• Swimming • Field Hockey • Softball • Judo • Women’s Volleyball • Fencing • Rowing • Cycling • Women’s Soccer • Badminton Swimming ATHENS, Greece Michael Phelps won his first Olympic gold medal and broke his own world record
• Swimming
• Field Hockey
• Softball
• Judo
• Women’s Volleyball
• Fencing
• Rowing
• Cycling
• Women’s Soccer
• Badminton
Swimming
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.
Brazil 128, Japan 62
The U.S. women’s basketball team routed New Zealand 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.
Chen Nan scored 17 points to lead China.
Field Hockey
Netherlands 6, South Africa 2
China 3, Japan 0
Germany 2, Australia 1
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 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 shutout of Japan.
Judo
Tadahiro Nomura of Japan won the gold medal in men’s 60kg judo for the third straight Olympics. Teammate Ryoko Tani won her second straight gold in the women’s 48kg 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 48kg bronze medals went to Julia Matijass of Germany and Feng Gao of China.
Softball
Australia 4, Japan 2
United States 7, Italy 0, 5 innings
Canada 2, Taiwan 0
China 5, Greece 0
Jennie Finch didn’t allow a hit in three innings, and the Americans began their run toward a third straight gold medal with a shortened victory over Italy.
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 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.
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 over Taiwan. Bay’s brother is an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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 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 was one second back; Belgium’s Axel Merckx was another seven seconds back in third.
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 could not finish.
Women’s Volleyball
Brazil 3, Japan 0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-21)
Greece 3, Kenya 0 (25-7, 25-22, 25-14)
Germany 3, Cuba 2 (20-25, 24-26, 25-22, 25-15, 17-15)
Russia 3, Dominican Republic 0 (25-17, 25-13, 25-16)
Angelina Grun had 20 points, including 14 kills, to help Germany rally for a five-set upset of three-time defending gold medalist Cuba in the preliminary round.
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.
Also in Pool B, Russia defeated Dominican Republic in three sets. Ekaterina Gamova had 22 points for Russia, the 2000 silver medalist in Sydney.
In Pool A, second-ranked Brazil beat Japan behind 11 kills from Virna Dias. Greece gave the crowd of 2,650 plenty to cheer with a sweep of Kenya. Maria Gkaragkouni had 16 points for the host nation.
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 pair 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.
There are 11 sailing events.
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 at Goudi Olympic Hall. Top-seeded Gong Ruina of China trailed Singapore’s Li Li in the first set before rallying to win 11-9, 11-4.
Women’s Soccer
In the first half, the U.S. women’s soccer team was pushed around by a Brazilian squad that had more hustle, speed and creativity, but the U.S. prevailed 2-0. In the second half, the Americans pushed back.
The Brazilian coach called it dirty soccer. The American coach called it proactive soccer. Regardless, Brazil ultimately had no answer for scoring machine Abby Wambach, whose souvenirs included a ripped jersey, a cut on her side, a goal created and a goal scored in Saturday’s 2-0 victory in the first round of the Olympic tournament.
