The Dutch baseball team scored two runs against Australia on Saturday. Unfortunately for them, the Australians scored 22. This is a new Olympic high. At the middle of the first, Australia was leading 9-0. You know you want to read the play-by-play so here it is.

Fairly detailed match report in Dutch from De Nederlandse honkbalsite. And see this Canadian Press report (in English) in the Globe and Mail on the top-of-the-table Cuba v Canada game. Stubby Clapp was 1 for 3, by the way.

The Olympic News Service wrap of Saturday’s action:

Men : TPE and NED eliminated from medal round
ATHENS, 21 August - Saturday saw favourites pound opponents and contenders be eliminated from medal contention.JPN vs. TPE

Chinese Taipei gave up a late lead in its second straight game, losing 4-3 in ten innings to Japan in a re-match of the Asian Olympic qualifier final.

Chinese Taipei got on the board first with a three-run home run by former national league ‘Most Valuable Player’ PENG Cheng-Min (TPE) off Japanese pitcher Koji UEHARA.

In the seventh inning Yoshinobu TAKAHASHI (JPN) of the Japanese League Yomiuri Giants club smashed a home run to left centrefield to tie the game at 3-3.

The score would stay that way until the bottom of the tenth when Michihiro OGASAWARA who hit a fly ball just deep enough to left field to allow TAKAHASHI to score the winning run on a sacrafice fly.

CUB vs. CAN

Antonio SCULL’s (CUB) two-run homer boosted Cuba to a 5-2 win over Canada and secured a place in the medal round for the two-time gold medallists at the Olympic Baseball tournament today.

Designated hitter Eriel SANCHEZ (CUB), kicked off the scoring in the second inning with a double to the left field gap off starter Jason DICKSON (CAN), who had walked Ariel PESTANO (CUB) with one out. Three-time Olympian SCULL, then launched a 3-2 pitch into right field for a 3-0 Cuban lead.

Cuban starter Norberto GONZALEZ (CUB) completely shut down Canada’s offence with a devastating mix of curve and fast balls. The 24-year-old pitched six scoreless innings, striking out four and giving up three wins to pick up his first win of the tournament.

NED vs. AUS

Australia erupted for nine runs in the first inning in thrashing the Netherlands 22-2 to qualify for the medal round at the Olympic Baseball Centre.

Australia’s 22 runs set an Olympic baseball record for scoring in one game. The previous mark was shared by Cuba and Chinese Taipei. Cuba beat Italy 20-6 at the 1996 Games, and Chinese Taipei shut out Spain 20-0 at the 1992 Games.

Dutch pitching fell apart from the start. Second baseman Gavin FINGLESON (AUS) greeted starter Calvin MADURO (NED) with a single to open the game and MADURO never recovered. Unable to find his range and hurt by poor Dutch fielding, including two errors, MADURO gave up eight runs and four hits in just 2/3 of an inning before being yanked for Patrick BELJAARDS (NED).

The relief pitching that followed wasn’t much better. Brett RONEBERG (AUS) promptly hit a two-run homer off BELJAARDS before the 12-batter inning was over, and the red-hot Australian bats added another five runs in the next inning to take a 14-1 lead.

Play was halted after seven innings per the run difference rule. In Olympic competition games are stopped if a team is leading by 10 or more runs after the seventh inning.

ITA vs. GRE

Greece outlasted Italy 12-7 in a three hour and eight minute game, which featured home run power and shoddy defence. The win was Greece’s first ever win in the Olympic baseball tournament.

Early, Italy (1-5) seemed as if it had gained some offensive confidence from Friday’s comeback victory over Chinese Taipei. Jairo RAMOS GIZZI (ITA) got Italy on the board in the second inning when he crushed a home run to left centre field off Greek starter Jared THEODORAKOS.

The Italians then tacked on four more runs in the third inning to increase their advantage to 5-0.

Greece tacked on two runs in the fourth, two in the fifth and two in the sixth, one of which came on a home run by slumping power threat Clayton BELLINGER (GRE) off Italian pitcher Fabio MILANO.

After a four run seventh and a two run ninth, Greece found itself on the winning side of the score sheet for the first time in the tournament.

ONS jc/dr/sad

Paul Hamm won the USA’s first ever gold medal in men’s individual gymnastics. One problem, however. He shouldn’t have been declared the winner.

