LONDON, Aug 4: The US-China battle at the top of the Olympic medals table continued on Saturday with Great Britain rising to third spot following a surge of gold medals.

Britain’s 11th gold at the Games came when their women’s pursuit team shattered its own world record for the second time to beat the US, their fourth gold medal from five events at the velodrome.

The faultless trio of Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell blasted around the polished boards to ear-splitting roars from another capacity crowd in 3min 14.051sec to make laughable the record of 3:14.682 they had set earlier in the day.

United States and China were neck-in-neck at the top of the medals table with the Americans one gold ahead.

America’s Bob and Mike Bryan won their first Olympic gold medal with a 6-4, 7-6 (7-2) victory over French second seeds Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Michael Llodra in the men’s doubles final at Wimbledon.

Meanwhile, China’s Zhao Yunlei and Tian Qing won the badminton women’s doubles title after a scandal-hit tournament when eight players were kicked out for throwing matches. They beat Japanese fourth seeds Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa 21-10, 25-23.

Their compatriot Chen Ding then gave China their 23rd gold medal when he won the men’s 20km race walk, storming home in confident style in front of a packed crowd at Pall Mall in a time of 1hr 18 min 46sec.

At the Aquatics centre, three-time defending champions Hungary crushed Britain 17-6 to reach the quarter-finals of men’s water polo.

There was Dutch delight in the pool when Ranomi Kromowidjojo won gold medal in the women’s 50 metres freestyle.

Her victory followed the passage into the semi-finals of the Netherlands women’s hockey team who defeated South Korea 3-2 for their fourth successive victory in London.

Elsewhere, Brazil stayed on course for a first football gold medal but only after a nervy 3-2 win over a Honduras side saw them into the semi-finals. They were joined in the semis by Mexico and Japan.

In athletics at the Olympic stadium, women’s double pole-vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva safely negotiated qualifying for Monday’s final.—Agencies