OLYMPICS \Other Saturday events

Swimming: The way world records have been falling at the Water Cube, Janet Evans’ 19-year-old standard in the women’s 800-meter freestyle — swimming’s oldest world record — was doomed to go down. And Britain’s Rebecca Adlington dropped it en route to her second gold medal; she also won the 400. Cesar Cielo won the 50-meter freestyle, earning Brazil its first-ever gold medal in swimming. “I’m so overcome with emotion,” said Cielo, a nine-time NCAA champion at Auburn and a bronze winner in the 100 free. “I will continue to struggle and work hard. Hopefully this is the start of many good things to come.” Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry defended her Olympic title in the women’s 200-meter backstroke in a world-record time. Her old roommate at Auburn, American Margaret Hoelzer, got the silver. “I’m definitely pleased that if I couldn’t do it, she was the one,” Hoelzer said. “It’s joy and relief,” said Coventry, who had been second in three previous races at these games. “I touched that wall and said, ’Thank goodness.”’ Also, 41-year-old Dara Torres was the fastest qualifier in the women’s 50 freestyle. She’ll have the middle lane for today’s final. “That’s a little more pressure,” said Torres, whose collection of 10 medals includes bronze in this event in Sydney, “and I’m old enough to be able to handle it.”

Men’s basketball: By beating Spain, the “Redeem Team” clinched first place in its group. The way they did it, though, shows they truly are a force. Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony each scored 16 points and the Americans made 48 percent of their 3-pointers to rout the reigning world champions. An emotional Yao Ming scored 25 points to lead China past Dirk Nowitzki and Germany 59-55 to reach the brink of the medal round — but you would’ve thought they’d clinched a medal by the way they celebrated afterward.

“We fought hard to the end,” said Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets, who added nine points and 11 rebounds. “Now we need to keep pushing ahead.” Manu Ginobili scored 32 and Luis Scola added 20, leading reigning Olympic champion Argentina past winless Iran 97-82, and Andrew Bogut had 22 and eight rebounds to help Australia past European champion Russia 95-80. Mindaugas Lukauskis scored 20 points to keep Lithuania undefeated with an 86-73 victory against Croatia, and African champion Angola dropped to 0-4 with a 102-61 thrashing by Greece.

Men’s volleyball: The U.S. beat China in three sets, but the bigger news was coach Hugh McCutcheon rejoining the team a week after a knife attack that killed his father-in-law and wounded his mother-in-law. The woman, Barbara Bachman, arrived in her home state of Minnesota on Friday for treatment at the Mayo Clinic. After the final point, Riley Salmon embraced his coach. McCutheon joined in a team high-five on the court. “I wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t ready to come back,” McCutcheon said. “It’s what I do — get out on the sidelines and get the boys fired up.” The Americans went 3-0 without their coach, clinching a spot in the quarterfinals before he returned.

Softball: The American juggernaut crushed another opponent, with Jessica Mendoza hitting her third home run in two days and Jennie Finch pitching five shutout innings for a 7-0 victory over Taiwan. They’ve outscored their foes 36-1, have allowed just four hits in 29 innings, and have now won 19 straight Olympic games. In other games, Japan beat China 3-0, Australia beat the Netherlands 8-0 and Venezuela, playing in its first Olympics, stunned Canada 2-0.

Tennis: Roger Federer is going home with a gold medal. The Williams sisters could, too.

Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka took the men’s doubles title, while Venus and Serena Williams clinched at least a silver medal in doubles. The Williamses beating Ukraine’s Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko to advance to the gold-medal match against Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual. The Williams sisters improved to 9-0 lifetime in Olympic doubles. They won the gold medal at Sydney in 2000 but didn’t play doubles in 2004 because Serena was hurt. Federer and Wawrinka beat Sweden’s Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3. Federer closed it out with a service winner, threw up his arms and began hopping, then hugged his partner. This should take help salve finally losing his No. 1 status to Rafael Nadal on Monday. Russia will win women’s singles with countrymates Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva squaring off. Dementieva beat another Russian, Vera Zvonareva, and Safina knocked out China’s Li Na. American twins Bob and Mike Bryan, who have won all four Grand Slam championships, won the bronze in men’s doubles. Novak Djokovic beat American James Blake for bronze in men’s singles.

Baseball: It was another one-run game for the Americans, although this time they wound up on top — after erasing a four-run deficit. Brian Barden homered and had a tying double, then Terry Tiffee doubled in the go-ahead run with two outs in the seventh in a 5-4 victory over Canada. Barden played in place of injured second baseman Jayson Nix a day after Nix fouled a ball off his left eye and needed micro surgery that will keep him out the remainder of the Olympics. The Netherlands beat China 6-4 and South Korea beat Japan 5-3.

Boxing: Americans Shawn Estrada and Luis Yanez lost, leaving only two U.S. fighters in the tournament.

Yanez tied his match against Mongolia’s Serdamba Purevdorj after three rounds, but couldn’t pull it out. Estrada lost to James Degale, the hard-punching Brit known as “Chunky.” Russian Matvey Korobov lost his first fight in five years, going down in a middleweight bout against Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan, the welterweight winner in Athens.

Associated Press