KEY POINTS:
21.04: The New Zealand team just failed to make the coxless fours final, finishing in fourth. That's us for tonight, see you tomorrow.
20.44: So, a big hour in the rowing. To re-cap: Emma Twigg missed out on the A-final, finishing fourth. Drysdale made it, just. Bridgwater and Twaddle took a second place, Waddell and Cohen secured a third place. Slightly nervy stuff, but we have several finals to look forward to on Saturday night.
20.37: Another one down - Waddell and Cohen qualify for the final. The Australians took this semi, followed by the Slovenian pair with the Kiwis in third.
20.20: Bridgwater and Twaddle are through, in second place, behing the Candaians who went out hard but faded towards the end. That's another final with NZ interest set up for Saturday night.
20.15: Mahe Drysdale goes through to the final - but only just, in third place. It looked for a moment like he would be caught at the end and not make it at all. But relief, he's there.
19.46: Before we wrap up today's blog, let's run through the action still to come tonight.
The Tall Ferns take on China at 8.45 tonight in a must-win game.
"Mighty" Mahe Drysdale will also be racing in the rowing at 8pm as will the men's pair George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle.
The Oly-Whites are also in a must-win situation when they take on Belgium at 11.45pm.
For those not working tomorrow morning, the Blacksticks take on Spain at 12.30am.
Look us up tomorrow as we follow the action of Day Six.
19.30: Chinese police dragged a journalist along the ground before stepping on his hands.
AFP reported that John Ray, the China correspondent for Britain's Independent Television News, was trying to cover a pro-Tibet protest near the Olympic stadium when things got nasty.
"I tried to explain to them that I was a British journalist but they would not even let me take out my identification documents, they were very rough,' Ray told AFP.
The foreign protesters were arrested and ITN cameraman Ben England said he was manhandled by police as he tried to film the protest. He said the police used umbrellas to try and block his camera.
19.05: Italy's Federica Pellegrini wore two pairs of togs because she was scared her new racing suit could fall off during her record-breaking performance.
AFP reported the 20 year-old knocked .63s off her old best and set a world record of 1minute 54.82s in the 200m freestyle final for her country's first gold medal in the pool.
"I put the training suit under the other suit because the swimsuit can sometimes break very easily," she said.
"In order to avoid problems and show myself naked, I put on another swimsuit, a normal training one not a Speedo LZR Racer," Pellegrini said.
The new togs have been credited with helping athletes make get record times.
18.58: The Russian beach volleyball team are refusing to throw in the towel after going down to Georgia amidst intense Russian-Georgia political situation.
AFP reported that at a post-match press conference Russia's Natalia Uryadova questioned the citizenship of her Brazilian-born opponents.
"We were not actually playing against the Georgian team. We were playing against our Brazilian friends here," Uryadova said.
She and teammate Alexandra Shiryaeva lost to Georgia's Andrezza Chagas and Cristine Santanna.
Santanna replied: "I feel like a Georgian. I have a Georgian passport and a Brazilian passport. We have fought for the past two years to be here as one of the 24 teams".
The situation on the ground is still unclear after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev last night ordered a halt to military action in Georgia after Russian forces invaded Georgia last week.
18.08: OK, so Burmester didn't win a medal but his swim was inspirational and reports coming out of Beijing say it has revved up the entire Kiwi games team.
Burmester pushed Phelps, and despite coming fourth, he dug deep to cut over 1.5s off the New Zealand record.
"He's sparked it up," Currie told NZPA.
"It was an unbelievably brave swim, he's not going to die wondering, that's for sure."
Currie said he was at the pool for the race, the first swimming final since 1996 to include a New Zealander.
He said when he returned to the Olympic Village, he found 20 athletes in the team lounge still buzzing about what Burmester had done.
And there's more buzz to come later tonight with Emma Twigg in the rowing semifinals for the women's single sculls and Mahe Drysdale in the men's. We've also got sailing and the soccer with the men's do-or-die game against Belgium.
The Tall Ferns also have a must-win when they take on China in basketball.
