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Olympic digest: U.S. falls in 11th; Nix hurt

Rocky wire reports

Published August 15, 2008 at 4:55 a.m.
Updated August 15, 2008 at 4:15 p.m.

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Rockies minor leaguer Jayson Nix hits a solo home run off Cuba's Pedro Luis Lazo in the eighth inning of their baseball preliminary game Friday. In the 11th inning, Nix fouled a ball off his left eye and had to leave the game.

Photo by Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Rockies minor leaguer Jayson Nix hits a solo home run off Cuba's Pedro Luis Lazo in the eighth inning of their baseball preliminary game Friday. In the 11th inning, Nix fouled a ball off his left eye and had to leave the game.

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The U.S. baseball team is in trouble.

It fell to 1-2 in the standings, lost a key player to an injury and angered the mighty Cubans by accusing them of dirty play after losing to them 5-4 in 11 innings.

In their first game under a new extra-inning format - from the 11th on, teams start the inning with runners on first and second and begin anywhere in the batting order - the Americans gave up two runs in the top of the inning, then fell one shy in the bottom.

The last at-bat started with Jayson Nix, who began this season as the Rockies' starting second baseman, squaring to bunt and fouling the pitch off his left eye.

Nix, who had homered in the eighth, later underwent microsurgery to close a 2-inch wound above his eye and will not play again in China.

Archery: American Vic Wunderle, 2000 silver medalist in men's individual, beat the defending champion to reach the quarterfinals but didn't get a medal. The gold went to the Ukraine's Viktor Ruban, silver to South Korea's Park Kyung-mo.

Badminton: Du Jing and Yu Yang won China's first gold in badminton, taking women's doubles over a South Korean team. Another Chinese tandem got the bronze, beating a Japanese duo that knocked off the top-seeded, defending Olympic champions.

Boxing With featherweight Raynell Williams' loss, the United States is down to four boxers still in the competition - welterweight Demetrius Andrade, Shawn Estrada, heavyweight Deontay Wilder and light flyweight Luis Yanez. Of the four, only Andrade has fought as many as two bout.

Canoe-kayak: Slovakian twins Pavol and Peter Hochschorner won their third straight gold medal in double canoe slalom, and countrywoman Elena Kaliska won the women's single kayak slalom for her second straight gold.

Diving: China's run to eight gold medals still looks good, with Guo Jingjing leading after the women's 3-meter springboard preliminaries. Guo, who already successfully defended her synchronized springboard title with partner Wu Minxia, is in position to claim her second consecutive Olympic 3-meter individual title.

Fencing: France won the team gold in men's epee for a second straight Olympics, easily defeating Poland in the title bout. Poland still won its first medal in the event since 1980.

Judo: China's Tong Wen won a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Athens champion Maki Tsukada to take the women's heavyweight title and deny Japan a golden double on the final day of competition. Japan's Satoshi Ishii, making his Olympic debut, defeated Uzbekistan's Abdullo Tangriev to win the men's 220-pound class.

Sailing: British star Ben Ainslie was assured his fourth medal when he stretched his overall Finn class lead over American Zach Railey going into today's medal race. In the Yngling class, the Dutch team won to get within a point of first-place Britain. That means today's final will be a British-Dutch match race for gold with the remaining boats in a scramble for bronze.

Shooting: The Emmons family picked up another medal. This time, it was hubby Matt getting silver in the 50-meter prone, an event he won four years ago. His wife, Katerina, who shoots for the Czech Republic, has a gold and a silver from these Games. Also, American Vincent Hancock was leading after the first day of men's skeet qualifications.

Soccer: Natasha Kai scored on a header in extra time, sending the defending champion Americans into the semifinals with a 2-1 victory over Canada.

Softball: Exhibiting continued dominance, the U.S. women beat Japan 7-0 while setting an Olympic record with four homers, then overcame a 1-0 deficit to Canada - their only deficit - for an 8-1 win.

Table tennis: Bronze is still a possibility for the U.S. women's team, which knocked off Romania 3-1. China and Singapore will meet for the gold medal.

Tennis: James Blake, the last U.S. singles hope, lost to Chile's Fernando Gonzalez 6-4, 5-7, 11-9. Blake still can win the bronze medal if he beats Novak Djokavic. Rafael Nadal and Gonzalez will meet in the finals. New women's No. 1 Jelena Jankovic lost in the quarterfinals to No. 6 Dinara Safina, who will play China's Li Na in the semifinals. The other semifinal will pit Russians Elena Dementieva and No. 9 Vera Zvonareva. Roger Federer and the Williams sisters all advanced in doubles.

Volleyball: With China's president watching, the U.S. team coached by former Chinese star Jenny Lang Ping knocked off the hosts in five sets. The Americans are 3-2 overall, in good shape to advance.

Weightlifting: China got its seventh and eighth gold medals in the sport with Lu Yong winning the men's 187-pound class and Cao Lei taking the women's 165. Kendrick Farris set two U.S. records in the men's division but had to settle for eighth place.

Comments

  • August 15, 2008

    2:58 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    kalonblake writes:

    "...accused the Cubans and burly pitcher Pedro Lazo of purposely going at Nix's head."

    I just saw it on TV, Jason squared to bunt, and deflected to ball into his face. No one was going for anyone's head. Bad piece of writing.

  • August 15, 2008

    3:38 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Tropp_itlikeits_hot writes:

    kalonblake....I saw the game too but this article is reporting what was implied. I've read pretty much every article about this game that is online. The US manager truly believes the Cuban pitcher Lazo went after Nix. Its a very unfortunate thing for Jayson to have to deal with.

  • August 16, 2008

    12:07 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    1somelikeithot writes:

    They have badminton in the Olympics and are dropping softball and baseball???? That is too funny.