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ATHENS, Aug 19: Chinese weightlifter Liu Chunhong boosted her country's narrow gold medal lead over the United States at the Athens Olympics on Thursday before U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps got into the pool to resume his medal hunt.
Nineteen-year-old Liu took the title and set a world record in the women's 69 kg class with lifts totalling 275 kg, giving China its fourth weightlifting gold of the Games.
Nineteen-year-old Phelps was favoured to capture his fourth gold and sixth medal of the Games later in the day in the 200 metres medley. Zhang Jun and Gao Ling of China tossed another gold onto China's pile at the mixed doubles badminton while world champion and world record holder American Amanda Beard seized the top honours in the women's 200 metre breast stroke.
There was more drama at the pool when Aaron Peirsol's gold in the men's 200m backstroke last about a minute later before he was disqualified for an illegal turn and the medal handed to Austria's Markus Rogan.
Outside the arenas on Day Six, the 28th Olympiad was annoyed by a bomb hoax, disappointed by more doping cases and buffeted by Middle East politics. Officials backed away from sanctioning Iran for its judo world champion's failure to fight an Israeli and five new doping cases in weightlifting were reported.
Iran had publicly boasted that its judo world champion Arash Miresmaeili - disqualified for showing up over the maximum weight - was told not to go to the mat with Ehud Vaks last Sunday because of Tehran's political boycott of Israel.
But the International Judo Federation (IJF) said that after investigation it had determined that it was not politics that kept Miresmaeili from fighting Vaks, but a digestive problem. He was fully 5 kg over the 66 kg limit at the weigh-in.
"The commission concluded that since Mr Miresmaeili stated that he had no pre-planned intention for not competing ... the only point that remained was that Mr Miresmaeili was overweight on the weigh-in day," the IJF said.
The fate of Russian swimming great Alexander Popov was a reminder that sporting superpowers come and go and the path to Olympic glory is unforgiving. Competing at his fourth and final Olympics at age 32, he failed to make it past the heats of the 50 metres freestyle.
Noriko Anno landed a record sixth judo gold medal for Japan and Manfred Kurzer of Germany won gold in probably the last Olympic 10 metre running target shoot. The event is being axed as part of a drive to trim the Olympics. -Reuters
MEDALS TABLE
ATHENS: Medals table on the sixth day of competition at the Olympics on Thursday at 1800 GMT:
G S B T
1. China 14 9 5 28
2. U.S. 10 10 9 29
3. Japan 9 4 2 15
4. Australia 6 4 7 17
5. Ukraine 5 1 1 7
6. Italy 4 4 3 11
7. Germany 4 2 6 12
8. Russia 3 7 8 18
9. France 3 3 4 10
10. Greece 3 0 1 4
11. South Korea 2 6 3 11
12. Netherlands 2 4 4 10
13. Hungary 2 3 1 6
14= Romania 2 0 1 3
14= Turkey 2 0 1 3
15. Britain 1 3 4 8
16= Poland 1 2 1 4
16= Slovakia 1 2 1 4
18. Belarus 1 1 1 3
19= Georgia 1 1 0 2
19= South Africa 1 1 0 2
22= Bulgaria 1 0 2 3
22= Thailand 1 0 2 3
24. Switzerland 1 0 1 2
25. UAE 1 0 0 1
26. North Korea 0 2 1 3
27. Austria 0 2 0 2
28. Cuba 0 1 5 6
29= Czech Rep 0 1 1 2
29= Zimbabwe 0 1 1 2
31= Spain 0 1 0 1
31= Indonesia 0 1 0 1
31= India 0 1 0 1
31= Portugal 0 1 0 1
31= Serbia, M'negro 0 1 0 1
36= Azerbaijan 0 0 2 2
36= Belgium 0 0 2 2
36= Brazil 0 0 2 2
36= Denmark 0 0 2 2
40= Argentina 0 0 1 1
40= Canada 0 0 1 1
40= Colombia 0 0 1 1
40= Croatia 0 0 1 1
40= Israel 0 0 1 1
40= Mongolia 0 0 1 1
40= Slovenia 0 0 1 1
