Next Olympics host Britain reached its highest gold medal tally in a century on Tuesday with four victories including one from a once-banned runner. Christine Ohuruogu, who only made it to Beijing after winning an appeal against a lifetime Olympics ban, powered to gold in the women's 400 meters for Britain's first athletics win in China. “Everyone always dreams about winning but you never think there's a reality to something you dream about,” said the elated 24-year-old Londoner, who served a year's suspension for missing three doping tests in 2006. Other wins in cycling and sailing cemented Britain's third place in China, with 16 golds the best since 1908 and the perfect way to fire up enthusiasm at home for the 2012 Games. Host China is way ahead with 43 golds, its seemingly unassailable lead helping dull some of the national pain over the withdrawal through injury of track idol Liu Xiang. The United States is second with 26 golds. In the highest-profile race of Day 11, Rashid Ramzi gave Bahrain the first gold in its history in the men's 1,500 meters. Perhaps the most moving story came from Germany's weightlifter Matthias Steiner, who won the super-heavyweight gold to lay claim to the title of world's strongest man. Choking back tears on the podium, Steiner, 25, held up and kissed a photo of his late wife, to whom he had promised Olympic success when she was dying after a car crash last year. “I'm not the superstitious type, don't believe in higher powers, but I hope she saw me,” he said after his win. Aided by the power of the local yam vegetable, according to his father, Jamaica's Usain “Lightning” Bolt breezed through another race, this time the 200m semifinal. Bolt played for TV cameras at the block and eased up to take a sideways look at competitors before crossing the line first. “That's just me,” he said. “I like to enjoy what I do.” Should he win Wednesday's final, following his world record-breaking 100m victory, Bolt will be the first man to win an Olympic double sprint since America's Carl Lewis in 1984. While China's rise may be inevitable, given it has one fifth of the world's population to choose from, Britain's success was more surprising. Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton won the men's and women's sprints, making it a remarkable eight Beijing golds on road and track for the new cycling superpower. In Qingdao, on the coast, another Briton, Paul Goodison, won the sailing Laser title. Britain's success is attributed to heavy new investment in sport. That has allowed athletes and coaches to train full time, as well as seen improvements in facilities. Shawn Johnson of the United States won the balance beam, the last event of the women's gymnastics competition, and Li Xiaopeng earned China's men their sixth gold medal of the meet on the parallel bars before Zou Kai added a seventh on the horizontal bar. Other golds were awarded in sailing, wrestling, weightlifting, diving and equestrian, where Anky van Grunsven of the Netherlands won the individual dressage gold medal for the third Olympics in a row. In the men's triathlon, Jan Frodeno won a sprint finish by overtaking Simon Whitfield in the final stretch. Frodeno was in a pack of four at the end, but he pulled away to win by 5.19 seconds, taking the 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike ride and 10-kilometer run in 1 hour, 48 minutes, 53.28 seconds. “I could hear the other guys breathing, and I sprinted and now I'm the Olympic winner,” Frodeno said. Whitfield, the 2000 Sydney Games gold medalist from Canada, took silver and Bevan Docherty of New Zealand got bronze. Paul Goodison earned Britain's third sailing gold medal of the games with an overall win in the men's Laser class dinghy. Vasilij Zbogar of Slovenia took silver and Diego Romero of Italy got bronze. Brazil, the top-ranked women's volleyball team in the world, easily defeated Japan 25-12, 25-20, 25-16 to advance to the semifinals, where it will face either China and Russia. Cuba also advanced to the semifinals with a 26-24, 25-19, 26-24 victory over Serbia. The women's basketball team from the United States will face Russia in the semifinals Thursday. The Americans beat South Korea 104-60. China plays Australia in the other semifinals. In women's water polo, the top-ranked United States will face the Netherlands in Thursday's gold-medal match. The Americans beat Australia 9-8 and the Dutch defeated Hungary 8-7. - Reuters __
