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Dreams turned to nightmares.

U.S. "Dream Team" of swaggering NBA players became a butt of joke on Olympic hardwood as most-hyped American swimmer Michael Phelps saw his own dream dashed in the Athens Olympic Games on Sunday (August 15).

Superstar Tim Duncan and his likes fell to Puerto Rico 92-73 in one of the biggest shocks of Olympic history.

It was the Dream Team's first Olympic loss since the U.S. began sending NBA hoopers to the Olympics in 1992, and the only third loss for an American team in Olympic men's basketball history.

The U.S. team, who has missed gold only twice in 1972 and 1988 in their 14 Olympic appearances, trailed throughout to the Puerto Ricans, who made sharp shots, clever assists and fantastic steals.

Lagging 65-48 into the fourth quarter, the Americans pulled within 69-61 after Duncan made a pair of free throws. Puerto Rico responded with a 16-7 run for an shakable 85-68 lead with 1:13 remaining.

Phelps's chance of breaking countryman Mark Spitz' 1972 record of seven gold medals was ruined by the merciless South African quartet, who captured the men's 4x100m freestyle relay gold in a world record time, relegating the U.S. to third.

Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling clocked 1:13.17 seconds to beat the Netherlands and Phelps' team as well as the previous world mark of 3:13.67 held by Australia.

Now Phelps, who opened with a world record and a gold in the 400m individual medley Saturday, will have to win his six remaining races - presuming he'll be picked for the IM relay - to be as great as Spitz.

"We wanted to do better, but this is what we had," Phelps said, "These are the four fastest guys we had. This is only the second time in history we got beaten."

Australia's Petria Thomas, who almost called it quits after the 2000 Games when she needed a full shoulder construction, won the women's 100m butterfly to lift her second gold in Athens.

Thomas stunned defending champion and world record holder Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands to win in 57.72, a day after she helped Australia's 4x100 freestyle relay team to the crown.

Poland's Otylia Jedrzejczak finished with silver and de Bruijn got the bronze.

Japan's Kosuke Kitajima made a mess of Brendan Hansen's birthday party when he beat the American to win the men's 100m breaststroke gold.

Kitajima won in a time of 1:00.08 ahead of Hansen who touched home in 1:00.25 on his 23rd birthday. Hugues Duboscq of France was third in 1:00.88.

The 17-year-old Laure Manaudou clocked 4:05.34 to win the women's 400m freestyle, France's first gold at this Games and the country's first ever women's Olympic swim title.

Turkey's Halil Mutlu wrote his name into history as he won his third straight Olympic weightlifting gold in the 56kg category by totaling 295kg, beating second-placed Chinese Wu Meijin by a shocking 7.5kg.

Sedat Artuc, also of Turkey, picked the bronze with 280kg.

Udomporn Polsak became the first ever Thai woman to strike Olympic gold, winning the women's 53kg gold weightlifting with a total of 222.5kg.

"I'm glad to be the first to get the gold medal," she said. "I've been training more than 14 years and I've had tremendous support."

Masato Uchishiba nailed Japan's third judo gold with an ippon triumph over Slovakian Jozef Krnac in the men's 66kg class.

But the traditional judo power failed to claim another golden double a day after Ryoko Tani defended her title and Tadahiro Nomura won an unprecedented third straight gold, as Yuki Yokosawa finished second to China's Xian Dongmei in the women's 52kg division.

In shooting, Olena Kostevych of Ukraine needed an extra shot to claim her gold, and Alexei Alipov took Russia's 500th summer Olympic gold as he scored a perfect 25 final hits for a winning total of 149 in the men's trap event.

Kostevych won the women's 10m air pistol after beating Jasna Sekaric of Serbia-Montenegro in a shoot-off to take the final, in which both had the same score of 483.3 points.

In the grueling 118.8km women's road race, Australian Sara Kerrigan outsprinted German Judith Arndt on the home stretch to ascend the top podium. Her time was 3:24.25.

Hungarian Timea Nagy retained the women's epee fencing title with a 15-10 win over the 1996 winner Laura Flessel-Colovic of France.

In a new doping case, Slovak shot putter Milan Haborak tested positive and left the Olympics, the Slovak news agency SITA reported on Sunday.

China tops the medal tally with five golds, followed by Australia and Japan with four golds apiece. The United States and Russia, top two finishers at the last two Games, each have one gold.

Editor: Lin Shujun