London, Aug 5: M.C. Mary Kom, India's medal hope in Olympic women's boxing, put on a valiant display as she downed a bigger Polish opponent Karolina Michalczuk to enter the quarterfinals of the 51 kg category here on Sunday.

The five-time world champion, had to fight hard to progress to the next stage, winning 19-14 at the ExCel Arena. The Indian faces Maroua Rahali of Tunisia in a last...

London, Aug 5: Venus and Serena Williams became the first tennis players to win four Olympic golds on Sunday after a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Czech pair Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in the women's doubles final at Wimbledon.

The Williams sisters had already won doubles gold at the Sydney Games in 2000 and in Beijing in 2008, while Venus claimed the singles gold in Sydney and Serena...

LONDON, Aug 5: Ace discus thrower Krishna Poonia is satisfied with her seventh place finish at the London Games and said she will now aim to do better in the next Olympics in Brazil.

Poonia hurled the discus to a distance of 63.62m, which is more than a metre below her personal as well season's best of 64.76m, but she said she was not disappointed with her performance.

"It was a...

LONDON, Aug 5: Fuming they might be after medal hope Manoj Kumar’s controversial ouster from the Olympic Games, but the Indian boxing team decided against filing a protest against the pre-quarterfinal loss.

Manoj (64kg) cried “cheating” as he exited from the Games ring after being distinctly unlucky in getting points in a bout won by British boxer Thomas Stalker 20-16 ...

LONDON, Aug 5:Lin Dan of China retained his Olympic badminton title edging out Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei in a repeat of their Beijing showdown here on Sunday. The match was a lot closer than the one-sided final four years ago, with Lin prevailing in a deciding game for a 15-21, 21-10, 21-19 victory.

Lin, 28, becomes the first man to retain the Olympic title; and he takes China to within ...

London, Aug 5: Beijing Games bronze medallist Sushil Kumar has promised a good show by the Indian grapplers at the London Olympics where the wrestling competition began on Sunday.

“You will not find the Indian wrestlers wanting on the mat. We are determined to give our best. But then it is sports. Nothing can be predicted,” the soft spoken wrestler said at the Games Village ...

India crushed 1-4 by S Korea

London, Aug 5: The Indian hockey team's poor performance in the London Olympics continued as they suffered their fourth consecutive loss, going down 1-4 to South Korea in their penultimate group B match at the Riverbank Arena here on Sunday.

The South Koreans, who had suffered a 1-2 loss to lowly-ranked Belgium in their last match, played with...

LONDON, Aug 5: Britain's Andy Murray completed an astonishing recovery from last month's Wimbledon heartache to thrash Switzerland’s Roger Federer and claim Olympic gold on Centre Court on Sunday.

Exactly four weeks after Federer had beaten him to claim a 17th grand slam title on the same court, reducing Murray to tears in the process, the Scot returned with an army of flag-waving...

LONDON, Aug 5: Indian shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu fared dismally and finished 25th out of 34 competitors on day one of the qualification round of the men’s trap event at the Olympic Games and has extremely slim chances of making it to the finals on Monday.

At the end of three rounds, Manavjit  in his third Olympics totalled 70 points out of a possible 75 with rounds of 24 2...

London, Aug 5: Juan Martin del Potro won the first medal of the London Olympics for Argentina beating Serbia's Novak Djokovic in their bronze medal match here on Sunday. Both players had six break points throughout the match, but second seed Djokovic missed all of his as he lost 7-5, 6-4.

The Olympic bronze is the second success for the 23-year-old at major tournaments after his victory...

Olympics archery

London, Aug 5: India's archery coaches Limba Ram and Ravi Shankar have no excuse to offer for their team's disastrous show at the London Olympics.

"There are no excuses at all," they said in an interaction at the Games village before team's departure for India. "We trained hard, we were given all facilities by the Archery Association of India, SAI and the...

LONDON, Aug 5: Michael Phelps got up to leave his last news conference at the Olympic pool when his relay mates were asked if they thought he would really stay retired.

Before they could answer, Phelps smiled and said emphatically: “Yes, yes.”

The most decorated Olympian called it a career on Saturday night with a fitting ending - a gold medal in the 4x100-meter medl...

LONDON, Aug 5: The United States won the Olympic swimming women’s 4x100m medley relay gold in a world record time of 3min 52.05sec on Saturday.

The American quartet of Missy Franklin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Allison Schmitt improved on the previous record of 3:52.19 set by China in winning the world title in Rome in 2009.

For 17-year-old Colorado high school student...

WEYMOUTH, Aug 5: Britain's Ben Ainslie became the most successful Olympic sailor on Sunday, winning gold in the single-handed Finn class to claim a record-breaking fifth consecutive medal.

Sailing in perfect, sunny conditions on home waters off the south coast of England, Ainslie added to his three golds and a silver in successive Games by beating Danish sailor Jonas Hogh-Christensen in...

LONDON, Aug 5: Ethiopia’s Tiki Gelana held off Kenyan Priscah Jeptoo to win gold in a soggy Olympic women’s marathon that started and finished in torrential rain on Sunday.

Gelana clocked two hours 23 minutes and seven seconds in a course taking in numerous iconic London landmarks, finishing five seconds ahead of Jeptoo who was unable to reel in her African rival in the fini...

