3 top teams in U.S. women's Olympic group

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LONDON, April 24 (UPI) -- The No. 1-ranked United States has two other Top 10 teams in its group for the 2012 Olympics women's soccer tournament, officials said Tuesday.

The United States has won the gold medal three of the four times women's soccer has been part of the Summer Olympics. The U.S. women were silver medalists in 2000.

The 2012 field, however, features eight Top 10 teams. That includes No. 6 France and No. 8 North Korea, which along with Colombia, are in Group G with the United States.

Host Great Britain -- the English are ranked ninth -- heads Group E with No. 4 Brazil, Cameroon and New Zealand. Brazil was runner-up to the United States in 2004 and 2008.

Group F features No. 3 Japan, fifth-ranked Sweden, No. 7 Canada and South Africa.

The teams play each other team in their groups once with the top two automatically qualifying for the knockout stage.

The third-place teams will be ranked by points earned in the round-robin matches and the two with the most points advance.

The women's gold medal for the 2012 Olympics is to be decided Aug. 9 in London's Wembley Stadium.