Sports Mela

Four world records tumbled in a remarkable second day of Olympic swimming on Monday as American superstar Michael Phelps’ attempt to win an unprecedented eight gold medals stayed on track. China proved too strong for the competition in men’s synchronised diving and women’s weightlifting. Archery powerhouse South Korea took their gold tally to four with a men’s team victory over Italy and the host nation, keeping them on course for a sweep of gold medals in the sport. Out of competition, the first doping case of the Beijing Olympics saw Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno kicked out of the Games after testing positive for the blood booster EPO. First gold of the day went to Australian Lisbeth Trickett, who won the women’s 100m butterfly in 56.73 seconds from Christine Magnuson of the US (57.10) and Jessicah Schipper of Australia (57.25), missing the eight-year-old world record of Dutch Inge de Bruijn by a mere 12 hundredths. In the 100m breaststroke, Kitajima repeated his gold medal performance from Athens, winning in a world record time of 58.91 seconds, shaving 0.22 seconds off the previous mark of 59.13 seconds set by American Brendan Hansen two years ago. Alexander Dale Oen gave Norway a first swim medal, a silver in 59.20, and Frenchman Hugues Duboscq took bronze in 59.37 seconds. Briton Rebecca Adlington stunned American favourite Katie Hoff to win gold in the women’s 400m freestyle in 4:03.22. In women’s trap shooting, Satu Makela-Nummela gave Finland its first gold, while silver medalist Zuzana Stefecekova broke Slovakia’s Olympic duck. Bronze went to Corey Cogdell of the US. Defending Olympic champion Chen Yanqing retained her title in Women’s 58 kg weightlifting with a total of 244kg to give the powerful Chinese lifting squad its third gold of the Games. Russia’s Marina Shainova lifted 129kg just six seconds before time ran out and took the silver medal with a total of 227kg. In badminton Malaysia’s Wong Choong Hann effectively ended the Olympic career of Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia when he beat him 21-19, 21-16 in the men’s singles round of 32.