LONDON, Aug 5: Two goals in the last six minutes enabled Pakistan to post a 5-4 victory over South Africa in men's Olympic hockey on Sunday, while New Zealand were held to a 1-1 draw by Belgium.

Waseem Ahmed's field goal three minutes from the end clinched victory after captain Sohail Abbas had converted a penalty corner in the 64th minute to neutralise South Africa's lead in the Pool A...

LONDON, Aug 5: China claimed an unprecedented sweep of all five Olympic badminton gold medals on Sunday after Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng won the men's doubles title at the London Games.

Shortly after Lin Dan had defeated Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei to win the men's singles title, the pairing of Cai and Fu beat Denmark's Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen 21-16, 21-15.

The Chinese pair go...

London, Aug 5: The Swedish crew of Fredrik Loof and Max Salminen took the Olympic sailing gold in the Star class on Sunday, winning the medal race as their British rivals Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson failed to impress. An Olympic title for Percy and Simpson, the 15th-ranked crew in the world, would have been a surprise against the Swedish No. 1 pair, and the British crew fell to second in the ove...

LONDON, Aug 5: Hungary's Krisztian Berki won the men's Olympic pommel horse final on Sunday, preventing Louis Smith from claiming Great Britain's first ever artistic gymnastics gold medal by the finest of margins.

Berki and Smith finished on the same score -- 16.066 points -- but reigning world champion Berki was awarded the gold medal as his execution score of 9.166 was 0.100 points hi...

London, Aug 5: Zou Kai of China defended his Olympic gold medal in the men’s gymnastics floor exercise here on Sunday.

Kai finished with 15.933 points for the title, while all-around individual champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan took the silver and Russia’s Denis Ablayzin won bronze.

Uchimura and Ablyazin were awarded the same score of 15.800, but the judges gave the s...

London, Aug 5: Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce handed the Caribbean its first success of the London Games and became the first woman in 16 years to defend an Olympics 100 metres title when she stormed to victory here.

Despite losing her form toward the finish, Fraser-Pryce was still good enough to cross the line first in 10.75 seconds and repel the challenge from arch-rival American Ca...

London, Aug 5: Mo Farah became the first Briton to win gold in the Olympic 10,000 metres on Saturday, kicking home in the final straight to shake off the challenge of defending champion Kenenisa Bekele. Farah, 29, hit the front on the bell and put in a burst of speed in the last 100 meters to send the home crowd into raptures, clocking 27 minutes, 30.43 seconds.

Ethiopa’s Bekele, ...

LONDON, Aug 5: China’s Sun Yang smashed his own world record to win the men’s 1500 metres freestyle on Saturday and complete the long-distance double at the London Olympics.

Sun followed up his win in the 400 freestyle on the opening day of competition to win the gruelling 30-lap race in a time of 14 minutes 31.02 seconds, slashing more than three seconds off the previous wo...

LONDON, Aug 5: India’s M.C. Mary Kom blazed her way into history on Sunday as women’s boxing made its Olympic Games debut, but the five-time world champion had one regret.

“It’s a very emotional day for me,” said the 29-year mother of two twins. “It’s my sons’ fifth birthday and I can’t be with them today.”

The fighter ...

Chandigarh, Aug 5: Ace badminton player Saina Nehwal will get a reward of Rs.1 crore from the Haryana government for winning a bronze medal for the country in women’s badminton at the 2012 London Olympics.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda congratulated Saina Nehwal Saturday for winning the bronze medal. He said that she had made the country and Haryana proud.

T...

DUBAI, Aug 5: Virat Kohli achieved his career-best ranking as he gained one position to be at second spot in the latest ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen, which was released on Sunday.

Kohli, who entered the India-Sri Lanka five-match ODI series as the third-ranked batsman, climbed to no. 2 following his player-of-the-series performance, in which he scored 296 runs.

The former...

COLOMBO, Aug 5: Impressed with Manoj Tiwary's knock in the final ODI against Sri Lanka, Indian cricket team coach Duncan Fletcher says the middle-order batsman is a "serious contender" for a place in the One-day team.

Fletcher felt Tiwary, who made a fluent 65, has made best use of the opportunities. "His temperament has shown that he is up to the big occasion, when pressure is on he ha...

LONDON, Aug 5: India coach Michael Nobbs apologised to the hockey fans of the country, saying the players had let the nation down with their insipid display as the team slumped to its fourth successive defeat in the Olympic competition on Sunday.

"The players have failed to perform. Call it pressure of whatever, the have let themselves, the team and the country down," Nobbs said after I...

LEEDS, Aug 5: South African opening batsmen Graeme Smith and Jacques Rudolph resisted some hostile bowling before a second rain stoppage on the fourth day of the second Test against England at Headingley on Sunday.

Only an hour of play was possible between lunch and tea as South Africa reached 39 for no wicket, a lead of 33.

There had been an earlier stoppage of two hours, which...

KINGSTON, Aug 5: West Indies had victory tantalisingly in sight at the close on Saturday on the third day of the second Test as they stood 71 runs short of victory with six wickets remaining against New Zealand.

With bowler Narsingh Deonarine on a hot streak, the hosts bowled out the Black Caps for just 154 - leaving the West Indies requiring only 206 and by the close in Kingston they h...

Medal tally :

Nation     G     S     B     Total

China        28    16    14    58

USA        27    14    15    56

Great Britain    1...