Will the U.S. return to their status as Olympic champions – a title they lost to Cuba at the 2004 Athens games?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. The Cuban baseball team will go for gold once again, having beaten the United States 10-2 to reach the Olympic championship game.
Alexei Bell hit a three-run homer in the eighth to put the punctuation mark on the defending champions’ 10-2 victory over the Americans on Friday night that put the Cubans in the title game again. He raised his hand to signal No. 1 while rounding the bases, then Ariel Pestano added his own three-run shot three batters later to seal it.
Cuba (7-1) will play unbeaten South Korea (8-0) on Saturday, while the U.S. will face Japan for bronze in the first game of the day. South Korea rallied to beat the Japanese 6-2 in Friday’s first semifinal.
Cuba finished runner-up to the U.S. in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics before winning again four years later in Athens. Winning gold in China might mean even more to the tiny Caribbean country, considering that baseball will come off the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games and might not be back.