At age 38, cyclist Lori-Ann Muenzer became the first-ever Canadian woman to medal in cycling by winning today's sprint final against Russia's Tamilla Abassova, who's 17 years younger. Canada's men have won five cycling medals, but none of them are gold. Meanwhile, Australia added to their cycling medal haul as Ryan Bayley dramatically beat the world champion, Holland's Theo Bos, to claim gold in the men's sprint. The Aussies now have six medals from five days of Olympic track cycling.

Both women's water polo semifinals today had shock results here in Athens: Manuela Zanchi's last-gasp goal gave Italy a 6-5 victory over the USA, while Greece took on the defending champions Australia and showed no mercy, winning 6-to-2. Italy and Greece will face off for the gold medal on Thursday.

And Australia produced a shock of their own in the baseball semifinals, when the Aussie men beat the favourites Japan 1-to-0. They'll now face the winner of tonight's other semifinal - either Cuba or Canada - for gold.

In at least one tournament, though, the favourites have made it through to the final: Argentina beat Italy 3-to-0 today and will play the winner of tonight's other semifinal in the gold medal match on Sunday - that'll be either the surprisingly unstoppable Iraq or Argentina's neighbour Paraguay. Argentina has never won Olympic gold in football - although they made it to the final in Atlanta 1996, where they lost to Nigeria.

Speaking of whom, Nigeria beat South Korea to become the first African women's basketball team to win an Olympic match. They lost their first five matches here in Athens, but finally managed to beat the Koreans and secure 11th place in the tournament here. Only two other African nations have ever sent women's basketball teams to the Olympics - the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) in 1996 and Senegal in 2000, but neither won a match.

Yet another drug disgrace rocked Athens today as the gold medalist in the discus, Robert Fazekas of Hungary, will be stripped of his title after testing positive for an anabolic steroid. This means that Lithuanian Virgilijus Alekna will now be awarded the discus gold.

There have been two tragic Olympic-related deaths in Athens over the past 24 hours. Greek judo champion Eleni Ioannou died in hospital after a two-week battle against multiple fractures sustained after a suicide attempt just before the Games. She jumped from a third-floor balcony after a fight with her boyfriend, fellow judoka Giorgios Chrisostomidis, who took the same jump two days later. He remains in hospital with serious injuries. Police have ruled out any suspicious motive for Ioannou's death.

And yesterday a 25-year-old Olympic security guard died after being accidentally shot by a friend. Antonis Syrnos was a professional trooper working in an Olympic observation post when he and his friend, 20-year-old Christos Chloros, jokingly pointed their guns at each other. Chloros and another cadet will be tried for the incident.

On a nicer note, more than 200 men back home have said they want to marry Romania's swimming gold medalist Camelia Potec. The new national heroine says she is surprised and delighted by the compliment but has no intention of marrying one of her fans.

[by Rich Cline]