BEIJING, Aug 15: The United States fought back against China in gymnastics on Friday and won handsomely in the pool to restore some of the might of the traditional sporting superpower.

Nastia Liukin led a one-two US victory in women’s all-around individual gymnastics, relegating the Chinese to third place and denying them a four out of four sweep of golds in gym events.

“My dad is the reason why I became Olympic champion today,” said Liukin after they became the first daughter-father act to win golds in artistic gymnastics. Father and coach Valery won two golds for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

On the first day of track and field events in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, world record holder Usain Bolt of Jamaica went through to the semi-finals of the men’s 100m in ominous ease.

He sauntered through his second round race in 9.92 seconds to qualify fastest, ahead of his big rivals, American world champion Tyson Gay and compatriot Asafa Powell.

The semi-finals and final of the showcase event of the Games are in Saturday’s evening session of athletics.

American Michael Phelps raced to his sixth gold and his sixth world record in the Water Cube pool, closing in on Mark Spitz’s 1972 record of seven golds in a single Games.

The 23-year-old now has 12 career Olympic golds, three more than anyone else. Like Spitz in 1972, all of his golds at these Games have come in world record times.

The quest for dominance in the medals table is proving a fascinating contest between the United States and China, which came second in Athens in 2004. With competition finished on day seven, China led with 26 golds to the Americans’ 14.

But China’s President Hu Jintao was disappointed when he made a rare public appearance to attend a women’s volleyball clash with the Americans. The home team wasted a lead to lose.

Chinese athletes have been playing to strengths in events like diving, gymnastics, table tennis and weightlifting.

The US had hoped for fast success in track and field to regain ground but Poland’s Tomasz Majewski took a surprise gold in shot put, the first event to be decided.

The first track gold went to Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba in the women’s 10,000 metres.

Phelps won the 200 metres individual medley and could equal Spitz in the 100 butterfly final just after 10:00am (0800 PST) on Saturday. He hopes to break the record in the 4x100 medley relay final just before 11:00am (0900 PST) on Sunday.

“I have to conserve as much physical and emotional energy as I can now that I’m down to the last two races,” said Phelps.

Americans set world best times to win the men’s 200 backstroke and the women’s 200 breaststroke.

“That’s the theme of the meet, you have to break a world record to win,” said American silver medallist Aaron Peirsol.

Many sports are struggling under the shadow of drugs cheats, and on Friday North Korean Kim Jong-su, who won silver and bronze in shooting, became the first medallist to test positive for drugs. Organisers said he had been stripped of his medals.

The baseball park played host to a couple of politically tinged thrillers which went down to the wire. It was a good day for communism: Cuba beat the United States 5-4, and rookies China defeated Taiwan 8-7.

The match-ups perhaps meant more to the political underdogs. In Havana, Cubans crammed around TV sets late in the night, and work stopped in Taipei as enthralled locals watched the action.—Reuters