Olympics Highlights: Day 16

— -- Basketball

The United States won the women’s Olympic basketball gold medal,beating the home team in the title game. The Americans mowed down Australia 76-54.

The U.S. national women’s team has now won 25 straight games while winning the last two Olympic titles and the 1998 world championship.

Lisa Leslie and Natalie Williams led the United States with 15points each. Sheryl Swoopes scored 14 and Yolanda Griffith added13.

Brazil beat South Korea 84-73 for the bronze medal.

In the men’s division, Canada beat Russia 86-to-83 in doubleovertime for seventh place. Italy topped Yugoslavia 69-to-59 forfifth place.

Boxing

Felix Savon joined fellow Cuban Teofilo Stevenson as a winner ofthree Olympic heavyweight boxing gold medals.

The 6-foot-6 Savon outpointed Sultanahmed Ibzagimov of Russian21-13 to win at 201 pounds. The 33-year-old Savon, a six-time worldchampion, became only the third boxer to win three Olympic golds.The other is Lazlo Papp at 165 in 1948 and at 156 in 1952-56.

Three other Cubans also won, two of them beating Russians. Thefour golds equal the number Cuba won in 1996 at Atlanta. There areno Cubans in Sunday afternoon’s six finals.

Two Americans fight Sunday for gold.

Canoe/Kayak

Birgit Fischer became kayaking’s all-time leading Olympic medalwinner with nine and tied the German record for most career goldswith six, and Kurt Holmann’s victory made him Norway’s greatestsummer Olympian.

Germans also won two other finals. Andreas Dittmer won the men’s1,000-meter solo canoe sprint, and Germany finished first in the 500-meter, four-woman kayak sprint.

Cuban-born Angel Perez helped the United States finish sixth inits first Olympic 1,000-meter K-4 finals.

Cycling

Lance Armstrong of Austin, Texas, the two-time Tour de Francechampion, came in third in the Olympic time trial. He lost toViacheslav Ekimov of Russia, U.S. Postal Service teammate andformer Soviet who won a gold medal in the pursuit in the 1988Olympics.

Leontien Zijlaard of Netherlands took her third cycling goldmedal in winning the women’s time trial. She also won the road raceand 3,000-meter individual pursuit, where she set a world record,and took silver in the points race.

Diving

Chinese divers took the gold and silver medals in the men’splatform competition, making China the first nation to win five gold medals at a single Olympic games.

Russian diving star Dimitry Sautin won bronze.

Mark Ruiz of Orlando finished sixth, and David Pichler of Fort Lauderdale was ninth. The U.S. diving team won just one medal in Sydney — Laura Wilkinson’s gold — for its poorest showing since 1912.

Equestrian

Anky van Grunsven of Netherlands rode an energetic Grand Prixfreestyle test on Bonfire to beat the defending Olympic championIsabell Werth of Germany on Gigolo.

Field Hockey

After scoring two goals in the last five minutes to tie thedefending champions the Netherlands 3-3, South Korea lost thegold 5-4 in a penalty stroke shootout.

The 30 minutes of extra time were scoreless and the two teamswent into the penalty shootout. The Dutch scored all five oftheir penalties but Song Seung-tae missed Korea’s third stroke.

The silver was still the South Koreans’ best Olympic finish byfar. The only other time they have finished in the top eightwas in Atlanta, where they placed fifth.

Gymnastics (Rhythm)

Russia won a tie-break over Belarus to claim the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics team goldmedal on a night punctuated with boos, whistles andpuzzling scoring.

Russia, bronze medalist in Atlanta where the team eventmade its Olympic debut, finished level with Belarus on 39.500points.

But the world champions were awarded the gold havingobtained a higher mark in qualifying.

Greece took the bronze with 39.283.

Handball

Russia won the Olympic men’s handball title for the fourth time, beating Sweden28-26 in the gold medal match.

The Russians, who won gold in 1976 and 1988 as the SovietUnion and in 1992 as the Unified Team, upset the world andEuropean champions to win their third Olympic crown in 12years.

The Swedes were left clutching silver for the third time ina row after they were beaten by the Unified Team in the 1992Olympic final then by Croatia in the 1996 final.

With the king and queen of Sweden watching from the stands,the Scandinavians opened the scoring in the first minutethrough their captain Stefan Loevgren and held on to lead 14-13a halftime.

But the Russians took control in the second half,establishing a five-goal lead midway through and holding on fora narrow victory thanks to a series of brilliant saves by theircaptain and goalkeeper Andrei Lavrov.

Lavrov, 38, became the first man to win three Olympic goldsin handball. He was given the honor of carrying the Russianflag at the opening ceremony two weeksago.

Earlier, Spain beat Yugoslavia 26-22 in the third-placeplayoff to successfully defend the bronze they won in Atlanta four years ago.

