Briefly

Baseball

The young Americans were outclassed early by a 35-year-old Nicaraguan pitcher before gradually pulling away for a 4-1 victory.

Basketball

The Dream Team looked shaky to start, but pulled away in the second half for a 96-68 victory over Argentina. It was the first sub-100 point game since NBA stars replaced collegians in 1992. The Dream Team led by just two points at the half. David Robinson was the leading scorer with 18 points.

Lithuania overcame the loss of several key players to edge Croatia 83-81 in two overtimes.

Boxing

Zahir Raheem got the U.S. team off to a rousing start by dominating his North Korean opponent at 119 pounds. The 19-year-old Philadelphian staggered Hoe Jong-Gil only seconds into their fight, leading to a 19-4 victory in front of a flag-waving group of fans and teammates who chanted “USA, USA.”

Fernando Vargas, a 147-pounder from Oxnard, Calif., won a 10-4 decision over Tengiz Meskhadze of Georgia.

Fencing

Russia’s Aleksandr Beketov eliminated a pair of defending medalists and defeated fellow Olympic rookie Ivan Trevejo-Perez of Cuba 15-14 to win the gold medal in men’s individual epee.

Field hockey

The U.S. women salvaged a 1-1 tie with the Netherlands when Marcia Pankratz of Wakefield, Mass., scored on a deflection with 1:57 left.

Gymnastics

The U.S. men had a strong showing in their compulsory pommel horse routines, moving into Monday’s finals.

Leading the way for the Americans were four-time national champion John Roethlisberger, who had a 9.70, and Mihai Bagiu, who posted a 9.637.

Judo

France’s David Douillet won the gold medal in the heavyweight division. The women’s heavyweight champion was Sun Fuming of China.

Soccer

Hernan Crespo and Diego Simeone scored second-half goals to lead Argentina to a 3-1 win over the United States in an opening-round match in Birmingham, Ala. The paid attendance was 81,067.

Shooting

China’s Wang Yifu lost the gold medal to Roberto Di Donna of Italy with a dreadful final shot in the men’s 10-meter air pistol event.

The first gold medal of the 1996 Olympics went to Poland’s Renata Mauer, who won the women’s 10-meter air rifle competition. Mauer won after Germany’s Petra Horneber put her final shot three-quarters of a millimeter too far from the bull’s eye.

Swimming

Le Jingyi won the gold medal in the women’s 100-meter freestyle, and the U.S. took a pair of silvers and a bronze on the first day.

Angel Martino, 29, of Americus, Ga., the oldest U.S. Olympic swimmer in 72 years, won bronze in the 100 free. Allison Wagner of Gainesville, Fla., won a silver in the women’s 400-meter individual medley, won by Ireland’s Michelle Smith.

Belgium’s Fred Deburghgraeve set the first world record of the Games with a time of 1 minute, 00.60 seconds in the 100-meter breaststroke preliminaries. She later won the gold medal in 1:00.65. Jeremy Linn of Harrisburg, Pa., won the silver in 1:00.77.

New Zealand’s Danyon Loader won the gold in the 200-meter freestyle.

Volleyball

Sisters Bev and Elaina Oden dominated the first set and the United States beat Ukraine 15-8, 15-5, 15-11 in women’s volleyball.

Water polo

The U.S. water polo team lost its opening game 10-7 to Italy, the defending gold medalist and reigning world champion.

Weightlifting

Halil Mutlu of Turkey won the gold medal in the 119-pound division.

Wrestling (Greco-Roman)

World champion Dennis Hall was one of six Americans to win opening-round matches.