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USA banking on medals leap
2008-08-18
BEIJING (AFP) - After three days of setbacks, the United States is banking on a morale-boosting first athletics victory in Beijing Monday as the Olympic hosts China race away at the head of the medal table. China cleaned up in the first week of the Games when it was left to Michael Phelps to almost single-handedly carry the US, but the balance of power was expected to shift once track and field competition began. But that hasn't happened, and the United States is left banking on world champion Kerron Clement, Angelo Taylor and Bershawn Jackson to stem the tide in the men's 400m hurdles final in the day's closing event. "A clean-sweep? It's going to happen," said Clement. "I just won't tell you in which order." As the world watches the sporting balance of power swing from the West to the East, China heads the medal table with 35 gold, well ahead of the United States on 19 and Great Britain 11 as the Olympics go into their final week. There are 18 finals on Monday and the men's hurdles is one of the few events where the US can excel while China can again expect to at least dominate the five medals available in gymnastics and table tennis. China's leading track hope and defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang makes his first appearance in the men's 110m hurdles heats, after being largely absent from international competiton this year. Mozambique's Maria Mutola will try to write a remarkable last chapter to her Olympic Games history when she contests her fifth 800m final in her sixth Games. Panama's Irving Jahir Saldino Aranda is among the favourites in the men's long jump final where for the first time in Olympic history no athlete from the USA qualified for the medal round. Once the undisputed force of track and field, the USA failed to make the men's high jump final for the first time, did not medal at all in the women's 100m, and world champion Bernard Lagat missed the cut for 1500m final. Britain underlined their credentitials as favourites to win the cycling men's team pursuit when they smashed their own world record to beat defending champions Australia with a time of three minutes 55.202 seconds in the preliminary rounds. They ride off against Denmark for the gold medal while an impressive New Zealand quartet will face Australia in the fight for bronze. In the men's team table tennis tournament China are expected to be too strong for Germany and should match the gold medal China won in beating Singapore on Sunday in the women's final. In Hong Kong, in the second round of the Olympic equestrian jumping competition, defending team gold medallists USA were leading with Switzerland, while favourites Germany lagged in eighth place. The USA's Mclain Ward on Sapphire held equal top spot with Canada's Eric Lamaze and Hickstead in the individual rankings, both with clear rounds and zero penalties. There are also finals Monday in yachting, triathlon and weightlifting. China's emergence at the Games is being taken as a sign that its sports initiative "Project 119", designed to boost the country in the medal standings, is having an effect. Project 119, set up when China was awarded the Games, takes its names from the number of medals in the more universally appealing sports such as athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing and canoeing which were not Chinese strongholds.
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