LONDON — Japan's "Nadeshiko" heartbreakingly lost out to the United States for women's football gold Thursday — as the Americans also toppled China from the top of the Olympic medals table.
At Wembley Stadium, Japan slumped 2-1 to the United States as they failed to repeat their win in last year's World Cup final. Carli Lloyd scored early in each half before Yuki Ogimi got one back.
Earlier China bagged diving title number six, through Chen Ruolin in the women's platform, but it was not enough to stop them slipping behind the United States in the medals race.
With three days of competition left, they trail the United States by 37 gold medals to 39. Britain are a distant third on 25 while both Russia and South Korea have 12.
In women's taekwondo, Britain's Jade Jones denied Hou Yuzhou the under-57kg gold medal as she won 6-4, and home favourite Nicola Adams upset China's Ren Cancan in the women's flyweight boxing final.
"I need to realize my dream so I will fight in Rio. I will stick to my dream. I'm determined to win the gold next time," Ren said afterwards.
Japan's nine-time world champion Saori Yoshida made it an Olympic hat-trick in women's freestyle wrestling when she beat Tonya Verbeek of Canada for the 55kg title.
She matched the achievement of compatriot Kaori Icho, who on Wednesday became the first woman to win three Olympic wrestling golds in a row, in the 63kg class.
In diving, Chen was head and shoulders above the rest. The Chinese star peeled off five fantastic dives to score 422.30 points and win by 55.8 points, the most convincing victory so far at the Aquatics Centre.
"I'm feel very happy. I feel really honoured that I can win one more gold for the Chinese team," Chen said. "I just hope that China can get more gold, the more the merrier."
Australia's Brittany Broben took silver with 366.50, and Pandelela Rinong claimed the bronze with 359.20 -- winning Malaysia's first ever Olympic diving medal.
"I feel very proud and happy because I just won a medal for Malaysia. It's really an honour. It's a great, great thing for Malaysia," she said.
"I feel very proud of Malaysia. I hope Malaysia is proud of me. Diving is not that famous (in Malaysia) like badminton. I hope I will be inspiring the youth (to take up diving)."
On Friday, Japan face South Korea in Cardiff for the men's football bronze medal. Coach Hong Myung-Bo said the South Korean players would be exempted from compulsory military service if they beat their arch-rivals.
"Yes, it is true that if we get the bronze medal then the players will be getting exemption from military service, which is compulsory for Koreans," Hong said.
And Chinese favourite Qiu Bo will step on to the 10m diving platform to start his bid for the gold medal, challenged by local hope Tom Daley.
China finished top of the medals table for the first time in 2008, but they are in a scrap to do it again with the United States likely to star in athletics and basketball over the last three days. AFP