Published: August 23, 2008 05:56 pm            

U.S. women, men win 1,600 relays

BEIJING (AP) — Sanya Richards took the baton for the final lap of the 1,600-meter relay with the U.S. in second place. Three turns later, Richards remained several strides behind, yet another disappointment looming.

Then, she made her move.

Richards steamed through the fourth and final turn and caught the front-runner heading into the stretch. The Russian leader looked at the stadium monitor to see Richards closing on her, but couldn’t do anything about it. Richards ended up far enough ahead to throw a celebratory punch and scream, “Yes!” before crossing the line.

It didn’t make up for a different set of U.S. women dropping the baton in qualifying for the sprint relay, but it did keep alive a streak of going home with at least one relay gold at every Olympics since 1984.

There was far less drama in the men’s version — which was to be expected considering the U.S. went 1-2-3 in the 400. With those guys on board, the Americans won in an Olympic-record time. The U.S. has now won that race at seven straight Olympics. It, too, helped erase the disappointment of a flub in the sprint relay.

“To end it with an Olympic record after everything those guys have been through, that shows you they care about representing America,” U.S. men’s coach Bubba Thornton said. “They wanted to end it with a good dose of good ol’ American apple pie.”

The relay golds were Nos. 32 and 33 for the United States, with the women’s basketball making it No. 34 Saturday night. The women’s volleyball team had a shot at gold, too, but lost to Brazil.

The U.S. medal count will be at 107, closing in on the most won at an Olympics not on home turf. Americans also won 107 in Mexico City in 1968, and had 108 in Barcelona in 1992.

Baseball

It came down to the bottom of the ninth, with Cuba facing a one-run deficit. The bases were loaded with one out.

The pitch, the swing … double play. Game over. Gold medal for South Korea, finishing the tournament unbeaten with a 3-2 victory in the final Olympic baseball game until at least 2016.

If indeed baseball never returns to the Olympic agenda, at least the United States can say it went out a winner.

Behind home runs by Matt LaPorta, Matt Brown and Jason Donald, the Americans beat Japan 8-4 to claim the bronze medal.

Women’s volleyball

The U.S. gals had all sorts of emotions, from their coach Jenny Lang Ping being in her hometown, where she remains a star, to the attack on the parents of former player Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman McCutcheon, wife of the U.S. men’s coach.

They rode the wave to the finals. But the Brazilians proved to be too tough.

Brazil won a tight and tense deciding set to defeat the U.S., 25-18, 18-25, 25-13, 25-21, and finish the Olympic tournament without a loss.

“We have nothing to be disappointed for,” U.S. player Logan Tom said. “You see tears; they’re tears of happiness, though. We came a long way this tournament.”

The United States has never won this event, taking silver in 1984 and bronze in 1992.

Diving

The Chinese divers came close, but they couldn’t match Michael Phelps’ feat of going 8-for-8 at the Water Cube.

With seven down, all they needed was the men’s 10-meter platform. But Matthew Mitcham of Australia earned four perfect 10s on his last dive to send this title Down Under for the first time. Zhou Luxin earned the silver for China.

In going 7-for-8, China claimed 11 of the 24 medals awarded in the sport that has produced the host nation’s most Olympic medals.

The Americans, meanwhile, went 0-for-8 — not a single medal. For the second straight Olympics, too. The best the U.S. could muster in this event was David Boudia getting 10th; Thomas Finchum was 12th.

Men’s soccer

In temperatures that topped 107 degrees, Angel di Maria scored off a pass from Lionel Messi in the 58th minute, helping Argentina defeat Nigeria 1-0 and win its second straight Olympic soccer title.

“This group deserved this,” Messi said. “We knew coming in that we may never have this experience again, so we are lucky that everything went well and we got what we wanted.”

Di Maria’s strike was a goal to lift a game in which play obviously was affected by the searing temperatures. The referee took the rare step of twice allowing players to stop and take drinks.

The game was the only one to be played in Beijing’s main Olympic stadium, and it was watched by a crowd of 89,102 that included former Argentina great Diego Maradona.

Nigeria added silver to the gold it won in 1996.

        

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