MEN'S GYMNASTICS

Uchimura strikes gold

Kohei Uchimura's gold-medal haul keeps growing. The superstar gymnast from Japan won the men's all-around title on Wednesday night, edging Ukranian Oleg Verniaiev by less than a tenth of a point to capture his second consecutive Olympic gold. Uchimura trailed heading into the final rotation but put up a dazzling 15.8 on high bar. Verniaiev followed with a less challenging routine and hopped forward on the dismount. Needing 14.9 to win, Verniaiev instead earned a 14.8. The crowd groaned when the score was revealed. Uchimura finished with a total of 92.365, just ahead of Verniaiev's 92.266. Max Whitlock of Great Britain was third, just ahead of Russia's David Belyavskiy. American Sam Mikulak recovered from a fall on vault to rally to seventh and Chris Brooks was 14th. Mikulak and Brooks, hoping to take some of the sting out of another fifth-place finish in the team event, couldn't match the bronze in the all-around teammate Danell Leyva captured in London. Brooks, the 29-year-old captain, hit all six of his sets without a major mistake to end a remarkable run in which he came from nowhere to make his first Olympic team. Mikulak, a four-time national champion, was hoping to make an international splash but saw his hopes of reaching the podium end when he shorted his vault landing during his third rotation.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL

Jennings, Ross survive

[ARKANSANS IN RIO: Full coverage of 24 in Olympics]

Americans Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross have finished the Olympic group stage unbeaten, but not before losing their first set of the Summer Games. The U.S. women beat Switzerland 21-13, 22-24, 15-12 on Wednesday night to win their pool with a 3-0 record. They now await news on an opponent for the round-of-16, which begins Friday. Jennings is going for her fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal. Ross won silver in London. The Swiss team of Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Verge-Depre did win the second set. The Americans fought off three set points before the Swiss converted the fourth. It's just the second set Jennings has ever lost at the Summer Games. She won three gold medals with Misty May-Treanor, sweeping Athens and Beijing before losing a single set in London.

MEN'S BOXING

U.S. to break drought

It's been a rough stretch for U.S. boxing, the group that graduated Ray Leonard, George Foreman and Oscar De La Hoya to prominence. Nico Hernandez somewhat changed things with a unanimous decision over Ecuador's Carlos Quipo in a light-flyweight quarterfinal. A berth in the semifinals guarantees Hernandez a medal since there is no third-place bout between the two semifinal losers. Hernandez's upset over No. 2 seed Vasilii Egorov of Russia put him in position to medal. Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekistan will be his next fight in the semifinals. The U.S. men earned a single bronze in 2008 and won no medals at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

TENNIS

26 matches rained out

Rafael Nadal went from being scheduled for a busy-as-can-be Wednesday to a day off at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, thanks to rain that forced postponement of all 26 matches. And now the 14-time Grand Slam champion will need to play three matches today instead -- weather permitting, of course. None of the nine courts at the Rio tennis venue has a roof, so near-constant showers on Day 5 of the sport prevented any competition. After slowly whittling and juggling the schedule throughout the afternoon and early evening, organizers finally called off everything about 8½ hours after play originally was supposed to begin. It all creates a logjam of matches in a sport that is meant to wrap up in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. But the schedule does have an extra day built in Monday in case it ends up being needed. Nadal, a 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist, originally was slated to play for Spain in the third round of singles against Gilles Simon of France, in the semifinals of men's doubles with Marc Lopez against Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil of Canada, and in the first round of mixed doubles with Garbine Muguruza against Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic. That trio of contests was shifted to today's schedule. Today's schedule will also include all of the women's quarterfinals.

WOMEN'S FIELD HOCKEY

U.S. team advances

The United States women's field hockey team advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Japan 6-1. Melissa Gonzalez scored on a penalty corner 21 seconds into the match to set the tone on a rainy Wednesday evening. Katie Bam scored the first of her three goals four minutes later. Katie Reinprecht scored late in the second period to make it 3-0 at halftime. Jill Witmer scored for the United States in the third period, and Bam scored twice in the fourth. The Americans improved to 3-0 and moved to the top of Pool B by moving ahead of Britain in goal differential. The United States will face India today.

SWIMMING

Water back to blue

It's not easy being green. Except at the diving pool at the Rio Olympics. Curiously, the water turned green at the pool on Tuesday -- causing a social media firestorm and raising questions from the divers. There was no official explanation why it occurred until Wednesday afternoon when FINA, the international governing body of aquatics, issued a statement: "FINA can confirm that the reason for the unusual water color observed during the Rio diving competitions is that the water tanks ran out of some of the chemicals used in the water treatment process. As a result, the pH level of the water was outside the usual range, causing the discoloration. The FINA Sport Medicine Committee conducted tests on the water quality and concluded that there was no risk to the health and safety of the athletes, and no reason for the competition to be affected." A sudden change in alkalinity was the reason, Rio 2016's Mario Andrada said during a news conference. "The water polo pool has been affected the same way," he said. "PH levels are at the required standard. We treated both pools in the night and the alkalinity levels have improved, we expect the color to be back to blue soon. People in charge could and should have done more intensive testing during the day." Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times, who was covering swimming preliminaries at the Olympics Aquatics Stadium, reported that the water was the correct color Wednesday.

Sports on 08/11/2016