Beach Volleyball: US to go on the medal charge

The United States will expect to do well elsewhere in Beijing on Friday (August 22). There is a morning start in the Beach Volleyball Men's final between the United States's Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, who play Brazil's Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes.

US teams won gold medals at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 (Beach Volleyball didn't enter the Olympic roster until 1996) but missed out in Athens. The two teams have played each other seven times, with Araujo and Magalhaes winning five matches.
If Dalhausser and Rogers win, then both Men's and Women's Beach Volleyball gold medals will go to the United States, after Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh's victory in the Women's final.

Olympic Gold medal update

Michael Phelps has created history by being the first athlete to win 11 goal medals at the Olympic Games.

The USA team wins gold in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay final in a world record time of 6:58.56 giving Michael Phelps his fifth gold of the Games.

In an earlier race, the American took 0.06 second off the previous record of 1:52.09 he set at Melbourne in March 2007 to claim his fourth gold and fourth world record in the Water Cube.

Laszlo Cseh of Hungary (1:52.70) and Matsuda Takeshi of Japan (1:52.97) claimed silver and bronze, and the European and Asian records, respectively.

Two days after setting the world record in the Women's 200m Freestyle prelims, Italy's Federica Pellegrini swam and even faster 1:54.82 to take the gold medal in Wednesday's final. Second was Sara Isakovic of Slovenia (1:54.97) with China's Pang Jiaying (1:55.05) in third.

Australia's Stephanie Rice has broken the world record in the final of the women's 200 metres individual medley in a time of 2:08.45.