Bolt moves closer to sprint double, equal Carl Lewis’ feat

Crawford’s compatriot Wallace Spearmon finished third followed by Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis.

From the other semfinal heat, Walter Dix of the US, who got bronze in the 100m behind Bolt, Churandy Martina of the Netherlands, Brian Dzinai of Zimbabwe and Christian Malcolm of Britain qualified.

Bolt, who is leading Jamaica’s charge to break into the traditional area of dominance by American athletes, can equal Carl Lewis’ sprint double achieved in 1984.

Jamaica leads the US 2-0 in this Olympics, having claimed the gold both in men’s and women’s 100m sprints.

The stage is set for an intense rivalry between Jamaica and the US in the track and field as earlier all three American women and an equal number of Jamaicans made it to the quarter finals with ease in the 200m.

However, the Jamaicans were ahead in the heats.

Jamaica’s defending champion Veronica Campbell-Brown coasted to finishing point ahead of American favourite Allyson Felix in their heat.

Shrone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, silver and bronze winners in the 100m, outpaced Muna Lee and Marshevet Hooker in another heat.

Chinese fans sorely missed their icon Liu Xiang in the 110m hurdles on Tuesday, an absence that left the gold in the event at the mercy of Cuba’s world-record holder Dayron Robles who also reached the semifinals and emerged as the overwhelming favourite to win the race.

The first gold in athletics today went to Russian high jumper Andrey Silnov who cleared 2.36 metres, edging out Britain’s Germaine Mason who lept 2.34m. Silnov’s compatriort Yaroslav Rybakov got the bronze.

Germany’s Jan Frodeno claimed the gold in men’s triathlon defeating pre-event favourite Javier Gomez in the final.

Powered by two gold-winning performances by its gymnasts, China maintained its stranglehold as the top country on the medal tally with 42 gold way ahead of the US’ 25. This is China’s best-ever Olympic performance.

There were plenty of upsets in the long jump qualifying round with world indoor champion Naide Gomes of Portugal being the main victim. Five-time world indoor champion Tatyana Kotova, who finished 14th, fell by the wayside with only the top dozen advancing.

China’s gymnasts completed reasserted their supremacy with Zou Kai winning the men’s high bar and Li Xiaopeng taking the men’s parallel bars crown on Tuesday. Gymnastics brought China nine of the 14 gold on offer.

Zou won his second individual gold of the Games ahead of Jonathon Horton of the United States and Fabian Hambuechen of Germany while Li added another gold, beating South Korea’s Yoo Won-chai and Anton Fokin of Uzbekistan to snare his fourth career Olympic title.

Lu Chunlong won the men’s trampoline competition.

In cycling, Britain dominated the competition but their hunt for eight gold was stopped by Argentina which won the team track event while Chris Hoy won the gold in the individual category.

In the men’s triathlon, Jan Frodeno won a sprint finish by overtaking Simon Whitfield in the final stretch.

Frodeno was in a pack of four at the end, but he pulled away to win by 5.19 seconds, taking the 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike ride and 10-kilometer run in 1 hour, 48 minutes, 53.28 seconds.

Whitfield, the 2000 Sydney Games gold medalist from Canada, took silver and Bevan Docherty of New Zealand got bronze.

Paul Goodison earned Britain’s third sailing gold medal of the games with an overall win in the men’s Laser class dinghy. Vasilij Zbogar of Slovenia took silver and Diego Romero of Italy got bronze.

The qualifying round for the women’s long jump at the Bird’s Nest produced some shocks.