A crowd of 15,000 is expected which is sure to boost the Chinese at 8.45pm.
17.42: TVNZ has apologised for losing the link to Burmester's race this afternoon in the Men's 200m butterfly final.
The problem was caused by a "switching failure" which meant viewers watching on freeview and Sky missed out on the race result.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said the outage lasted for six minutes.
"TVNZ says it greatly regrets that a technical failure has interfered with New Zealanders' appreciation of Moss Burmester's tremendous effort," Ms Richards said.
The coverage has grabbed the attention of nzherald.co.nz readers who have written into the "Your Views" section with some scathing comments, including this from "EB" in Auckland.
"TVNZ's coverage has ranged from poor to embarrassing. Ad breaks in between finals that last only 57 seconds, the loss of Moss Burmester's race and a TVNZ 'reporter' asking Olympic gold medallist/World record holder Natalie Coughlin about Michael Phelps straight after becoming the first woman in Olympic history to defend her Olympic title in swimming."
"Welshjerry" from Waiheke Island was also angry.
"I think it is being ruined by coverage so insultingly pathetic that it would disgrace a 4th world country," he said.
17.22: A Taiwanese baseball player has been banned from appearing in the team's first game after testing positive for a banned substance.
Taiwan Baseball Association secretary-general Lin Tsung-cheng said third baseman Chang Tai-shan did not suit up for today's opener against the Netherlands after the International Olympic Committee informed the association of the test results.
Lin did not name the drug involved and said a further test will be carried out. He said if it also proves positive, Chang will be banned from the rest of the Olympic baseball tournament.
For those wanting something inspirational, Eric Shanteau was diagnosed with testicular cancer just before the US Olympic trials and put off surgery until after the games.
Shanteau sadly missed out on advancing to the final after finishing sixth in his semifinal heat and 10th overall - just one hundredths of a second out of the last spot into the final.
Japan's Kosuke Kitajima, trying for his second straight sweep of the breaststroke events, cruised along as the top qualifier at 2min 08.61sec. He already won the 100m with a world record after taking both golds in Athens four years ago.
- AP
17.12: China has won its first Olympic gold medal in women's gymnastics, taking the most important title in its rivalry with the Americans.
China finished with 188.9 points in the women's team final today, more than two points ahead of the Americans.
But the Americans lost any shot they had with multiple mistakes in their last two events, and had to settle for silver in a second straight games.
Defending Olympic champion Romania was third.
-AP
16.50: Organisers at the Olympic sailing venue of Qingdao are monitoring an oil slick spotted off the coast but so far it has not threatened the race course.
Qu Chun of the Qingdao venue management said maritime safety and rescue authorities were monitoring the slick and would take whatever steps necessary, such as using oil spill containment booms.
He said the source of the spill was "still under investigation" but that it had probably been caused by a ship.
The slick "is not in the (race) area," he said at a morning briefing.
-AP
16.46: Weightlifter Janos Baranyai has a broken arm in what could be the ugliest moment of the games. The Hungarian was competing in the 77kg men's weightlifting.
16.28: New Zealand's weightlifter Richard Patterson finished a distant ninth in the 77kg group B competition.
Patterson lifted 130kg in the snatch and 170kg in the clean and jerk while the winner Erkand Qerimaj from Albania lifted 154 and 187kg.
Patterson will have to wait for the 14 group A weightlifters to compete to find out if he has made it through to the next round.
16.20: Georgia has beaten Russia in beach volleyball. The win will swell pride as the UN reports 100,000 people have been made homeless by the conflict.
Cristine Santanna and Andrezza Martins, both Brazilian born but playing for Georgia, helped the team to a three-set victory over Russia's Alexandra Shiryaeva and Natalia Uryadova.
The Georgians now advance to the medal round after rallying from a sloppy 21-10 loss in the first set to win the next two, 22-20 and 15-12.
Although they made just a few short visits to the country to obtain their new passports, Santanna and Martins took on the nicknames Saka and Rtvelo - "Georgia," in Georgian - out of affection for the land that allowed them to qualify for the Olympics.
