2003 world champion Croatia, which defeated host Greece 33-27. Croatia jumped out to a 23-13 lead in the second half but Greece cut the margin.

Iceland beat Pan American Games champion Brazil 29-25 to finish ninth, and Slovenia topped Egypt 30-24 for 11th place.

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