Highlights of action Friday at the Athens Games

Friday, Aug. 27

STARS

--American Tim Mack won the pole vault by clearing an Olympic record 19 feet, 61/4 inches. Teammate Toby Stevenson won the silver at 19-41/4.

--Manu Ginobili scored 29 points to lead Argentina to an 89-80 victory over the United States in the Olympic basketball semifinals, pushing the Americans into the bronze-medal game.

--Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia won the long jump with a leap of 23-21/2. Teammates Irina Simagina won silver and Tatyana Kotova got bronze -- the first long jump sweep in Olympic history.

--Osleidys Menendez of Cuba set an Olympic record to win the javelin -- throwing 234 feet, 8 inches (71.53 meters), just shy of her own world record.

--Liu Xiang of China won the 110-meter hurdles, setting an Olympic record and tying the world record of 12.91 seconds. It was China's first gold in men's track.

--Nia Abdallah won a silver medal in taekwondo, becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic match before advancing all the way to the final.

--Light heavyweight Andre Ward was the only American to advance to boxing's gold medal round, beating Uzbekistan's Utkirbek Haydarov to extend his six-year winning streak.

--German Birgit Fischer, 42, won in four-person kayak -- the eighth gold of her career -- and became the first woman to earn Olympic medals 24 years apart.

--Robert Korzeniowski of Poland won the fourth gold of his Olympic career, taking the 50-kilometer walk for the third straight time.

--Gunn-Rita Dahle of Norway won gold in the mountain bike race, her 15th straight victory in internationally sanctioned events. She's won 28 of her 32 races since May 2003.

JONES DENIED

A failed baton handoff doomed the U.S. 400-meter relay team, ending Marion Jones' last chance for a medal in Athens. An hour after she placed fifth in the long jump, Jones couldn't make the handoff to 100-meter silver medalist Lauryn Williams midway through the relay.

A MEDAL FOR CROW

Shrugging off critics who said she had no place at the Olympics, Tammy Crow helped the United States to a synchronized swimming bronze. She will report to jail Oct. 25 after pleading no contest to vehicular manslaughter in a crash that killed her boyfriend and a 12-year-old.

ARM IN ARM

Many Italian athletes wore black armbands or strips on their uniforms to honor an Italian journalist killed in Iraq. The soccer team wore them during a 1-0 win over Iraq for the bronze medal. The Iraqis didn't wear similar armbands, despite indicating earlier they would.

CONTACT SPORT

A taekwondo competitor from the Central African Republic was hospitalized for precautionary tests after being knocked out during a preliminary bout. Bertrand Gbongou Liango was kicked in the head by Tuncay Caliskan of Austria during their 150-pound bout.

TAKING A DIVE

American divers didn't get any medals in Athens, their first Olympic shutout in 92 years. Caesar Garcia and Kyle Prandi sealed that fate by failing to advance out of the 10-meter platform preliminaries.

POWELL PROTEST

Police used tear gas to disperse more than 2,000 demonstrators who lit fires, smashed windows and beat up journalists as they marched through downtown Athens to protest the weekend visit of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

REJECTED

The International Gymnastics Federation denied a protest over American Mary Sanders' score in the first day of rhythmic qualifying. The Americans asked for an explanation of why Sanders got an unusually low technical score.

DOPING ROUNDUP

--A record-setting Hungarian weightlifter was in danger of losing his silver medal over a failed drug test. Ferenc Gyurkovics won his medal Tuesday in the 231-pound (105 kg) class.

--Russian 400-meter runner Anton Galkin was expelled from the games after testing positive for steroids after his Aug. 21 race in the 400 semifinals.

COMING UP

The U.S. women's basketball team, undefeated since the 1992 Summer Olympics, meets Australia for the gold medal. ... The American men play Lithuania for the bronze. ... Two Athens gold medal runners, Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco and Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, face off in the 5,000 meters as eight gold medals are awarded in track and field.

WEATHER

It was hot and mostly sunny at Olympic stadium, where the mercury reached 98 degrees. Saturday's forecast called for clear skies and much cooler with a high of 84.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"It's already been in the back of my mind. To do what I did tonight, I owed it to so many people who have supported me. Now, there's a lot of things that lie ahead of me."

-- U.S. synchronized swimmer and bronze medalist Tammy Crow, considering the jail term she faces in the vehicular homicide deaths of her boyfriend and a 12-year-old boy.