Swimming phenomenom Michael Phelps claimed his sixth Beijing gold and sixth world record, and Polish shot putter Tomasz Majewski won the first athletics gold as the Bird’s Nest opened on Friday.
Three-time world champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopa won the first track race setting an Olympic record in winning the women’s 10,000m.
The world’s three fastest men of all time - American Tyson Gay and Jamaicans Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt - cruised through the first round heats of the men’s 100m, ahead of Saturday’s highly-anticipated final.
Day seven of the Beijing Olympics also saw two competitors thrown out of the Games after failing drugs tests - North Korean shooter Kim Jong-Su, who had won a silver and bronze medal, and unplaced Vietnamese gymnast Do Thi Ngan Thuong.
A day after drawing a golden blank, the United States staged a four-gold blitz raising spirits after the traditional sporting powerhouse had struggled through the first week.
But they made no inroads on China on the medal table as the hosts also won another four events to have 26 gold medals while the United States are second with 14, nearly half of them from Phelps as he moved within one of Mark Spitz’s record seven gold at one Games.
Majewski shocked the United States when he threw a personal best to win the shot put and launch the 10-day athletics competition.
Only a late effort by Christian Cantwell for the silver medal saved face for the United States who had been tipped to take all three medals.
Phelps’ world record in the 200m medley led a three-gold and three world record blitz in the pool by the United States and Nastia Liukin won their fourth gold breaking China’s grip on the gymnastics competition.
Phelps, whose current career haul of 12 Olympic gold medals is a record in itself, is set to overtake Spitz if he wins his remaining two races - the 100m butterfly and 4x100m medley relay.
Rebecca Soni, who underwent heart surgery two years ago, started a three-win US run in the pool when she upset Australia’s world champion Leisel Jones to win the 200m breaststroke gold in world record time.
Ryan Lochte followed with a world record win in the men’s 200m backstroke and 40 minutes later he was back in the pool to take the bronze medal behind Phelps in the medley.
Britta Steffen broke the US stranglehold taking the women’s 100m freestyle crown, and giving Germany their eighth gold to be third on the table.
Russian-born Liukin, whose father Valeri won two gold medals for the Soviet Union in 1988, led Shawn Johnson in a US one-two in the women’s all-around final leaving Yang Yilin of China third.
China continued to dominate weightlifting, having won eight of nine divisions after further success by Cao Lei and Lu Yong.
Cuba’s 5-4 victory over the United States in baseball ended in bitterness and accusations of targetted violence as American batter Jayson Nix was taken to hospital with a serious eye injury when an attempted bunt deflected into his face.
US manager Davey Johnson accused the Cuban pitcher of deliberately aiming at Nix’s head, a charge the Cuban manager Antonio Pacheco described as ‘a lack of respect’.
Tennis upsets continued when US number one James Blake was unable to back up from bundling top seed Roger Federer and lost a marathon semi-final to Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, the Athens bronze medallist, won the near three-hour encounter 4-6, 7-5, 11-9.
The women’s second seed and world number one Jelena Jankovic also exited early, beaten by Russian Dinara Safina 6-2, 5-7, 6-3.
Britain won the first track cycling medal when they beat world champions France to the coveted team sprint gold.
The women’s football semi-finalists sorted themselves out with Brazil to play Germany and Japan will face the United States.
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