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(AP) - Welcome to the rest of the Beijing Olympics - the Summer Games of 2008, A.P.      
After Phelps.

      The games continued Monday in search of a new headliner now that
Michael Phelps has toweled off for the last time. The Bird's Nest
seemed the likeliest place for someone to emerge and, indeed, the
big news of the day came from the track.

      However, it wasn't good news. It was the sad sight of Chinese
hurdler Liu Xiang limping to the starting blocks, trying to race
through injuries and quickly finding out he couldn't.

      To understand how big a deal this is, you have to understand how
big a deal he is.

      Liu is China's first-ever male gold medalist in track, having
won the 110 meters in Athens. 


Folks have spent the last four years
expecting him to do it again on home turf, and in this land of 1.3
billion people, he's nearly as much of a celebrity - not just
sports star, full-fledged celebrity - as their main man, Yao Ming.

      That's why people inside the stadium cried. Why folks watching
at subway stations gasped. Why his personal coach was too overcome
with grief to speak at a news conference.

      The Olympics, however, still went on Monday, without Liu or
Phelps. At least there's still Usain Bolt and his bid to become the
first winner of the 100- and 200-meter races since Carl Lewis in
1984.

      Bolt was second in his opening-round heat of the 200 in the
morning, then easily won his quarterfinal heat at night, jogging
down the stretch and still topping the reigning champ Shawn
Crawford of the United States by several strides.

      Other notable events included another rout by the U.S. men's
basketball and softball teams, a frustrating silver for gymnast
Nastia Liukin and a bad break, in more ways than one, for U.S.
cyclists.

      The United States still tops the medals table, now with 72, but
China continues to run away with the most golds. With four more
Monday, the Chinese are up to 39 (more than the overall count for
any country but the U.S.), while the Americans have 22.

      Also, Britain is up to 12 gold medals, its most since 1920, and
kudos to male long jumper Irving Saladino for picking up Panama's
first-ever gold in any sport.

      The U.S. flag finally rose at the Bird's Nest, and it came from
an unexpected source when Stephanie Brown Trafton won the women's
discus. It went up again later when Angelo Taylor won the 400-meter
hurdles, with Americans Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson taking
silver and bronze.

      After capturing only one of six possible medals in the men's and
women's 100, watching the 1,500-meter team of Bernard Lagat, Lopez
Lomong and Leo Manzano all fail to advance past the semifinals, and
seeing Terrence Trammell get hurt in the opening heat of the 110
hurdles, Brown Trafton's victory was a much-needed lift. The 400
sweep was awfully nice, too, something no country had done since
the U.S. in 1960.

      Also, Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva won her second consecutive gold
in women's pole vault, topping American rival Jenn Stuczynski and
then upping her own world record to 16 feet, 6¾ inches; Brimin
Kipruto made it seven straight Olympics that Kenyans have won the
men's 3,000-meter steeplechase; and 18-year-old Pamela Jelimo led a
1-2 Kenya finish in the women's 800.

      Despite the pain of a lingering hamstring problem and the added
bother of a tendon flare-up in his right foot, national pride
carried Liu to the start line.

      He took off at the gun, took three strides and then began
hopping on his left leg, the good one. Someone else false-started,
so he could have tried again, but there was no way. He peeled the
lane-assignment number off each leg and headed for a tunnel.

      "He couldn't imagine the pain he was suffering," said China's
track and field coach, Feng Shuyong. "Let me repeat: Liu Xiang
will not withdraw unless the pain is unbearable."

      So the guy who croons in a music video, appears in TV
commercials and looms on billboards will no longer have his
gold-medal defense play out daily Monday through Thursday.

      "After Liu Xiang's injury, I won't bother coming back to the
Bird's Nest for more," a 67-year-old Chinese fan said as he left
the stadium.

      It's a good thing Nastia Liukin already won the all-around,
because the way she got silver in the uneven bars is enough to
drive a gal nuts.

      Liukin and China's He Kexin got the same score, requiring a
tiebreaker because dual medals are no longer awarded in gymnastics.

The details are pretty crazy; all that matters is He won and Liukin
didn't. He, by the way, is among the girls who many believe is too
young to be eligible for these games.

      This was Liukin's fourth medal of the games, matching her dad's
haul when he competed for the Soviet Union. 

Coincidentally, one of
Valeri Liukin's golds, on high bar in 1988, came in a tie.

      Oddly, there also was a deadlock for the men's vault gold, which
went to Poland's Leszek Blanik.

      Chen Yibing extended China's perfect run of gold by winning the
still rings competition. That string ended only because no Chinese
men qualified for vault.

      Liukin's silver gave the United States six overall medals. China
has five, including team gold.

      Also, China's He Wenna won the women's trampoline.

      The "Redeem Team" keeps powering through the Olympics,
crushing Dirk Nowitzki and Germany 106-57. Next up: A quarterfinals
game against Australia, which gave the U.S. team its only close
competition thus far in an exhibition game two weeks ago. The
winner goes to the semifinals against the Argentina-Greece winner.

      "We feel like we're playing very well right now, but you have
to keep in mind it's single elimination," Kobe Bryant said. "You
can't afford any slip-ups."

      China secured a spot in the medal round despite losing 91-77 to
Greece. Yao Ming and his pals will next play Lithuania, while Spain
will face Croatia, the winners of those games meeting in the other
semifinal.

      Yes, the meet is over, but Phelpsmania continues.

