Two days in a Beijing hospital with appendicitis took its toll on Canadian archer John David Burnes who lost to American Brady Ellison in the first round of the men's individual event yesterday.

Burnes lost 89-111 in the 12-arrow match, with two shots landing in the seldom visited four-point band. No one else had scored lower than a five in Beijing.

Sitting alone at the practice range after the defeat, a dejected and deflated Burnes told Reuters his preparations had been hit hard by the minor appendicitis, which struck just days before the competition began.

"My whole body is pretty weak right now after so many days without eating," he said.

"I thought I was prepared but then you get hit with something like this."

Aussie players furious with refs

Australia were furious with the "stupid" referees after conceding an equaliser to Hungary with just four seconds left on the clock in the women's waterpolo preliminaries.

Seconds away from an almost certain semi-final place, the "Aussie stingers" had a player excluded for a foul, and Hungary's Aniko Pelle took advantage.

"The referees were wrong," said Australian coach Greg McFadden. "The Hungarian player has hold of us, and we get excluded. It's total rubbish as far as I am concerned."

With both teams winning their opening fixtures, the game was seen as the decider in Group B. The group winners get an automatic semi-final place, with the runners-up facing the third place team from Group A in the quarter-final.

Australia's players said the 7-7 draw felt like a defeat.

"I feel like we had them beaten the whole way," said Gemma Beadsworth.

"But we haven't got time to be disappointed, now we have to think about Greece."

Six injured in bus crash

Three Chinese people were critically injured and three Croatian rowing team members suffered minor injuries when an Olympic bus travelling to the rowing venue collided with a private van yesterday.

"The IOC has been informed of a collision that took place today between a bus transporting athletes to an Olympic rowing venue at Shunyi and a small van," the IOC said in a statement.

"Three Croatian team members, two athletes and a coach, have been treated for slight injuries. The athletes will compete this afternoon (yesterday) as planned."

Australian team officials said three of the four Chinese people in the van were badly hurt.

"It was a major collision," said Australian rowing team doctor Greg Lovell, who was on the bus.

"Three of the four people were critically injured and, according to our team doctor, they were very, very seriously injured but I don't know whether or not they died," Australian team spokesman David Pembroke said.

Chinese hunt for 'missing' dad

China's huge Internet community has sparked a nationwide search for the father of 10m air pistol gold medallist Guo Wenjun who abandoned her 10 years ago and left her to the care of her coach.

Guo's heartbreak at being away from her father reached a pitch last year when she was ready to quit shooting.

Huang Yanhua, Guo's coach, was quoted as saying he had convinced her to keep going by telling her her father would be disappointed if she gave up and winning an Olympic gold medal "could be the most effective of any Missing Persons notice".

Guo's parents divorced soon after she was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Guo's father raised her and introduced her to shooting when she was 14. But she has not seen him since he left one night in April 1999.

"All he left was a note to Huang, her coach, saying, 'I'm going far away. I want you to treat Wenjun as your own daughter and help her do her very best'," a report said.

Togo hero says time to visit Togo

Togo's first medallist at an Olympics, white water kayaker Benjamin Boukpeti, said it was finally time for him to visit the country he competes for. He was born in France to a French mother while his father and two sisters are from Togo.

"Unfortunately, I've only ever been once to Togo, when I was very little, because my mother wanted to present me to my grandmother," Boukpeti said after earning a bronze in the singles kayak on Tuesday.

"But now I think I have a very good reason to go."

Boukpeti, ranked 56th in the world, stunned the field and bewildered spectators when he took the lead in the first of two final runs, then held on for bronze in his second run.

Boukpeti, 27, sought to compete for the West African nation when it was clear he was too old to have a real shot of making the French team.

Sponsors want more fans for their buck

Beijing Olympics sponsors, who have invested heavily to promote their brands at the Games, have complained that too few fans are passing through the areas where they have set up shop.

Many sports venues are scattered across the vast Olympic Green in the north of the city but only small numbers of the hundreds of thousands of spectators are finding their way to the sponsors' pavilions in the area.

"It is true we got questions from the sponsors that they would like to see more people," the IOC said. "Even with 200,000 people, we could have more."