While China’s gymnasts completed one of the most dominant Olympic performances ever with more gold Tuesday, defending football champions Argentina thrashed Brazil 3-0 in one of the biggest mismatches between the two South American rivals.
Striker Sergio Aguero led the rout with two second-half goals while Juan Riquelme added the third from the penalty spot to take Argentina into their second successive final.
They will face Nigeria in Saturday’s final, after the Africans similarly thrashed Belgium 4-1 in the day’s first semifinal.
There was heartbreak at the Bird’s Nest as well, when American favourite Lolo Jones stumbled in the penultimate hurdle to finish a dismal seventh in the women’s 100m hurdles which was won by her compatriot Dawn Harper.
Also, making the headlines was Christine Ohuruogu of Great Britain who produced a stunning race to add the 400 metres Olympic gold to the world and Commonwealth crowns she already owns, winning in a time of 49.62seconds.
The 24-year-old, who served a one year ban last year for missing three dope tests, beat home Shericka Williams of Jamaica (49.69sec) while favourite Sanya Richards of the United States took bronze (49.93sec).
And in one of the most enduring stories of the games Rashid Ramzi handed Bahrain its first-ever Olympic medal when he won the men’s 1500 metres gold medal.
The 28-year-old Moroccan-born runner won in 3min 32.94sec, outsprinting the field for the Gulf country’s first medal in six Olympic Games dating back to Los Angeles in 1984.
However it are the hosts who can already lay claim to their home Games being their best in history, and their lead at the top of the gold medal table is looking increasingly unassailable.
They bumped up their tally to 43 gold against the United States’ 26 as they work to be only the third nation since World War II — after the United States and the Soviet Union — to end the Olympics on top of the medal table.
Their gymnasts have been a major contributor with Zou Kai winning the men’s high bar and Li Xiaopeng taking the men’s parallel bars crown on Tuesday.
It gave China nine of the 14 gold on offer, the most since the Soviet Union won 10 in 1988.
Zou won his second individual gold of the Games ahead of Jonathon Horton of the United States and Fabian Hambuechen of Germany.
Li added a Beijing gold to the one he scored at the Sydney Games in 2000, beating South Korea’s Yoo Won-chai and Anton Fokin of Uzbekistan to snare his fourth career Olympic title.
On top of that, Lu Chunlong won the men’s trampoline competition.
Off the diving boards, He Chong clinched the men’s 3m springboard title, giving six-out-of-six golds, equalling their best ever tally in Athens four years ago, as they aim for a clean sweep of all eight.
But it didn’t all end as planned.
Guo Shuang wanted a gold in the women’s cycling sprint but ended with bronze, which nevertheless was China’s first ever medal in the sport.
Meanwhile, Liu Xiang made an emotional apology for pulling out of the Olympics with an “unbearable” foot injury.
Liu and the nation’s dream of gold ended when he hobbled off the track on Monday with what transpired to be a long-term problem with his right foot.
“I just feel so sorry. Because there were so many people supporting me, I told myself I had to run, but I just couldn’t do it,” Liu said in interviews with the state-run press.
Liu’s fate, which saw his coach Sun Haiping collapse in tears at a post-race press conference, dominated China’s state-run media with the China Daily, among others, praising his sportsmanship in the face of defeat.
“Liu Xiang was our hero. he still is,” it said.
And in a Games noted for the breakthroughs made by China, a Chinese pair made the women’s beach volleyball final for the first time ever.
Wang Jie and Tian Jia will face formidable opponents in American defending champions Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor.
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