Bolt sets world record in 200

Baseball
Brian Barden singled in the go-ahead run to break a scoreless tie in the 11th inning as the U.S. baseball team beat Japan 4-2 on Wednesday to earn the third seed into Friday's medal round. The Japanese will be No. 4.

Barden's single off Hitoki Iwase scored Jason Donald from second. International baseball's new extra-innings rule calls for, beginning in the 11th inning, runners to start on first and second with teams able to start at any point in their batting order.

Nate Schierholtz and Matt Brown followed with RBI singles of their own. Casey Weathers allowed consecutive two-out RBI singles to Atsunori Inaba and Hiroyuki Nakajima, then walked Shuichi Murata before getting pinch-hitter Shinnosuke Abe to pop up to end it with the winning run on first.

Boxing
British middleweight James Degale beat former Olympic champion Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan to clinch Britain’s third boxing medal in Beijing, while Vijender Kumar clinched the first boxing medal in India’s history.

Cuba’s last two fighters also reached the semifinals with one-sided victories, guaranteeing a whopping eight medals for the sport’s now-unquestioned power. Flyweight Andris Laffita earned a marquee meeting with Russia’s Georgy Balakshin, while middleweight Emilio Correa emulated his medal-winning father with a win over Uzbekistan’s Elshod Rasulov.

Italy’s Vincenzo Picardi left the arena on his coach’s shoulders after beating Tunisia’s Walid Cherif to clinch a medal. Italy already clinched medals for its two heaviest fighters, world champions Roberto Cammarelle and Clemente Russo, but rarely does well in the lighter classes.

Dzhakhon Kurbanov, the light heavyweight from Tajikistan who bit his opponent on the shoulder in a quarterfinal bout, won't face additional sanctions or suspension by the International Boxing Association (AIBA).

A light heavyweight boxer from Tajikistan was disqualified for biting his opponent. Spokesman Richard Baker said Wednesday that Kurbanov's disqualification from the Olympic boxing tournament will be his only punishment for the bizarre infraction, which occurred with 17 seconds left in the third round of his bout with Kazakhstan's Yerkebulan Shynaliyev.

Kurbanov, who was trailing 12-6 at the time, apparently bit Shynaliyev during a clinch, leading the referee to stop the bout. Baker said doctors believe Kurbanov didn't draw blood, and that the blood seen on Shynaliyev's shoulder might have been from a cut on Kurbanov's face.

Kurbanov still had his mouthpiece in his mouth when he bit Shynaliyev, who clinched a medal with the victory and advanced to Friday's semifinals.

Water Polo
The U.S. squad knows who it will be playing in the semifinals: Serbia. The other semi will pit reigning European champs Montenegro against two-time defending Olympic gold medalist Hungary.

Serbia beat Spain to advance. Montenegro moved on by upsetting Croatia, which came in as the world’s No. 1 team.

Cycling
The stands were filled with fans, cheering for both every jump and crash. The theme from "Rocky" and AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" blared from speakers as Chinese cheerleaders and breakdancers gyrated along. Outside, plenty of people without tickets tried desperately to talk their way in, just to be part of it all.

The BMX world had never seen this before. The sport finally had reached the Olympic stage.

"You can't get much more rad than this," American star Donny Robinson said.

Not in the Summer Games, anyway.

And in the biggest competition of their lives, the four American riders didn't disappoint - but didn't escape unscathed, either. All advanced, but three-time world champion Kyle Bennett dislocated his left shoulder in his third and final heat. Doctors popped it back into place, and Bennett plans to race Thursday.

U.S. Olympic trials champion Mike Day had the fastest time in the men's seeding time trial and easily won all three of his qualifying races, suggesting he's in gold-medal form. The lone American woman, Jill Kintner, moved into Thursday's semifinals seeded seventh in her field of 16.

"I had a great day," Day said. "Not to sound cocky, but everything's kind of coming naturally. Everything feels good, so hopefully tomorrow will be the same. I felt good and hopefully I made a statement today."

The Associated Press and NBCOlympics.com contributed to this report.

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