LONDON, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Thursday's highlights from the London Olympics:
-- Usain Bolt, who always looks like he coasting while everybody else is running as hard as they can, completed a sprinting double-double never achieved before. He won the 200-meter dash and now has victories in both the 100- and 200-meter events at each of the last two Summer Games. Jamaica won all three medals in the 200, but nobody could challenge Bolt.
-- World records are getting harder and harder to come by in the world of track and field, so when they are achieved it is something special. Kenyan David Rudisha produced one Thursday in the 800-meter run, trimming a tenth of a second off the world mark with a time of 1:40.91.
-- In a late-night flurry of activity, the United States came up with gold medals from its women's soccer team, its women's water polo team, triple jumper Christian Taylor and decathlete Ashton Eaton. There was also a gold medal early in the day from 17-year-old Claressa Shields, one of the first three ever handed out in Olympic women's boxing.
-- With 18 medals overall over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, the Americans moved in front of China in Olympic victories (39-37) and overall medals (90 to 80). China finished with 15 more gold medals than the United States in Beijing, but the Americans already have three more than they had in 2008.
-- The sport of women's freestyle wrestling wrapped up its Olympic program with its third and fourth finals. Japan won three of the four gold medals awarded.
-- The 40th consecutive victory by the U.S. women's basketball team did not come all that easily. Australia had a four-point halftime lead, but Diana Taurasi hit two 3-pointers early in the third period to get the Americans going. They eventually won by 13 and set up a gold medal matchup on Saturday with France.
-- After swimming around a lake in Hyde Park for almost 2 hours, the women's 10-kilometer race came down to a closing sprint. Eva Risztov of Hungary got to the line six-tenths of a second in front of American Haley Anderson.
-- China's lone gold medal came from Chen Ruolin, who won the women's platform event for the second straight Olympics. She has also been part of the duo that has won the synchronized platform title each of the last two Games. Therefore, just like Bolt, she had her own double-double. China has won six out of seven diving events with one to go.
-- The weather interfered with competition in an odd way. There was no rain in the Olympic city, but there was not enough wind along the southern coast for the sailing events to be held. The men's 470 class could not conduct its medal race, the first medal event in these Olympics that could not be held on the day it was scheduled.
