Tuesday's Olympic Highlights

Highlights from Tuesday's action at the Olympics: -- Michael Phelps established the record for most medals won in an Olympic career, collecting two during Tuesday's session to run his total to 19. He broke a record that had stood for 48 years and he should add to it before the Games, and his competitive swimming days, come to an end. -- Although he set the record, Phelps missed a chance to win a gold medal in his signature race. After a large lead disappeared, he coasted to the wall instead of going for it aggressively and was beaten by .05 of a second in the 200-meter butterfly by South African Chad le Clos. The resulting silver medal tied the career record and Phelps broke it an hour later by anchoring the Americans' winning 800-meter relay team. -- The United States won four swimming medals for the third straight day, one of them a gold picked up by Allison Schmidt in the 200-meter freestyle. Twelve of the United States overall total of 23 medals have come in the pool. -- China also has 23 medals during four days of competition, but leads the United States in golds 13-9. The Chinese equaled the American total of four won Tuesday, getting a victory in swimming, diving, weightlifting and fencing. China is assured a gold in women's table tennis singles, where two players from that country will battle for the title Wednesday. -- Germany, which won just one medal over the opening three days of action, grabbed five Tuesday. Three of them came at the equestrian venue, two by the same person. Michael Jung won the individual eventing competition and was a member of the winning eventing team. -- Also competing as a member of the British equestrian team was Zara Phillips, the granddaughter of the queen. Phillips enjoyed a perfect ride in the jumping arena and wound up eighth overall in eventing. -- Alaaeldin Abouelkassem of Egypt made it all the way to the finals of the individual foil event before losing. Nevertheless, his silver medal was the first of any kind ever won in fencing at the Olympics by an African nation. -- Tony Estanguet of France and Michal Martikan have spent far more than a decade paddling canoes through swirling waters in slalom races around the world. They have combined to win 19 world championship medals, of which 13 have been gold. They battled each other again Monday with Estanguet winning. It was his third Olympic gold medal. Martikan finished third, picking up a medal at his fifth straight Olympics. -- It was a perfect day and night for Americans in the team sports. The men won in basketball, volleyball and water polo while the women were winning in field hockey and soccer. The women's soccer team completed group play unbeaten and will compete in the quarterfinals next Friday. -- And Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France met Canadian Milos Raonic in the second round of the tennis tournament, a match that provided plenty of entertainment while they were splitting the first two sets. But they were just getting started. Three hours later Tsonga had won the third set 25-23 and still had enough energy to jump high in the air in celebration.