Capsules of Thursday's events at the Summer Olympics:
BASEBALLIn the same stadium where Hank Aaron became baseball's home run king, the U.S. team set a new standard for Olympic homers in a 15-5 rout of Japan. The young Americans, joining Cuba as the only unbeaten teams in the tournament, hit an Olympic record five homers in one inning, the first, and wound up with seven in the game.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL (MEN)
Americans Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes advanced with a 15-5 victory over Germany's Jorg Ahmann and Axel Hager. On Friday, the Americans will meet Sinjin Smith and Carl Henkel of the United States, who defeated Francisco Alvarez and Juan Miguel Rosell 15-13 of Cuba.
The other U.S. team - Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh - remained unbeaten, downing Brazilians Marco Ferreira and Emanuel Scheffer 15-9.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL (WOMEN)
Two of the three U.S. women's pairs lost, and one was eliminated. Gail Castro and Deb Richardson fell 15-11 to Japan's Sachiko Fujita and Yukiko Takahashi, their second loss in two days. The highest-seeded U.S. duo, Holly McPeak and Nancy Reno, lost 15-13 to Australia's Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst. Linda Hanley and Barbra Fontana Harris won two matches by 15-6 scores.
BOXING
Welterweight Fernando Vargas of the United States lost a controversial decision to Romania's Marian Simion. Vargas stood in disbelief as Simion was declared an winner 8-7 in a fight that saw Vargas get no points in the second round.
Arnaldo Mesa of Cuba registered a first-round win over Zahir Raheem. Raheem fell face first to the canvas in despair when the referee stopped the fight with 45 seconds left in round one of the 119-pound bout.
Heavyweight Felix Savon, five-time world champion and defending gold medalist from Cuba, knocked out Kwamena Turkson of Sweden with a right uppercut at 2:29 of the first round. Savon then went over and helped pick the Swede up.
The Cubans improved to 14-0 and haven't lost to a U.S. boxer in the Olympics since 1976. U.S. boxers are 10-3.
Nate Jones, who watched the last Olympics from an Illinois prison cell, became the first American to reach the quarterfinals. He stopped Fola Okesola of Britain with six seconds left in the third round of a 201-pound bout.
CYCLING
Andrea Collinelli of Italy beat France's Philippe Ermenault for the gold in men's individual pursuit in 4 minutes, 20.893 seconds.
Americans Bill Clay and Connie Paraskevin-Young, a five-time Olympian - twice in speedskating - lost in second-round repechage sprints.
EQUESTRIAN
New Zealanders Blyth Tait and Sally Clark were were 1-2 after the individual endurance phase of the three-day event, with U.S. rider Kerry Millikin third and teammate David O'Connor fifth.
FENCING
A first-round 45-44 loss to Poland knocked the U.S. women's foil team out of medal contention and the Americans finished next-to-last, winning only four of the final 11 points.
The U.S. men's foil team fared no better. Like the women, they finished 10th in an 11-team Olympic field.
FIELD HOCKEY
The U.S. women's team protested its 2-1 defeat to Argentina because of a dispute over the time remaining when the Americans had their final scoring chance. The United States had a penalty corner with two seconds left, and the clock stopped because of an injury. But Barb Marois' shot went wide.
A ruling on the protest was expected Friday. With a defeat, the United States would drop into sixth place in the eight-team women's pool with three games remaining in the round robin. A victory would have put the Americans into a second-place tie.
JUDO
Germany's Udo Quellmalz won the men's under-143 pound class and France's Marie-Claire Restoux took the under-1141/2 pound gold medal.
ROWING
U.S. pair Karen Kraft and Missy Schwen, the world silver medalists, beat Australian world champions Mega Still and Kate Slatter by a half-boat length in the semifinals.
SHOOTING
Germany won its first two gold medals of the games when Christian Klees shot a world-record score of 704.8 in the men's 50-meter free rifle prone event and defending champion Ralf Schumann won in 25-meter rapid fire pistol.
Klees' total, including a world record-tying perfect score of 600 in the preliminary round, broke the mark of 703.5 by Jens Harskov of Denmark in 1991. Schumann, the world record-holder, had an Olympic-record score of 698 points.
Slovakia, which declared independence from Czechoslovakia three years ago, won its first-ever Olympic medal when Jozef Gonci got the bronze in the rifle prone event.
SOFTBALL
The United States scored twice in the seventh to remain undefeated with a 4-2 victory over Canada. Pitcher Christa Williams, the youngest pitcher on the American team, struck out five in 22/3 innings of relief after Canada had tied the game at 2-all.
TABLE TENNIS
American Amy Feng scored her second consecutive straight-set singles victory, while teammate Lily Yip lost for the first time.
TEAM HANDBALL
World champion France and runner-up Croatia posted their second straight victories. The French beat Algeria 33-22, and Croatia downed Kuwait 31-22. Sweden also went 2-0, beating Switzerland 26-19.
TENNIS
Top-seeded Monica Seles reached the women's third round, beating Patricia Hy-Boulais of Canada 6-3, 6-2. Andre Agassi, top-seeded among the men, beat Karol Kucera of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4.
Other men's winners included third-seeded Thomas Enqvist of Sweden and defending champion Marc Rosset of Switzerland.
Third-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain and No. 13 Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina were among the other women's winners.
YACHTING
Courtney Becker-Dey, America's most consistent performer in Olympic yachting, dropped from second to third in the Europe Class as the regatta got another dose of foul weather. Becker-Dey placed seventh and sixth while falling 12 points behind leader Kristine Roug of Denmark.
In the Lasers, world champion Robert Scheidt of Brazil placed first and third and took the lead with 15 points.
The American Star Class team - defending Olympic champions Mark Reynolds of San Diego and Hal Haenel of Los Angeles - remained third after the only race in their class.