South Korea’s Yang Tae-Young was denied one-tenth of a point on his parallel bar routine due to a judging error. Yang took bronze behind Hamm and compatriot Kim Dae-Eun when 0.049 points separated all three. If Yang’s score had been calculated correctly, he would have beaten Hamm by 0.051.

The Koreans appealed, and the International Gymnastics Federation agreed with their complaint, but said they couldn’t change the result. Don’t be surprised if we see Yang and Hamm declared joint gold medallists as an act of grace before these Games are through. The three judges involved in the gaffe have been suspended by the FIG pending an enquiry.

There’s also an enquiry in progress over Friday’s fire on the Mount Parnitha mountain bike track. Arson or accident?

India has won the men’s hockey gold eight times - the last in 1980 - and they won’t be winning it this year. A last-second goal by New Zealand put them out of semi-final contention, despite their protest that the game was in fact over when the goal was scored. Indian coach Gerard Rach provided sound logical argument that the umpires are cheats.

Fernando Gonzales and Nicolas Massu became Chile’s first-ever gold medallists when they beat Nicolas Keifer and Rainer Schuettler in the men’s doubles final of the tennis. See the report in Spanish from Chile’s El Mercurio. Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat is the King of Badminton, Ning Zhang of China its queen.

The Dream Team lost again, to Lithuania 90-96. This Associated Press report gives American readers tips in how to pronounce Sarunas Jasikevicius. Serbia and Montenegro beat Croatia 11-8 in men’s water polo. Whatever you do, don’t mention the…

Not to mention the… . Iraq beat Australia 1-0 in the men’s soccer quarter final. With all the attention they have been grabbing, they are concerned about politicisation of their success by the Bush administration. Al-Jazeera has a report.

Did you know? The official Volunteer Application Form was, for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, available in French through the ATHENS 2004 website. Do you care? It’s one of the Olympic Firsts being proudly announced on athens2004.com.

Finally, it would be remiss of me as an Australian not to carry at least hyperlink to a story about . Whew. Thank goodness I got that out of the way.

Great Britain’s biggest ever single day of Olympic competition. Five golds, three silvers and two bronzes on Saturday: the men’s coxless fours, the Finn class sailing, the men’s individual pursuit, and (thanks to a successful appeal) the three-day event all came up winners… and lets not forget, of course, the ynglers. Shirley Robertson, Sarah Webb and Sarah Ayton did their country proud with a fine week of yngling, even if they sat out the final race.

Now, if the Greeks had any sense, they would withhold all the British medals until they handed the Elgin Marbles back.

As anticipated yesterday, Michael Phelps claimed his sixth and last gold medal on Saturday night without even jumping in the pool. Phelps swam the butterfly leg of the 4×100 medley relay heat on Friday. The USA replaced the entire quartet for the final, which they won ahead of Germany and Japan. Take a bow, Lenny Krayzelberg, Mark Gangloff, Neil Walker, and, of course, Das Phelpsmeister.

The Spoof has discovered the secret to Phelps’ success.

The swimming carnival is now over, 97 medals awarded in 32 events, USA claiming 12 gold and Australia seven. Inge de Bruijn and Pieter van den Hoogenband had a role of each of the Netherlands’s seven medal-winning efforts in the pool. But I have two special tributes to make resulting from the week’s swimming:

George Bovell won a bronze medal in the 200IM on Thursday to become Trinidad and Tobago’s first ever Olympic swimming medallist. Here’s just a sample of the Trinidad Express’ coverage of Bovell’s achievement.

The other tribute is to Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who singlehandedly quadrupled Zimbabwe’s all-time medal count. She won gold in the 200 backstroke, silver in the 100 backstroke and bronze in the 200IM. These add to the gold medal won by the Zimbabwean women’s hockey team in Moscow 1980 when they did what hardly any other team achieved, ie, they turned up.

Q: What do Kirsty Coventry, George Bovell and Mark Gangloff all have in common? A: They are all products of Auburn University in Alabama. As reported on the Athletic Department’s website on Saturday:

The five swimming medals equal the Auburn record, matching the 1984 games (three gold, two bronze). It also ranked Auburn tied for sixth with Germany on the swimming nations list behind the United States (28), Australia (15), Japan (8), the Netherlands (7) and France (6).

Somebody at Auburn is still sore about the 1861-65 Civil War.

Coventry has been keeping an Olympic diary on the Auburn Athletics website.