Boudia ends U.S. drought

American wins platform gold

American David Boudia won the men's 10-meter platform diving final on Saturday, scoring 102.60 points to edge China's Qiu Bo by 1.8.

LONDON -- David Boudia ended a gold-medal drought for the United States with a dramatic last dive that scored the most points of the 10-meter platform competition at the Olympics on Saturday night.

Boudia's victory gave the U.S. its first gold in diving since 2000, when Laura Wilkinson upset the Chinese on women's platform, and was the first by an American man since the late Mark Lenzi won the 3-meter springboard at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Boudia won by 1.8 points over Qiu Bo of China. The American scored 568.65 points in the six-dive final. Qiu took the silver at 566.85.

Tom Daley of Britain settled for the bronze at 556.95 after leading going into the final dive in front of a raucous home crowd that included David Beckham and two of his sons.

Daley had good scores on his last dive, including one 10, but Boudia and Qiu did the same tougher dive in the last round.

Boudia, tied for second with Qiu going into the last round, scored 102.60 points on a back 2 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists pike worth a 3.6 degree of difficulty.

Qiu followed him and scored 100.80, not quite enough to deliver a seventh gold for China in these games. The diving superpower won six golds, first losing the men's 3-meter springboard to spoil its bid for a sweep of the eight gold medals, and coming up short in the last diving event in London.

Qiu rested his head against the wall behind the diving boards in anguish. Boudia, meanwhile, shared in a group hug with his coaches and teammates, with a broad smile.

Sailing

Tamara Echegoyen, Angela Pumariega, and Sofia Toro of Spain won the Olympic gold medal in women's match racing, thanks in part to a boat-handling error by Australia that swept its skipper into the water.

With the best-of-five match tied at one, the boats were sailing nearly side-by-side downwind in the third race in big waves on Weymouth Bay when the Australian crew lost control and its boat rolled on its side. Skipper Olivia Price was swept out of the back of the boat and her crew had to pick her up before continuing.

Spain won that race by 1 minute, 1 second, but the 20-year-old Price and her crew won the fourth race to force a deciding match.

In another mistake, Price was assessed a penalty in Race 5 for a right-of-way violation and Spain sailed ahead to win the gold, leaving the Aussies with the silver.

Canoe sprint

Britain's Ed McKeever won the men's 200-meter kayak sprint in its Olympic debut, living up to his billing as "Usain Bolt on Water."

McKeever powered his way to victory in 36.246 seconds in front of British Prime Minister David Cameron and his family. Spain's Saul Craviotto Rivero was second and Canada's Mark de Jonge beat France's Maxim Beaumont to bronze by three-hundreths of a second.

Ukraine's Yuri Cheban (men's singles 200-meter canoe sprint) and New Zealand's Lisa Carrington (women's singles 200-meter kayak sprint) also won gold. Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko of Russia took the men's 200 kayak sprint.

Cycling -- mountain bike

Julie Bresset picked up the victory at her first Olympics, rolling through the English countryside and waving the French flag as she finished.

Bresset dominated the picturesque course at Hadleigh Farm. She took advantage of a mistake by defending gold medalist Sabine Spitz of Germany to build a massive lead, then rolled through the last of six laps all alone. Spitz wound up with the silver medal, and Georgia Gould of the United States claimed bronze.

It was only the second Olympic medal in mountain biking for the Americans, who are credited with developing the sport in the 1970s.

Gymnastics -- Rhythmic

Evgeniya Kanaeva became the first rhythmic gymnast to win two Olympic all-around titles, defending her gold medal from Beijing.

Russia has captured the last four Olympic individual titles. It also has a chance for another four-peat in Sunday's group event, too.

Elsewhere

Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago won the men's javelin. ... David Svoboda of the Czech Republic won the men's modern pentathlon.