Sports Desk

Basketball

Fowles, U.S. beat South Korea in women's basketball

Sylvia Fowles and the American women's basketball team were too big for South Korea to handle.

Fowles scored 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead the U.S. to a 104-60 rout of South Korea last night and advance to the semifinals of women's basketball.

"I just wanted to come out and make a statement that I'm back and let my teammates know," Fowles said. "I haven't played well since the first two games and I've been down on myself not contributing as much as I'd like."

It's the sixth straight Olympics that the Americans have advanced to the medal round. The only time they didn't qualify for the semis in the history of women's basketball was in 1980 and that's because the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Games.

Wrestling

American Cejudo wins in 55KG

This Olympic medal, Henry Cejudo said, is for every kid whose life seemed hopeless, who went to sleep hungry, whose parents couldn't always buy food, let alone Christmas presents.

His medal, the one he wasn't supposed to win so soon, so convincingly, proves to Cejudo that anyone can do what he wants, and at an early age, if only he wants it so badly nothing else matters. Even if the odds are overwhelming.

Cejudo, the 21-year-old mat prodigy who had never won a match in a world-level senior tournament before Beijing, won the gold medal at Olympic freestyle 55-kilogram (121 pound) wrestling yesterday.

Two years after U.S. coach Kevin Jackson called him the future of wrestling, the future became the present in a dazzling four-match flurry, making Cejudo the youngest American to win an Olympic wrestling gold medal.

Soccer

Argentina routs Brazil to reach another final

Sergio Aguero scored two second-half goals in seven minutes yesterday and later set up another to lead Argentina to a 3-0 win over rival Brazil and into its second straight Olympic final.

Aguero opened the scoring for the defending champions by chesting in a left-side cross in the 52nd minute, then scored again from two meters (yards) on a cross from the right in the 58th. Aguero also set up a 76th-minute penalty kick that was converted by Juan Roman Riquelme.