Australia's men's quad set a world best time on Lake Shunyi yesterday, before thunderstorms forced officials to suspend the Olympic rowing regatta for the rest of the day.
Australia held off Italy to win the first heat of the men's quad sculls in 5 minutes 36.20 seconds, shaving just over a second off the world best time recorded by a Polish crew in 2006.
Athletes said the strong tailwind made conditions tricky as they had to maintain perfect technique with the boats moving faster.
Hole in lung ruins boxer's dream
A day after learning he had a hole in one of his lungs, American teenager Javier Molina took to the ring in a light-welterweight bout at the Olympics yesterday but his brave efforts were in vain.
Molina, 18, missed Friday's opening ceremony and had stayed in bed for most of the past two days.
"The doctors discovered a hole in his lung yesterday (Saturday)," American coach Dan Campbell told reporters. "The air seeps out into the skin and gets trapped. He had to lie in bed for two days. He did the best he could."
Molina, the youngest member of the American team, looked helpless on his way to a 14-1 first-round defeat by Bulgaria's Boris Georgiev.
'Injury free' Gay passes sprint test
World champion Tyson Gay ran an impressive 100 metres time trial yesterday and said he was experiencing no pain from a July hamstring injury.
"I'm happy with today's training session. I'm injury free, no pain," the American told reporters after a training session at Beijing Normal University.
The session was the first Gay work-out open to the media since he strained his left hamstring in the heats of the 200 metres at the US Olympic trials on July 5.
Gay, the world 100 and 200 metres world champion, will run only the 100, with the final on August 16, and the 4x100 metres relay in the Olympics.
Coventry staying loyal to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, who won silver in the Olympic 400 metres individual medley yesterday, said she would never compete for another country.
In 2002 she took up a scholarship at Auburn University, which has one of the best swimming teams in the US, and despite the economic problems in Zimbabwe, she does not intend to copy other African athletes by switching nationality.
"I will not stop representing Zimbabwe," she told reporters. "It is where I was born, my parents live there and I go back as often as I can and I will never not represent Zimbabwe, as long as I'm swimming.
"I guess when I stop swimming that is when I'll stop representing Zimbabwe," she said, adding that she plans to go back home for two weeks after the Games.
Thanou barred from Beijing Games
Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou has been barred from competing in the Beijing Games because of her involvement in a doping scandal four years ago, the IOC said yesterday.
Thanou and fellow Greek sprinter Costas Kenteris were at the heart of the biggest Olympic doping affair in years when they missed a drugs test just before the Athens 2004 Games. The case brought the Olympic movement into disrepute, the IOC said.
Returning from a ban, Thanou qualified for Beijing but needed IOC approval to compete.
'Devastated' US team win opener
The US men's volleyball team won their opening Olympic game yesterday after saying they were "devastated" by the killing of their coach's father-in-law in the Chinese capital.
Todd Bachman, a US citizen, was stabbed to death in an attack on Saturday by a Chinese man who then killed himself.
Bachman's wife, Barbara, was in a critical but stable condition after undergoing eight hours of surgery. She suffered multiple lacerations and stab wounds in the attack.
US men's team coach Hugh McCutcheon, whose team beat Venezuela 3-2 without him, is married to the Bachmans' daughter Elisabeth, a member of the US women's volleyball team in Athens four years ago.
Athletes told to wear team gear in city
Australian athletes will be advised to wear team uniforms outside of the Olympic village after a relative of a US coach was stabbed to death in Beijing, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) said yesterday.
Rather than marking them out as potential targets, the AOC president told reporters he believed athletes in team gear would stand out more for the thousands of Olympic volunteers and police spread out across the city.
"We will certainly be impressing on our athletes that when their competition is over and they go downtown, there are so many volunteers around, that it would be wise to be branded," AOC president John Coates told reporters. "We really should be insisting they wear their team gear."