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Olympics Day 10:  Eighteen Gold Medals Awarded; IOC Revokes Russian Shot-Putter's Gold Medal - 2004-08-23


Olympic host country Greece has won the women's 20-kilometer walk race for its first athletics gold medal of the 2004 Summer Games. Athanasia Tsoumeleka captured her first international title Monday with a personal best time of 1:29:12.

Tsoumeleka finished four seconds ahead of 2001 world champion and former world record holder Olimpiada Ivanova of Russia.

Ryu Seung-min of South Korea destroyed China's dream of sweeping all the gold medals in table tennis for a third consecutive Olympics with victory over Wang Hao in men's singles. He defeated Wang four games to two in the final.

The U.S. women's softball team has finished a dominating performance at the Olympics by capturing the gold medal.

The Americans cruised to a 5-1 victory, as Crystl Bustos smacked two home runs and pitcher Lisa Fernandez held the Australians to four hits.

The Australians' lone score was the first run given up by the U.S. pitching staff during the entire Olympic tournament. Team USA had eight shuts outs and outscored its opponents 51-1 in its nine games.

Yao Ming led China to a spot in the men's Olympic basketball quarterfinals, scoring 27 points in a 67-66 upset over Serbia-Montenegro. Lithuania and Spain both finished round robin play with 5-0 records as Lithuania topped Australia 100-85 and Spain beat New Zealand 88-84. Tim Duncan scored 15 points as the United States routed winless Angola 89-53 to finish with a 3-2 record.

When the quarterfinals get underway Thursday, China will join Spain, Argentina and Italy from Group A, while Group B sends Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Greece and the United States.

Pairings will be determined by the results of Monday's later games. Argentina plays Italy while host country Greece takes on Puerto Rico.

The International Olympic Committee revoked the gold medal won by female Russian shot-putter Irina Korzhanenko and expelled her from the Athens games for doping.

The IOC said tests showed that Korzhanenko used a banned anabolic steroid stanozolol. It was the 30-year-old Russian's second doping offense at an international competition, and will likely end her career. The shot-put gold now goes to Cuba's Yumileidi Cumba, while Germany's Nadine Kleinert will move up to silver and Russian Svetlana Krivelyova, gets the bronze medal.

Korzhanenko is the second athlete in Athens to be stripped of a medal and ejected. Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis lost his bronze medal Sunday after excessive quantities of the male hormone testosterone were found in his system. In all, nine weightlifters, two shot-putters and one boxer have failed doping tests during this Olympics.

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