Modern Pentathlon

Dmitry Svatkovsky of Russia crossed the finish line of the 3-kilometerrun, raised his arms in triumph and then dropped to his knees,touching his head to the ground in disbelief that he’d won the goldmedal.

Svatkovsky moved from fifth to first in the final event to win the modern pentathlon gold medal. Gabor Balogh of Hungary won the silver, and Pavel Dovgal ofBelarus took the bronze.

Americans Chad Senior finished sixth, and Velizar Iliev, who emigrated to the UnitedStates from Bulgaria in 1991, was ninth.

Olivier Clergeau of France was leading but faded in the finalevent, the cross-country. Svatkovsky beat Clergeau by nearly aminute to take the gold with Clergeau fading to eighth.

Sailing

Four-time Olympian Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl of theUnited States have won the gold medal in the Star class of Olympicsailing.

Iain Percy of Britain won the gold in the Finn class.

Soccer

Cameroon used an own-goal off the face of a Spanish defender andpenalty kicks in a shootout to win the Olympic title over Spain.

Pierre Wome scored the clinching penalty kick as Cameroonoutscored Spain 5-3 in the shootout, after the two teams wound uptied at 2-2 after two overtimes.

Taekwondo

Kim Kyong-hun charged away with the gold in the taekwondo80 kg class by knocking off Daniel Trenton of Australia 6-2 togive South Korea three golds and a silver from the four weightclasses they entered in taekwondo, an ancient Korean martialart which resembles karate but focuses on kicks with bare feet.

China picked up two more golds on the second to last day ofthe Games, with Chen Zhong beating Russian Natalia Ivanova 8-3in the 67 kg division for the first Chinese taekwondo gold.

Track

Marion Jones has her five medals. Three of them are gold. Theother two are bronze.

Jones was part of first- and third-place relay teams today. The U.S. women’s 4x100 relay team had some problems with baton passing, and finished third behind the Bahamas and Jamaica. It’s the first-ever track and field gold for the Bahamas.

The American unit had no trouble. Jones, runningthird, built a huge lead as the Americans won by a large margin.

Merlene Ottey helped her Cuban team to a silver medal in the 400-meter relay. It was Ottey’s 35th career medal in Olympic and world championship competition combined. At the 1980 Moscow Olympics she helped her team to a bronze medal in the relay and had bronzes at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The U.S. men swept their relays. They had no trouble streaking togold in their 400-meter relay. With Maurice Green running theanchor leg the Americans logged a winning time of 37.61seconds. With Michael Johnson anchoring the 4x400, they ranaway to another gold.

Nouria Merah-Benida of Algeria won the women’s 1,500. American MarlaRunyan finished eighth and Suzy Favor Hamiltonfinished 12th and last after exhausting herself in the lead.Hamilton faded and fell on the last turn, but got up and completedthe race. She was taken from the field in a wheelchair, apparently suffering from dehydration. She is fine.

Ethiopia took gold and silver in the women’s 10,000-meterrun. Gold in the men’s 5,000 went to Millon Wolde ofEthiopia, and Trine Hattestad of Norway won the women’s javelin.

Volleyball

Rallying from a two-game deficit, Cuba stormed back to win arecord third consecutive gold medal with a thrilling 25-27, 32-34,25-19, 25-18, 15-7 victory over Russia.

Cuba now has won every major international competition since the1992 Games, building an amazing 35-3 record in world championshipsand Olympics.

Brazil had too much quickness and strength for the United Statesand won the bronze medal easily 25-18, 25-22, 25-21.

Water Polo

Russia finished off Manuel Estiarte’s try at a second straightSpanish gold with an 8-7 sudden death victory in the semifinals.Dmitri Gorchkov scored from five meters out with 9:55 gone in thesudden death session. The teams played almost 18 scoreless minutesafter finishing regulation at 7-all.

In the other semifinal, favorites Hungary edged Yugoslavia 8-7.Hungary holds the Olympic record with six golds. But it has not wona tournament since 1976 or a medal since its bronze in 1980.

Hungary’s Gergely Kiss scored the game-winner with 5:34remaining and reserve goalie Zoltan Szecsi made it stand up downthe stretch.

Wrestling

The United States’ 12-match win streak in wrestling ended with two lossesand two silver medals. Samuel Henson of St. Louis lost the119-pound match to a wrestler from Azerbaijan 4-3.

Brandon Slay of Amarillo, Texas, dropped his 167 and a-halfpound final to Alexander Leipold of Germany, 4-0. Leipold’s gold was the first won by Germany in wrestling in 40 years.

Both Americans got silver medals.

Other U.S. wrestlers who could win medals: Terry Brandsof Omaha, Neb., Kerry McCoy of Longwood, N.Y., LincolnMcIlravy of Rapid City, S.D., and Charles Burton ofBloomington, Ind., all won their pool competitions. All advanceto their weight division quarterfinals, which are Sunday.