The last full evening of competition is under way as the Olympic world comes to grips with saying goodbye again. Baseball, men's field hockey, women's basketball and volleyball titles will be decided in the next few hours. What else is new?

FOOTBALL: It's become a tradition on the Games' penultimate day. The central athletics and ceremonial stadium, free of any morning track qualification duties, was momentarily transformed into a pitch for the men's gold medal match between Argentina and Nigeria. In contrast to the buzzing crowds at the Bird's Nest for the track events, there were singing, bands and chanting -- just like any freewheeling World Cup. It was the closest the Beijing Olympics have come to a spontaneous party in two weeks.

Angel di Maria of Argentina, fed by a Messi pass an hour in, delivered an perfect piece of football architecture -- a looping lob shaped like one of the metal threads in the iconic National Stadium. It was the only goal of the day in a match with few spectacular thrills, as temperatures in the stadium reached a stifling 107 degrees. In a rare move, the referees stopped play after FIFA's chief medical officer intervened in the 30th minute so that players could take a water break.

Argentina, which beat Paraguay in the 2004 gold medal match (on a historic football-basketball double day), became the first repeat Olympic champion since Hungary won at both Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968. Great Britain (1908-1912) and Uruguay (1924-1928) are the only other two countries to win consecutive Olympic titles in this sport.

Meanwhile, Ronaldhino pleaded with his countrymen to respect the country's bronze medal after a 3-0 final win over Belgium in Shanghai yesterday. Brazil, winner of an unprecedented five World Cups, is still seeking its first Olympic championship. "For Brazilians, coming second or last is the same," he said.

SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING: The Russians defended their gold medals in the team competition, capping a 10-year run of dominance in the sport. But the real news was that the final table included changes from the technical routine, in stark contrast to the duets, where the 24-entry standings remained perfectly static for three days.

Japan slid from fourth into a tie for fifth, and it took a swimmer being stretchered out of the Watercube for the standings to move. Hiromi Kobayashi was fetched from the pool by safety officials after the free routine when she became visibly distressed. She was taken to a local hospital, where she was reportedly resting and recovering this afternoon. "The team leader told me what happened to her was too much breathing," said the team press representative.

After weeks of positive preemptive drug tests in the run-up to the Games, the low number of doping cases have given Olympic cynics other things to complain about, like whether synchro belongs or not, or lipsynching girls and underage gymnasts. Since the IOC took over testing two weeks ago, just six human athletes have been caught (10 overall in all species). The latest to be kicked out of Olympia is Igor Razoronov of the Ukraine, a weightlifter who finished sixth in the heavyweight division and was discovered to have used anabolic steroids.

As for one of those four show jumping horses that tested for a banned painkiller, Ireland's national committee head Pat Hickey threatened to pull his country's equestrian team out of future Games, claiming that two consecutive Olympiads with positive drug tests have dragged the country's sports reputation "through the mud" and that show jumping should be removed from the Olympics.

TAEKWONDO: Truth be told, the increasingly corrupt boxing federation will be dropped long before horse sport is, and another combat discipline showed incredible capacity for self-correction today. In the quarterfinals of the women's heavyweight division, Great Britain's Sarah Stevenson was given second life after a successful appeal showed that she had landed a two-point kick to the head against Chen Zhong of China. Initially, world champion Chen had been awarded the bout by a 1-0 score.

After the reversed decision, Stevenson wasn't mentally ready to continue and lost her semifinal. But it's a victory for sports that have clear rules and regulations and points tied with tasks, instead of vague rules about landed punches. "Credit to the Chinese for showing good sportsmanship by saying that the decision needed to be overturned," said British delegation head afterward.

HANDBALL: In a followup from earlier, Norway easily took the women's title from Russia, winning 34-27 to claim the program's first Olympic gold and avenge a bad loss in the 2007 World Championship. A spread of seven qualifies as a handball blowout. "Today, Russia were not on the same level as us. It was a good day to meet them," Goreil Snorroeggen proclaimed. All hail your handball queens, world.

Photo credit: Associated Press