KEY POINTS:
19.50: That concludes our live updates from the Beijing Olympics. Thanks for following our live blog during the past two weeks. You can continue to follow live updates of all the Olympic action including the Kiwi K2 kayakers this evening with this live updates link.
Thank you and goodnight.
19.39: Fouhy finishes fourth in the K1 1000. A brave effort from Fouhy. The British kayaker Tim Brabants won the gold. Next up it's Steven Ferguson and Mike Walker in the K2 1000 at 8.35pm
19.34: Fouhy is fourth through 500m and struggling to catch the leaders.
19.30: They're underway in the K1 1000 final.
19.10: Kiwi born Hugh McCutcheon's US men's volleyball team will play for the Olympic gold medal after defeating Russia in five sets. They will face the winner of the semi final between Brazil and Italy.
McCutcheon left the team for a time to be with his wife Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon. Her parents, Todd and Barbara, were stabbed in a random incident on August 9 at a popular tourist spot in Beijing. Todd Bachman died of his injuries while Barbara Bachman suffered severe injuries in the attack and is now recovering in Minnesota.
18.37: The US will conduct a post-mortem into their disappointing Olympic athletics performance that has seen US sprinters eclipsed by their Jamaican rivals. A miserable Games for a team that billed itself the world's best was highlighted by relay botches by both the men's and women's 4x100 metres teams on Thursday night.
"I, like all fans of Team USA, am extremely disappointed with the performance of our relays," CEO of USA Track & Field Doug Logan said, after the US men's and women's 4x100 teams dropped batons in Thursday's opening relay rounds.
It's the first time since 1976 that the United States have competed and failed to win a sprint title at a Games.
18.31: Just over an hour now until Ben Fouhy fronts in the K1 1000 kayaking final in Beijing. Four years ago he was devastated to win the silver in Athens. This year he is delighted just to make the final. We'll update you on his progress from the Shunyi Olympic Rowing Park from 7.35pm tonight.
17.27: New Zealanders' internet downloads hit a record high during the Beijing Olympics, with peak viewing on Tuesday at the end of the men's triathlon.
The peak output was 5.2 gigabytes per second (Gbs) of data, said Neil de Wit, chief executive of CityLink, the company assisting TVNZ's live internet coverage of the Olympics.
17.02: Sarah Walker says a slow start contributed to her narrowly missing out on a medal in the women's BMX final today.
"I got pushed out the back. I tried to come under the first corner and I managed to get up to third and I thought 'here we go' but the Argentinian girl (Gabriela Diaz) came underneath," Walker said.
"It was a clever move, I congratulate her on it but we both lost speed and a few other girls went past.
"I wanted to be the first person to bring a BMX medal home for New Zealand, now I can be the first that missed out."
16.36: Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser have completed an American sweep of the beach volleyball gold medals, beating Brazil.
16.33: Sparc says the $60m invested in high performance sports since 2004 has been largely vindicated by NZ's success in Beijing. Rather than spreading that money thinly across all sports, it opted to target those sports "capable of achieving world class results," allocating $51.5m on just nine sports. Athletics got $3.98m, with others in the money mix, cycling ($9.54m), rowing ($9.48m), swimming ($6.62m), triathlon ($4.33m), yachting ($8.08m), equestrian ($2.82m), hockey ($4.95m) and canoeing ($1.75m).
Sparc CEO Peter Miskimmin is delighted the funding stregy has paid dividends.
"We're well ahead of countries like Canada and South Africa, and we're up there with the likes of Spain and Holland," Mr Miskimmin said.
"That's exciting for us and a great reflection of the work that people like the Academy of Sport and our whole high performance system do.
"We have limited money compared to a lot of countries, and it's what we extract out of that. I like to think that it gives us confidence that our system works.
"We can do better, we have to do better, more in terms of the return we get for the amount of money we put in."
16.10: Italy's Alex Schwazer has won the Olympic 50km walk setting an Olympic record in brutal 30C degree conditions. Schwazer broke clear around the 42km mark and covered the longest race in the athletics programme in three hours, 37 minutes, nine seconds.
15.54: China insists all its gymnasts are eligible to compete in the Olympics. "The women athletes we had in these Olympics were in total compliance with the age requirement," Chinese gymnastics coach Huang Yubin told a news conference.
The International Olympic Committee has asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate claims that Chinese double gold medallist He Kexin is younger than the eligible age of 16 to compete in the Games.
15.23: By the way, the Black Sticks women's hockey team have had a dispiriting 4-1 loss to South Africa. The NZ Herald's chief reporter is very happy! South Africa finish 11th, NZ finish last. It looks like Kevin Towns has coached his last match with the team. Not a good day for the Kiwis in action so far.
14.33: Fourth for Sarah Walker! That's a disappointment! She got caught in the pack after a bad start and couldn't bust out. That's very sad. One of the French riders took it out.
14.30: The women's BMX final is one race! They are lining up.
14.01: The IOC has asked gymnastics officials to investigate whether the Chinese women's gymnastics team that won the gold medal at the Beijing games had underage athletes, saying more information had come to light.
"We've asked the gymnastics federation to look into it further," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said Friday. "If there is a question mark and we have a concern, which we do, we ask the governing body of any sport to look into it."
14.01: Walker is through to the final. She finished second in her third semi final run. The final is scheduled to start at 2.30pm NZT though it may be slightly delayed.
13.42: Willers has finished seventh in race two and will miss the men's final. Tough luck for Kiwi Marc Willers after crashing out of race one.
13.36: Reade, the gold medal favourite in the womens, has come second in race two the second semi. A big crash in that one wiped out the two Aussies. Reade still fifth overall in the second semi, needs a good run in the final race to make the final.
13.34: In fact Walker was third in race two and is second overall with one race remaining in her semi final.
13.31: Sarah Walker has finished fourth in the second race of her semi final, so she's in good shape for the final. Just to clarify the rules, there are two semis with each semi run over three races. The top four riders from each semi (made of of three races per-semi) go through to the final.
13.18: South Africa leads NZ 2-1 in the women's hockey 11th and 12th playoff at half-time.
13.15: Maris Strombergs of Latvia has taken out the second men's heat in the BMX.
13.12: Willers has been involved in a big crash. Half the field has been wiped out... An American, Mike Day, has won. Willers is 8th and it will be difficult for him to qualify.
13.10: Now it's Willers' turn in the men's first heat.
13.09: Reade has waved to the crowd, she's ok. There are still another two runs so she still has a chance.
13.06: Actually, it's the women's second semi... And a wipe-out. Two crashes. Favourite Shanaze Reade is out.
13.03: Walker has grabbed second behind France's Anne-Caroline Chausson. There's now a wait for the next semi but she is in contention for a finals position.
13.00: The BMX semis are about to start... Walker has just pushed off.
12.57: New Zealand have dropped two places in the medals table overnight to 19th. But another gold medal and we'll shoot back up to 15th, provided Romania doesn't pull anything special out of the bag.
12.49: TVNZ are showing the replay of the Women's soccer final from last night, rather than the NZ women's hockey match. New Zealand take on South Africa for the 11th and 12th place.
12.45: After yesterday's rain delays, our BMX riders Sarah Walker and Marc Willers are in action this afternoon. Semis start at 1pm with the finals at 2.30pm in the women's and 2.40pm in the men's.
Later on Ben Fouhy is in the K1 1000m canoeing final at 7.30pm and Steve Ferguson and Mike Walker race for medals in the K2 1000m final at 8.35pm.
