Beijing: China reinforced its table tennis dominance Saturday with Wang Hao and Ma Lin into the men's final, as the hosts' divers attempt to become the first since 1952 to clean sweep all Olympic gold.
On the penultimate day of the Games, China assured itself of more success after Wang defeated Swedish veteran Jorgen Persson in the semi-finals 4-1.
The world no.1 fought off a courageous effort from Persson, who at 42 has played in all six Olympics since the sport was was included, and was the last man standing against the Chinese Wall.
Wang won 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 11-7, 11-9 and now plays teammate Ma Lin who beat compatriot Wang Liqin.
China's women's volleyballers, meanwhile, added a bronze by beating Cuba three sets to one (25-16, 21-25, 25-13, 25-20) in the play-off match.
Huo Liang led the charge in the men's 10m platform in the quest to complete the rare feat of total domination off the diving boards, a sport adored by Chinese people worldwide.
China has already won seven gold but the final hurdle has always been a problem and favourite Zhou Luxin was reminded he has some serious opposition after qualifying only third best in the semi-finals.
His teammate Huo, the newly-crowned synchro champion, surprisingly topped qualifying on 549.95 points ahead of Australia's Matthew Mitcham on 532.20. Zhou scored 526.20.
Russia's Gleb Galperin, the 2007 world champion who had been sidelined since that triumph due to a spinal injury, was fourth.
"I'm better prepared mentally than in the preliminaries," said Zhou.
"But I failed to get my body fully adjusted this morning. There were some technical deficiencies in my last dive."
China's gold medal tally has been snowballing since day one of the Games when it won the first in women's weightlifting, and on Day 16 it has 47 to be 16 clear of the United States and 29 ahead of third placed Great Britain.
Chinese boxing has broken new ground with three fighters reaching Olympic finals in the country's best ever performance, but the tournament was Saturday overshadowed by claims that the judging is biased.
"The only way I could win here if if the judges got knocked out," complained Ireland's Paddy Barnes after losing to China's world light flyweight champion Zou Shiming on Friday evening.
"It's just a disgrace. I felt the punches knocking him but nothing came. I landed a punch in the first round but it went to Zou."
Barnes wasn't a awarded a single point in his 15-0 mauling.
Earlier, the Algerian camp claimed Ouatah Newfel was unfairly eliminated from the super heavyweight quarter-finals to smooth the path of China's Zhang Zhilei.
Despite criticisms on air quality, media freedoms and its defiant refusal to tolerate any protests, China is beginning to revel in its hosting of the biggest sporting event on earth.
The official state-run Xinhua news agency ran a commentary calling it "a milestone in the course of the great reinvigoration of the Chinese nation".
"And this generation of the Chinese people are lucky to witness a century-old dream of the nation finally come true," it said.
"The Chinese people now can proudly announce to the world: we have lived up to the trust of the international community and the International Olympic Committee."
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