The U.S. men’s boxing team is heading home without an Olympic medal for the first time.
Welterweight Errol Spence dropped a 16-11 decision to Russia’s Andrey Zamkovoy in the quarterfinals last night, ending the last chance for the most successful team in Olympic boxing history to add to its record 108 medals.
Instead, the Dallas-area fighter started slowly and never got going in his team’s ninth loss in 10 fights. Spence only reached the quarterfinals after the Americans successfully protested a loss to India’s Krishan Vikas over an accumulation of uncalled holding fouls last week.
Given a second chance to avoid the shutout, Spence said he had no reason to argue about this loss.
“I’m glad a better guy beat me this time, because I didn’t like the way I went out last time,” Spence said. “I didn’t think about the pressure on the team. I just tried to fight my fight, and it didn’t work out. He was the better man.”
* Leandro Damiao scored two second-half goals yesterday to help Brazil beat South Korea 3-0 and reach its first Olympic men’s soccer final in 24 years.
The Brazilians will face Mexico, which beat Japan 3-1 at Wembley Stadium in the other semifinal.
* Diana Taurasi scored 15 points and Candace Parker added 12 to lead the U.S. women’s basketball team to a 91-48 rout of Canada to advance to the semifinals.
The U.S. hasn’t lost to Canada since playing in the 1975 world championship tournament.
The four-time defending gold medalists will make their eighth consecutive appearance in the Olympic semifinals.
* The U.S. women’s volleyball team remained undefeated in London with a straight-set victory over the Dominican Republic to advance to the semifinals.
The United States easily managed the 25-14, 25-21, 25-22 sweep without captain Lindsey Berg, who hurt her left ankle in the final preliminary match against Turkey on Sunday.
The top-ranked U.S. team, with six straight victories, will play South Korea tomorrow. The other semifinal was set when both Japan and Brazil won their quarterfinal matches.
* Seven of Cameroon’s Olympic competitors have disappeared from their official residence and may attempt to seek asylum in Britain, the chief of the African nation’s delegation said.
David Ojong, head of mission for Team Cameroon, said the seven all currently hold visas permitting them to remain legally in Britain until at least November.
Ojong said five boxers, a swimmer and a soccer player left the athletes’ village at the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, over the weekend and have not returned.
* Italian race walker Alex Schwazer says he obtained the performance-enhancing drug EPO on his own and used it because he felt pressure to win a second straight 50-kilometer walk gold medal at the Olympics.
Schwazer, who was expelled from the games on Monday for doping, sobbed on Italian TV yesterday. He insisted he won his gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics without the use of drugs. He says he “wanted the gold again at all costs.”
