United States swimming sensation Michael Phelps won his fourth gold medal of the Athens Olympics as a doping scandal escalated in the troubled weightlifting competition on Thursday.
Phelps produced a storming finish in the 200m individual medley, showing no signs of fatigue in his marathon medal hunt.
The 19-year-old American has a chance to win two more golds and although he cannot equal Mark Spitz’s record seven titles from the 1972 Munich Games, he will be one of the faces that live on from this Olympics.
Carly Patterson won the women’s all-around gymnastics gold medal, the American teen denying three-time world champion Svetlana Khorkina an elusive title in the Russian star’s farewell to the Olympics.
Patterson’s victory lifted the US to top of the medals table with 14 golds.
Meanwhile, the track and field athletes were preparing for the first main day of competition on Friday.
Drug drama continues
The doping that has blighted the sport of weightlifting came back to haunt it as a seventh competitor tested positive for drugs.
The latest lifter to be shamed was Sanamacha Chanu of India who finished fourth in the women’s 53kg category.
Chanu, who tested positive for a banned diuretic used to lose body weight, is the second weightlifter from India to have failed a drugs test in the lead-up to the Games after Pratima Kumari Na tested positive for steroids.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) named five others who had tested positive for anabolic steroids.
Four of the weightlifters failed to show for their events while Sule Sahbaz of Turkey will miss the women’s 75kg division on Friday.
IWF president Tamas Ajan said: ”Some of the coaches who are working abroad from a certain country wish to produce perfect top competitors and these coaches have to take the responsibility if a competitor is [tested] positive.
”After these Games we will find means to be even tougher as we fight to rid the sport of this scourge.”
The IWF came down hard on drug cheats after the sport’s future in the Olympics was threatened following a number of high-profile cases.
Phelps unstoppable
In the pool, Phelps stormed to the fifth-fastest time in history to win the 200m individual medley in an Olympic record of one minute and 57,14 seconds, adding the crown to his titles in the 400m medley, 200m butterfly and 4x200m freestyle relay.
The butterfly race won, Phelps was back on the blocks for the semifinals of the 100m butterfly, in which he topped the times in another Olympic record of 51,61 seconds.
”He just handles himself so well, that he’s able to get over the highs of winning a gold medal, to enjoy it and still come back and race,” said his coach, Bob Bowman.
Aaron Peirsol claimed his second gold medal amid controversy over one of his turns that led to him being disqualified and then reinstated as winner of the 200m backstroke.
But the American’s title was still in jeopardy, with the British team saying they will take the issue to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a bid to elevate fourth-placed James Goddard to the bronze-medal position.
China back on track
China, meanwhile, got their medal charge back on track when veteran badminton player Zhang Ning took the women’s singles title before Zhang Jun and Gao Ling won the mixed doubles final after a determined challenge from British fourth seeds Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms in a final that ended 15-1, 12-15, 15-12.
”It’s a miracle to win at the age of 29,” said Zhang, who burst into tears in the arms of her coach.
Liu Chunhong bettered the world record three times in the women’s 69kg class to win China’s fourth gold of the ill-starred weightlifting competition.
China’s basketball team slumped again, though, going down 82-57 to Argentina with Yao Ming powerless to help.
The US were pushed for three quarters by unfancied Australia before pulling away to an 89-79 win.
”We feel we’re capable of winning the gold medal and that’s why we came,” said 19-year-old US guard LeBron James.
There was a shock in the judo as Kosei Inoue, regarded as one of the greatest judokas in history, failed to retain his men’s under-100kg light heavyweight title, but Noriko Anno restored Japanese pride with gold in the women’s 78kg.
Britain finally won their first gold of the Games with victory in the Yngling sailing class.
The weightlifting doping furore was followed by news that Greek sprinter Kostadinos Kenteris had faked a mysterious motorcycle accident he was supposedly involved in with training partner Ekaterini Thanou after the pair missed a drugs test last week.
Thanou and Kenteris withdrew from the Athens Games on Wednesday after an International Olympic Committee hearing into their missed test. — Sapa-AFP
Special Report: Olympics 2004