Star
Sanya Richards anchored the United States to a gold medal in the women’s 1,600-meter relay, ending a streak of relay woes for the Americans in Beijing. She took the baton in second place behind Russia’s Anastasia Kapachinskaya but overtook her late in the race and won in 3 minutes, 18.55 seconds. The other U.S. team runners were Mary Wineberg, Allyson Felix and Monique Henderson.

Relay rerun
Jeremy Wariner ran the anchor leg as the American won the men’s 1,600-meter relay in an Olympic record time. The win gave the U.S. a sweep in the men’s and women’s 1,600 relays. LaShawn Merritt, Angelo Taylor, David Neville and Wariner finished in 2 minutes, 55.39 seconds.

Medals
The United States has 106 total medals, with 33 golds, while China has 96 total medals, 49 of them gold.

Yer out!
If baseball never returns to the Olympics, the United States can say it went out a winner. The Americans defeated Japan to win the bronze medal in the final Olympic baseball game until at least 2016. South Korea upset Cuba 3-2 for the gold.

Don’t sweat for me
With temperatures on the field hitting 107 degrees and the referee twice stopping play because of the heat, Argentina defeated Nigeria to win the gold medal in soccer when Angel di Maria took a pass from Lionel Messi and lobbed it over the goalkeeper.

Taekwondon’t
Angel Matos of Cuba and his coach were banned for life after the taekwondo athlete kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification against Kazakhstan’s Arman Chilmanov. Matos was declared the loser for taking too much injury time after hurting his leg. Matos angrily questioned the call, pushed a judge, then pushed and kicked referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden. Matos then spat on the floor and was escorted out.

Doping
Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov became the sixth athlete kicked out of the Beijing Olympics for doping, testing positive for the steroid nandrolone. Another Ukrainian, Lyudmila Blonska, was stripped of her heptathlon silver medal a day earlier after testing positive for a banned steroid.

Chinese takeout
Matthew Mitcham of Australia earned four perfect 10s on his last dive to win the men’s 10-meter platform and prevent China from sweeping the Olympic diving gold medals. ... Rakhim Chakhkiev of Russia won the heavyweight boxing gold medal, avenging a loss to Italy’s Clemente Russo at last year’s world championships. ... U.S.-born Becky Hammon scored 22 points to help Russia beat host China 94-81 for the bronze medal in women’s basketball.

Quote
“I came out here ready. I came out here prepared. I worked hard — that’s all I can say. ... I worked hard to get here. It wasn’t easy at all. It may look easy, but it was hard.” — Jamaica’s Usain Bolt on winning his three sprint gold medals.

TV note
The U.S. men’s basketball team faces Spain for the gold medal, 2:30 p.m. (1:30 a.m. CST).