A round-up of today's other Olympic stories in brief...
Figures show the world tuned in
OPENING CEREMONY: As China hoped, the world did tune in for the start of the Beijing Olympics with various polls yesterday estimating about one billion people, or 15 per cent of the world's population, watched the opening ceremony.
The four-and-a-half-hour spectacular drew a record audience for an Olympics opening because it was watched by a majority of Chinese viewers, fired up after campaigns about the national importance of hosting the Games. Various pollsters issued different viewer estimates but suggested about 842 million of China's 1.3 billion population watched the ceremony and were joined by other audiences around the world to take total viewer numbers to around one billion.The huge Chinese interest ensured record viewer numbers for the opening ceremony that involved 10,000 performers, 2,008 drummers and a dramatic sky-walking finale as former gymnast Ni Ling lit the Olympic cauldron.
Irish eighth as jumping looms
EQUESTRIAN: Ireland go into today's show jumping phase of the Olympic three-day event in eighth place, with Louise Lyons and Watership Down best placed individually in 35th.
Yesterday's cross-country stage produced a big shake-up at the top of the leaderboard as the eight-minute time allowed on the twisting track proved impossible to achieve. When first out, New Zealander Mark Todd on Gandalf was more than a minute over the time, the pressure was on the remaining riders to beat the clock.
As one of the fastest over the 4,560m track with Marius, German dental surgeon Hinrich Romeike filled the vacant position with his team pushing the Australians to second.
Of the Irish, Austin O'Connor (Hobby du Mee) is just one place behind Lyons and Geoff Curran 39th with Kilkishen. In spite of a run-out for 20 jumping penalties at the first element of fence 22, Niall Griffin (Lorgaine) was quickest of the Irish across the country and lies 41st. Patricia Ryan and Fernhill Clover Mist finished 47th.
Spain vows to hunt drug cheats
CYCLING: Spain yesterday pledged to hunt down and even imprison doping offenders after Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno became the first competitor at the Beijing Olympics to fail a drugs test.
Moreno, better known as Maribel Moreno, was tested for drugs on the day she arrived in Beijing on July 31st and the results showed she had used the endurance-boosting EPO drug, the International Olympic Committee said.
"We are going to hunt down these shameless people who harm our athletes.
"We are going to clamp down totally and will take the toughest action," Spanish Sports Minister Jaime Lissavetzky said.
Moreno was tested just hours after her arrival and returned to Spain the same evening, leaving Beijing in tears and citing an anxiety attack, Spanish team officials said.
Lissavetzky said an investigation would be launched to identify how Moreno got hold of the drugs.
Vezzali takes gold again
FENCING: Valentina Vezzali of Italy won a record third consecutive Olympic women's individual foil gold yesterday, breaking a tie with four seconds left to defeat South Korean Nam Hyun-hee 6-5. Vezzali was down 5-4 with 41 seconds to go and lost a video replay challenge. But she charged ahead and tied the score, setting up the heart-stopping finish.
The 34-year-old world number one has now won more individual Olympic golds than any other fencer.
BOXING: World and European featherweight champion Albert Selimov of Russia was eliminated in the first round of the competition when Ukraine's Vasyl Lomachenko outpointed him 14-7 yesterday.
Selimov was regarded as the favourite to take over the title from compatriot Alexey Tishchenko, the 2004 champion who has moved to lightweight. The draw, however, had been tough on him, with Lomachenko looking to avenge his loss to Selimov at last years World Championship in Chicago.
Murray dumped out
TENNIS: China's Li Na produced the biggest shock so far of the Olympics tennis tournament to beat world number three Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-6 6-4 yesterday.
Li sparked joyful scenes at the end of a day that had seen men's heavyweights Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Noval Djokovic flex their muscles with first-round victories.
Since tennis returned to the Olympic fold in 1988 no man ranked in the world's top five has taken home the singles gold medal.
Three other strong contenders for the men's singles gold, Spaniards David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro and Britain's Andy Murray, were dumped out in the first round.
In the women's event Zheng Jie, who reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon last month, was roared on by a partisan crowd against Hungarian 11th seed Agnes Szavay, storming back to win 4-6 6-3 7-5.
Serena Williams and Venus Williams, most people's favourites to contest the gold medal match on Saturday, had easy victories.
Brazil advance
VOLLEYBALL: Brazil showed why they are favourites to win their first Olympic gold medal in women's volleyball yesterday by crushing six-times gold medallists Russia in straight sets.
Two years ago Russia, once the dominant force in the game, beat Brazil in the final of the World Championships but yesterday there was a huge gulf in class between the two teams.
The Brazilians cruised to a 25-14, 25-14, 25-16 victory.