      People magazine, The Hollywood Reporter and "Access Hollywood"
were all represented at an appearance, with photographers piling on
each other to capture his every move. There will be more
appearances here until Thursday, when he'll head to London to help
in the handover from China to the 2012 host during Sunday's closing
ceremony.

      He has taken time to hold all eight golds at once. What was it
like? 

      The U.S. team beat China 9-1 in a game that featured rough play
such as a home-plate collision that knocked out China's top player,
a retaliatory hit batsman and three ejections.

      Also, American second baseman Jayson Nix - still recovering from
a foul ball off his left eye that resulted in surgery, stitches,
bruises and fuzzy vision - said he hopes to still return to Olympic
play.

      "If the doctors say he can go, he says he can go and (manager
Davey Johnson) says he can go, he can go," said Paul Seiler, USA
Baseball's executive director. "Time will tell, but he's not a guy
you write off."

      South Korea remained unbeaten with a wild 9-8 victory over
Taiwan and Japan beat Canada 1-0.

      Feel free to move on to the next section if the details of the
latest U.S. rout bore you.

      It was a nine-run first inning against the hostesses on the way
to a 9-0 win over China, leaving the Americans two wins from
another gold medal. Their win streak is up to 23; two more and they
get another gold before their sport goes off the docket until at
least 2016.

      Up next is Japan, already a 7-0 loser to the U.S., although
their ace was saved for the rematch.

      Canada lost to Japan 6-0, but advanced to a semifinal game
against Australia.

      Guess the nationality of the men's 3-meter springboard leader
coming out of prelims? China, of course.

      He Chong is on top, with two Americans chasing. Chris Colwill
finished seventh and Troy Dumais was 12th, getting them into a
semifinal Tuesday morning. The final is Tuesday night.

      There won't be an all-American men's final.

      Although top-ranked duo Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser rolled
into the semifinals with a win over a German team, Jake Gibb and
Sean Rosenthal lost to the defending Olympic champions from Brazil.

      Next up for Rogers and Dalhausser is surprising Georgia on
Wednesday.

      Get ready for a rematch. Just like 2004, the final will pit the
United States and Brazil.

      The Americans advanced by beating Japan 4-2. Brazil got there
with a 4-1 victory over Germany.

      The U.S. appears headed toward a second straight Olympics
without any medals from the velodrome. American Sarah Hammer
appears headed toward a layoff after breaking her left collarbone
in a fall during the women's points race. Jennie Reed also lost in
the sprint quarterfinals.

      Britain continued to dominate, knocking nearly 2 seconds off the
world record it set a day earlier to win the men's team pursuit.
The medal gave Britain 12 golds for the Olympics so far, already
its best showing since 1920. It also was its fifth gold medal in
track cycling in Beijing.

      World champion Marianne Vos of the Netherlands won the women's
points race.

      Mauritius is a tiny island nation 560 miles off the eastern
coast of Madagascar. That's worth knowing because it has produced a
bantamweight medalist, although Bruno Julie isn't done fighting.

      Julie beat Venezuela's Hector Manzanilla in the quarterfinals,
securing no worse than bronze. Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl
Lomachenko also clinched a medal with his third virtuoso
performance of the Olympics, pounding China's Li Yang.

      Super heavyweight Zhang Zhilei knocked down Kazakhstan's Ruslan
Myrsatayev twice in a 12-2 victory that assured China of at least
two boxing medals in Beijing after winning just one in its previous
history.

      Moldova bantamweight Veaceslav Gojan clinched his nation's
second boxing medal with an upset victory over India's Akhil Kumar.

      Cuba secured its fourth medal with bantamweight Yankiel Leon's
victory over Worapoj Petchkoom of Thailand, but Azerbaijan's Shahin
Imranov upset young Cuban featherweight Idel Torriente, just the
second of Cuba's 10 fighters to lose in Beijing.

      Australia took first and third, with Emma Snowsill pulling away
early in the 10-kilometer run to finish more than a minute ahead of
the field. American Laura Bennett finished fourth, less than 30
seconds shy of a medal.

      "I'm very pleased," Bennett said. "I had bike issues
somewhere in the middle of the bike leg. I gave everything I had."

      After a morning decision to give Denmark the gold medal in the
49er skiff class - even though they used a boat borrowed from
Croatia - the regatta continued with Australia taking the men's and
women's double-handed 470 dinghies.

      Medal races in the men's Laser and the Laser Radial for women
were slated for Tuesday. American favorite Anna Tunnicliffe led
overall after nine Laser Radial races, seven points ahead of
Lithuanian Gintare Volungeviciute and 11 points ahead of China's Xu
Lijia.

      The U.S. beat Germany and won its preliminary group, earning an
automatic berth in the semifinals. The Americans are guaranteed of
finishing at least fourth, which would match their best since 1988.

      "It's a great feeling," captain Tony Azevedo said. "We're
definitely the underdog story."

      The Americans will face the Serbia-Spain winner Friday. There
was chatter that the Serbs lost a game to get into an easier
bracket - the one the Americans are in.

      "If Serbia gets that far, we'll be ready for them," U.S. coach
Terry Schroeder said.

      No goals. No more Olympics for the U.S. women, who were
eliminated after a scoreless draw with Britain. The Americans went
1-1-3, remaining without a medal since 1984. This was their first
Olympics since 1996, when they got in automatically as the host
nation.

Sports

Olympics and Paralympics

Welcome to the rest of the Beijing Olympics - the Summer Games of 2008, A.P. After Phelps.
The games continued Monday in search of a new headliner now that Michael Phelps has toweled off for the last time.

China's Liu out; Bolt eyes double

Go Deeper.

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