High and mighty Tia Hellebaut makes Olympic history

Beijing: Belgium's Tia Hellebaut gave her country their first ever Olympic track and field gold medal yesterday when she won the women's high jump gold medal by clearing a season's best of 2.05 metres.

World outdoor champion Blanka Vlasic of Croatia suffered a rare defeat as she took silver with 2.05m

Hellebaut, the 30-year-old European champion rounded off a memorable Games for Belgium as the 4x100m women's relay team had given them their first ever track and field medal in the Olympics when they won silver.

The race was won the United States after Sanya Richards produced a stunning final leg to clinch gold in a time of 3min 18.54sec, the fastest in 15 years.

Monents later Jeremy Wariner anchored the US 4x400-meter relay team to victory in an Olympic record 2mins 55.39secs Saturday, enabling the Americans to avoid the shame of matching their worst athletics gold haul.

New 400m Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt, 400m hurdles Olympic champion Angelo Taylor, 400m bronze medallist David Neville and two-time world 400m champion Wariner broke the old mark of 2:55.74 set by the US men in 1992.

It was the fastest showing for a US relay since a world-record effort of 2:54.29 at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

The United States also won their fourth straight Olympic women's basketball crown with a 92-65 drubbing of Australia. It was their third straight victory over Australia in an Olympic final.

The wins enabled America to avoid matching their worst athletics gold haul at an Olympics.

But by the end of yesterday's events, the penultimate day of the 2008 Games, America were unable to overtake China's golden lead in the medals table with the hosts on 49 compared to to 34 with just 12 left to play for today.

Bekele's feat

Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele emulated female compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba in claiming a rare long-distance double when he won the 5000m to add to his 10,000m Olympic crown.

Bekele, the world record holder in both the 5000m and 10,000m who claimed silver in the 5km behind Hicham El Guerrouj in the 2004 Athens Games, won the 12-and-a-half lap race in hot and humid conditions around a packed 91,000-capacity National Stadium in an Olympic record of 12min 57.82sec.

Brazil's women's volleyball team put an end to years of heartbreak by winning the Olympic gold medal for the first time in their history here Saturday, defeating the United States by three sets to one.

Their 25-15, 18-25, 25-13, 25-21 victory in a high-class final came after three straight semi-finals and successive bronzes at the 1996 Atlanta Games and in Sydney four years later.

"We struggled a lot," said Brazil's Sheilla Castro. "We played hard and we never gave up. It hasn't hit me that we've won."

Argentina remain Olympic football champions after a goal engineered by superstar Lionel Messi inspired them to a 1-0 win over former champions Nigeria in the gold medal match yesterday before a near capacity crowd of 89,102 at the National Stadium.

Benfica's Di Maria chipped over the advancing goalkeeper Ambruse Vanzekin to break the deadlock and score what proved the winning goal in the 58th minute.

Power-packed Germany annexed the Olympic men's hockey gold medal after 16 years with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Spain.

Christopher Zeller netted the winner in the 16th minute with a ferocious penalty corner before the Germans warded off repeated Spanish attacks to strike gold in field hockey's 100th year at the Olympics.