China reign supreme in table tennis

[Dinesh Weerawansa - Reporting From England]

China made a clean sweep in the Olympic Games 2012 table tennis tournament, winning all four gold medals that were on offer, in addition to two more silver medals in All-Chinese finals.

It was the second time in succession that China has achieved this great feat of winning men's singles, men's doubles, women's singles and women's double titles after sweeping the board in 2008 Beijing Games in similar fashion.

The great Chinese dominance was finally signalled by Ma Long, Zhang Jike and Wang Hao who eased past South Korea's duo in the men's team final. Profiting from being on home soil in Beijing four years ago, the Asian nation won every top prize on offer. That has proved to not just be a one, off, following more domination at the London 2012 Games.

South Korean trio of Ryu Seungmin, Joo Saehyuk and Oh Sangeun had no answer to their opponents and fell to a comprehensive 3-0 defeat. The victory followed up the team event's success by the Chinese teams as well as the individual gold medals claimed by Zhang and Li Xiaoxia. Germany took the bronze medal as their trio of Timo Boll, Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Bastian Steger beat Hong Kong 3-1. Ma got China off to the perfect start by cruising past Athens 2004 Singles champion Ryu 3-1. The tie between Zhang and Joo was closer. In a match of long rallies, many points saw Zhang deliver forehand smashes and loops that his opponent tried to chop back. More often than not, the world number one came out on top, and he sealed the encounter 3-1.

Zhang and Wang, opponents in the Singles final, joined forces in the Doubles - and duly delivered another gold medal for China. They defeated Oh and Ryu, completing a 3-0 triumph for China in fine style.

Men's basketball quarters

The semi finalists have been found in the men's basketball tournament of the London 2012 Games. Argentina held off a late rally to beat South American rivals Brazil 82-77 and make it to the semi-finals of an Olympic Games for the third straight time.

In the quarter finals of Olympic basketball tournament for men played today, Russia beat Lithuania 83-74, Spain beat France 66-59, Argentina beat Brazil 82-77 and USA beat Australia 119-86. Spain will now take on Russia in Friday's semi finals. The other semi final will see Argentina taking on the USA. In what appeared to be a re-match of the FIBA Americas Championship final won by Argentina last year, they looked comfortable when Manu Ginobili's three pointer gave them an 70-59 lead with seven minutes left to play.Marcelinho Huertas added two points from the free-throw line to start a 9-0 charge that got it to 70-68 on Alex Garcia's lay-up.Pablo Prigioni padded the lead for Argentina and Nene Hilario came up empty with a pull-up jumper before Andres Nocioni gave Argentina a 74-68 edge.Prigioni missed a three and Carlos Delfino a short jumper for Argentina Leandro Barbosa took advantage to slice the lead back to 74-71 with less than two minutes to go.

Argentina then closed it out from the free-throw line with Ginobili, Luis Scola, Delfino and Prigioni all perfect from the line to make it 82-71.Leandro had back-to-back three-pointers late on to slice the margin, buttime ran out on another rally.

Minutes later, Russia made it to the ‘semis’ with an exciting 83-74 win over Lithuania. The three-times bronze medallists of the Olympic Games, scored 18 points in the final five minutes of the third quarter to go from 46-32 down to 54-50 going into the final period. When Rimantas Kaukenas hit a three-pointer to open the fourth period, the gap was just one. But Russia dug deep to pull out the win. Victor Khryapa hit a three in response to Kaukenas, and five quick points from Sergey Monya made it 64-55 with 5:46 left in the game. The game became scrappy as the pressure rose. Songaila turned the ball over, and Alexey Shved missed both free throws for Russia after being fouled.The USA women completed a golden hat-trick in women's beach volleyball.Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walshof the USA won gold in the all-American final of the women's Beach Volleyball at Horse GuardsParade.

The American duo claimed their third consecutive Olympic Games title after they defeated number six seeds Jennifer Kessyand April Rossin straight sets. The first set was evenly matched and was all-square at 13-13 but then the experienced May-Treanorand Walshopened up a three-point gap as they looked to take a 1-0 lead. Ross saved a point with an attack but she could only delay the inevitable, as May-Treanor fired her team to a first-set win.

Both teams fought hard to gain an edge in the second set, with Ross and Kessy pulling back their opponents with a well-timed ace to take it to seven-all. However, three straight errors allowed May-Treanor and Walsh to pull away and they then powered to victory with four match points to spare.

Earlier, Brazil's reigning world champions Larissa Franca and Juliana Silvawon bronze after they came from behind to beat Chinese duo Xue Chenand Zhang Xiin in a hard-fought match. Xue and Zhang eased to victory in the first set before the Brazilian pair stepped it up in front of a packed crowd to win their first Olympic Games medal.

LONDON, Thursday.