South Korea wins baseball gold

United States goes out with a win by defeating Japan to claim bronze

BEIJING -- It came down to the bottom of the ninth, with Cuba facing a one-run deficit. The bases were loaded with one out.

The pitch, the swing ... double play. Game over. Gold medal for South Korea, finishing the tournament unbeaten with a 3-2 victory in the final Olympic baseball game until at least 2016.

If indeed baseball never returns to the Olympic agenda, at least the United States can say it went out a winner.

Behind home runs by Matt LaPorta, Matt Brown and Jason Donald, the Americans beat Japan 8-4 to claim the bronze medal. LaPorta returned after missing a few days following a concussion sustained when a pitch hit him in the head. Jayson Nix had a hit and scored a run in his first game back since a week ago Friday, when he fouled a ball off his left eye and underwent microsurgery.

IOC president Jacques Rogge sat behind home plate for part of the U.S-Japan game with International Baseball Federation president Harvey Schiller. The IBAF is campaigning to get baseball back on the Olympic program in 2016 after being voted off for 2012. Baseball became a medal sport in 1992. The U.S. got bronze in 1996 and gold in 2000.

DIVING: The Chinese divers came close, but they couldn't match Michael Phelps' feat of going 8-for-8 at the Water Cube.

With seven down, all they needed was the men's 10-meter platform. But Matthew Mitcham of Australia earned four perfect 10s on his last dive to send this title Down Under for the first time. Zhou Luxin earned the silver for China.

In going 7-for-8, China claimed 11 of the 24 medals awarded in the sport that has produced the host nation's most Olympic medals.

The Americans, meanwhile, went 0-for-8 -- not a single medal. For the second straight Olympics, too. The best the U.S. could muster in this event was David Boudia getting 10th; Thomas Finchum was 12th.

CANOE-KAYAK: The Chinese pair were the first to get to the finish line. Then, before they could totally cross it, their boat was upside down.

While other crews laughed, Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun emerged to claim their second straight gold medal in the men's 500-meter canoe double (C-2).

The big upset of the final day of medal races came in the men's 500-meter K-2, with Spain's Saul Craviotto and Carlos Perez beating a German pair who were the defending gold medalists and who have been the world champions since 2001.

BOXING: Russian heavyweight Rakhim Chakhkiev and British middleweight James Degale were among the winners of the first five gold medals.

So was Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko, who was so dominant that the referee mercifully stopped his title bout with nine seconds left in the opening round and Lomachenko already up 9-1.

"I made very precise hits," Lomachenko said.

Also, Thai flyweight Somjit Jongjohor won his first gold at age 33, and light welterweight Felix Diaz claimed the Dominican Republic's first boxing title with an upset of defending Olympic champion Manus Boonjumnong of Thailand.

MEN'S SOCCER: In temperatures that topped 107 degrees, Angel di Maria scored off a pass from Lionel Messi in the 58th minute, helping Argentina defeat Nigeria 1-0 and win its second straight Olympic soccer title.