-AP
15.53: The complaints to TVNZ's message board are flowing thick and fast after coverage of the Moss Burmester race was interrupted.
"First we have commentators from the 70's nad now coverage like it's the 70's..."
The poster who names themselves as J Dubbs goes on to say: "My particular highlight was getting told by the TVNZ call centre: you better just hang up now or you'll miss it".
fuTV1 wrote: "Congrats MOSS, love ya. Only if TV1 showed the race live... he would of (sic) won with the countries (sic) positive aura guiding him on".
TVNZ have said the problem was "a satellite glitch" and have replayed the race.
15.41:The women's time trial for cycling is winding its way through the smog filled streets of Beijing.
15.31: The US have smashed the world record for the four by 200m relay going under the 7 minute mark with a time 6min 58.96s.
The American fish Phelps now has 11 gold medals. With all the gold he's got now, he must be rivalling the New Zealand Reserve Bank!
15.07: It has emerged that the Spanish men's basketball team posed for an extraordinary photo which has appeared in daily sports newspaper Marca. The photo, taken prior to their departure for Beijing.
It shows the team holding their eyes in a "slant-eye" pose generally used as a racial slur against Chinese people. The team photo was taken on a basketball court featuring a dragon logo.
The ABC in the US quoted a spokeswoman for the Organization of Chinese Americans saying: "I can't speak for what is considered funny in Spain. I don't know if it has the same impact that it would here. It's clearly racist, and not even in a jovial way."
15.00: World record holder Kitajima from Japan has taken out the race with an Olympic record of 2min 08.61s. Kitajima also holds the world record which he set in June.
Snyders was not as quick as he was yesterday with a time of 2min 12.07s.
The biggest lesson he learned? "Definitely stay cool. Just focus on the race and don't worry about anything else," Snyders said.
14.44: Here comes Snyders... Watch lane eight for the South African born Kiwi.
Stand-by for Kiwi Glenn Snyders as he swims for a spot in the 200m breaststroke semi-final.
14.35: The Burmester and Phelps race was not available on TVNZ's coverage via Freeview and the Sky satellite service. It was only possible to watch on terrestrial.
14.23: Burmester said after the race: "I left everything in the pool. I'm not sure what the splits were".
"I was hoping for a little bit quicker than that. I couldn't have done anything more," Burmester said.
For a new world record, Phelps swam 1min 52.03s
14.23: Burmester grabs fourth and Phelps takes a fourth gold medal. At one point Burmester was in the position to take a world record but the American fish fought back to take gold and a new world record.
But Burmester pulled one out of the bag with 1min 54.35s.
14.22: Burmester on world record time. In second place...
14.05: French swimmer Alain Bernard has set a new world record for the men's 100m freestyle. Bernard has just swam 47.20s.
13.57: For soccer fans, the Oly-Whites face their sudden death play-off against Belgium tonight at 11.45pm.
The Oly-Whites will have an uphill battle as they take to the field without their only goal scorer of the games so far - Jeremy Brockie - who has been suspended.
Brockie landed himself two yellow cards - one in the 1-1 draw with China and a second in the 0-5 hiding by Brazil. The Oly-Whites must win to keep their hopes of making the quarter-finals alive.
13.44: For those cheering on the Kiwis in the pool, Glenn Snyders will swim for a lane in the 200m breaststroke final straight after Burmester.
Snyders smashed his personal best and the national record last night by almost two seconds.
"It felt awesome, it was really controlled over the first 100 and I gave it everything coming home," Snyders said last night.
13.20: Day five for New Zealand gets under way with medal hope Moss Burmester in the pool this afternoon.
Burmester will need to beat his best time of 1min 54.99s set at the Olympic trials in March to have a shot at getting a medal.
He is in the pool with the American fish Michael Phelps who has already netted three bits of bullion. The starting horn for the 200m butterfly final goes at precisely 2.21pm.
But that's just the start of it. There's also a banquet of sailing being served up as well as the rowing later tonight. For the night owls, there's the women's basketball, canoeing and hockey that goes late into the night.
