China leads the pack

China erupted Wednesday when its women won their first team gymnastics Olympic gold medal, with further success in shooting, diving, and weightlifting adding to the elation.

Emotions also spilled over on the badminton courts with defending women's champion Zhang Ning breaking down in tears after coming through a mammoth quarterfinal against Chinese-born Pi Hongyan of France 21-8, 19-21, 21-19.

And Li Na became the first Chinese player to reach an Olympic tennis singles quarterfinal with a two sets to one win over Estonia's Kaia Kanepi.

China's gymnasts capitalised on a mistake-ridden US performance before an enthralled audience at Beijing's National Indoor Stadium who roared their approval when the medal was won.

The win avenged their narrow loss to the United States at last year's world championships and added to the team gold claimed by China's men on Tuesday.

Defending Olympic champion Romania won bronze.

"I feel very excited because we sacrificed a lot to win this gold medal and this is a direct competition between the Chinese team and the USA team and we are very proud that we won," said Chinese gymnastics coach Lu Shanzhen.

Chen Ying claimed China's third shooting gold of the Games when she won the women's 25m Pistol final, setting a new Games record in the process.

The hot favourite after winning the 2006 world championships, Chen came in with 793.4 points to surpass by two Bulgarian Maria Grozdeva's previous Olympic record set in Sydney.

In front of packed crowds of passionate fans, Wang Feng and Qin Kai clinched the men's synchronised 3m springboard title to continue China's diving domination with the hosts' fourth straight gold.

This was China's most comprehensive diving victory so far, winning by with a staggering 469.08 points compared to the 421.98 of Russian silver medallists Sautin Dmitry and Yuriy Kunakov.

"This gold is so important to my life," said Wang. "We performed very well today."

Liu Chunhong won the women's 69kg weightlifting gold medal, with the defending Olympic champion hoisting 128kg in the snatch and added 158kg in the clean and jerk for a total lift of 286kg, all three being new world records.

"I don't think anyone will reach that in the next one to two years, and when someone does I will create more records," said a tired Liu, who added she wanted to return to her home in Shandong province and rest.

Swimmer Pang Jiaying also brought the crowd to their feet, stunning the field to finish third behind winner Federica Pellegrini of Italy in the women's 200 metres freestyle.

"I didn't expect this medal, my coach told me that even eighth place would be okay," said a delighted Pang, who touched in more than two seconds faster than her previous personal best.

China's other big medal hope in the pool, Wu Peng, came fourth in the men's 200m butterfly with unstoppable American Michael Phelps first in a new world record time.

China's medal tally now stands at 17 golds, four silvers and five bronzes in the battle to be the most dominant sporting nation on earth.

Thanks to Phelps, the Americans have 10 gold, eight silver and 11 bronze.

China gave themselves another chance of swimming success after Liu Zige qualified fastest for the final of the women's 200m butterfly with teammate Jiao Liuyang third quickest.

Only world record-holder Jessicah Schipper of Australia separated them.

The country's top-ranked badminton players were back in action with Zhang booking a semifinal against Indonesia's Maria Kristin Yulianti.

The match against Pi was tense and on the winning shot Zhang's smile quickly dissolved into tears of joy.