Needing to surpass 10.234 points with her final floor routine, Aly Raisman could have fallen over, skidded out of bounds or both, and still scooped gold for United States’s newest gymnastics heroes — the Fierce Five. As it was, she soared high in her tumbles, stuck her landings with a thud and flashed a smile as wide as the nearby Thames River as she finished with a flourish to cap a jaw-dropping night for the Americans. Read More

The United States women’s soccer team clinched the top spot in Group G after Abby Wambach’s 25th minute goal gave it a 1-0 win over North Korea and a perfect record in three group-play matches. The three-time gold medal winners finished with the maximum nine points, having also beaten France and Colombia, and will play New Zealand in Friday’s quarterfinals at 6:30 a.m. Read More

A California law firm representing a stockholder has filed a class-action lawsuit against Zynga accusing the game publisher of failing to disclose a rapid decline in users and revenue. The San Francisco-based gaming giant behind “FarmVille” and other Facebook games stunned Wall Street last week by reporting quarterly results well below expectations and slashing its 2012 revenue forecast. Its stock plummeted 42 percent to a record low and analysts cut their recommendations on the stock. Read More

The Oakland A's won Monday night -- well, really Tuesday morning, after midnight -- but struck out a franchise-record 21 times during the 4-3, 15-inning victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.The day before in Baltimore, the A's racked up 14 strikeouts, so the whiffs are coming fast and furious, with some pretty notable numbers getting put up.On Monday, Josh Reddick and Brandon Inge both struck out four times, Kurt Suzuki three times. Reddick and Inge both struck out twice on Sunday, too. Read More

If Olympic success comes as naturally to Missy Franklin as exuberance and enthusiasm, then she has a swimming future so golden one almost needs sunglasses to contemplate it. The 17-year-old American’s first gold of the London Games on Monday, the 100-meter backstroke, may have been widely predicted, but the taste of victory still exceeded all her expectations. The teenager, competing in a record seven events in her first Olympics, overhauled Australia’s Emily Seebohm in the final few strokes to get her hand on the wall first in a time of 58.33 seconds. Read More

U.S. gymnast John Orozco endured successive disasters as the United States slumped to finish fifth in Monday’s men’s team final, two days after raising hopes of gold by qualifying in first place. Orozco, the fourth best all-round gymnast in Saturday’s qualifying, faltered twice on the pommel horse, briefly sitting down, and then fell on his vault. He was taken aside by his coach for a pep talk after the pommel, and looked tearful following the vault, but recovered to complete strong routines in the parallel bars and horizontal bar. Read More

The United States outclassed 2008 champions China in women’s gymnastics qualifying at the Olympics on Sunday, but their top name Jordyn Wieber suffered the shock of failing to get through to the all-around final. Wieber had been the favorite for the individual crown coming into the games after taking the world gold in Tokyo last year, but will now have to be content with trying to win a team medal and the floor title. Read More