Still no German medals

Germany is still waiting for its first medal at the London Games, with none of its great hopes striking gold or any other metal for that matter.

Athletes from other countries were, however, more successful, setting new world records in their events.

The US swimmer, Dana Vollmer, won the 100-meter butterfly race with a time of 55.98 seconds, beating the world record by eight hundredths of a second. She thus became the first woman to break the 56-second barrier.

Lu Ying from China took silver, while Australia's Alicia Coutt came in third to receive bronze. Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom, who held the previous world record, came in fourth.

Women's 53-kilogram weightlifting also saw the bar raised, with Kazakhstan's Zulfiya Chinshanlo creating a new world record of 131 kg for the clean and jerk. The 19-year-old had already lifted 95 kg in the snatch, giving her an Olympic record total of 226 kg.

She beat Taiwan's Hsu Shu-Ching and Cristina Iovu of Moldova to win what was her country's second gold medal.

Germany's best female weightlifter, Julia Rohde, who holds two German records, came in eleventh in the 53-kg group with 193 kg (85/108).

Some successes

In swimming, German world record holder Paul Biedermann had a preliminary success in the semi-final of the men's 200-meter freestyle event, coming first in his heat and fourth overall with a time of 1:46.10 to reach Monday's final.

He even beat world champion and favorite Ryan Lochte from the United States, who also qualified for the final in fifth place overall. The other German starter, Clemens Rapp, failed to qualify in 24th place.

But the German men only managed sixth in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay final, which was won by France, followed by the United States and Russia. World champions Australia finished fourth.

Another German favorite, Nicolas Limbach, fell by the wayside in the men's individual saber, losing 15-12 in the quarter-final to Nikolai Kovalev of Russia. Kovalev later took bronze, behind Italian Diego Occhiuzzi on silver and Hungarian Aron Szilagyi on gold.

But German beach volleyballers had first successes, with Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann, Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig, and Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler all in with a good chance of reaching the final. Only Jonathan Erdmann and Kay Matysik need feel uneasy at this stage.

And German eyes are also on gymmast, Uzbek-born Oksana Chusovitina, who has made a record sixth appearance in the Olympics at the age of 37. Chusovitina on Sunday qualified for the final of the vault, on which she won a silver medal in Beijing.

Another hope for a German gymnastics medal is Germany's Fabian Hambuchen, who qualified third on Saturday in the best all-round individual event.

tj/tm (AP, Reuters, AFP)