China defeats Belarus

China defeated Belarus in the women's Olympic basketball tournament with a 77-62 victory taking them through to the semi-finals.

Scoring 28 points to keep alive her team's chance of a first Olympic medal in 16 years China's best player and captain Miao Lijie provided the spark once again.

"I'm relieved," China's Australian coach Tom Maher told Reuters.

"After we beat the Czechs and Spain (in the first round) there's no way we should lose to Belarus- no offence."

After allowing Belarus to reduce China's 22 point-lead to just nine in the final quarter, until Miao hit a key fadeaway jumper in the corner, Maher accused his players of "sloppiness".

"We're like reformed drug addicts," he said. "We have to focus very, very hard from staying away from the evil things, otherwise we fall back to it very quickly."

Chen Xiaoi added 15 points from China, who finished runners-up behind the United States the gold medal favourites in their preliminary group.

Semi-finals

The Chinese will next play the winners of the second quarter-final, world champions Australia, making it the fourth straight Olympics that the Aussies have made the semifinals.They've lost the gold medal final to the U.S. in the past two Olympics.

Australia has been one of the top women's teams since 1996 when it came in third. Lauren Jackson had 17 points and 12 rebounds to help Australia rout the Czech Republic 79-46

China is led by Tom Maher, who was the Australian national coach from 1993-2000 said: "I have a lot of friends on the Australian team. They are playing us and I don't care about them at all, I just want to beat them."

Maher has China back in the semifinals for the first time since the 1992 Olympics when the host nation won a silver medal.

"I'm delighted for China basketball," Maher said. "It's great to see China back near the top of the basketball tree."

Bidding for their fourth straight Olympic title the US are expected, along with Australia and Russia to fill the podium places in Beijing.