Beijing -  Kenenisa Bekele emulated fellow-Ethiopian Miruts Yifter when he completed an Olympic long distance double gold with a runaway triumph in the 5,000 metres at the Beijing Olympics on Saturday.

Bekele, who won the 10,000m a week ago Saturday, is only the fifth man overall to get the distance double, the last being Yifter in 1980.

There was also double gold for Kenya as Nancy Jebet Langat won the nation's first ever women's 1,500 metres gold and Wilfred Bungei won Kenya's first Olympic 800m in 16 years.

The United States, meanwhile, made amends for a poor showing in Beijing by winning the men's and women's 4x400m relays for a total seven golds, one more than the six they took from their worst Olympic athletics performances in 1972 and 1976.

Tia Hellebaud of Belgium stunned Croatian favourite Blanka Vlasic to win a dramatic high jump gold and Andreas Thorkildson won the javelin for Norway as he did in 2004.

Away from the track Argentina won the Olympic football tournament, Russia moved into third place in the medals table winning three golds, and China moved to within one gold of the magic 50 mark.

The track hero on day 15 was Bekele, who joined the distance running greats Emil Zatopek (1952), Vladimir Kuts (1956), Lasse Viren (1972, 1976) and Yifter with the double as he shocked his rivals with a deadly sprint at the bell.

The Ethiopian clocked 12 minutes 57.82 seconds for victory. Eliud Kipchoge won silver and compatriot Edwin Cheruiyot Soi took bronze.

Kenyan's golden double came with Bungei, 28 winning its first men's 800m gold since 1992 in 1:44.65 seconds. Sudan's Ismail Ahmed Ismail took silver in 1:44.70 while Kenyan world champion Alfred Yego had to settle for bronze in 1:44.82 minutes.

"It's a great evening for us Kenyans. We came her not knowing what we could do and now we have two gold medals tonight," said Bungei.

Earlier Nancy Jebet Langat had claimed the women's 1,500m in a personal best 4:00.23 minutes a day after her 27th birthday.

After failing to win a single sprint gold the US at least saved face in the longer relays.

Sanya Richards beat Russia's Anastasia Kapachinskaya on the home stretch to win the women's gold with Mary Wineberg, Allyson Felix and Monique Henderson in 3:18.55 minutes.

The US men got their seventh straight 4x400m gold from 400m winner LaShawn Merritt, Angelo Taylor, David Neville and Jeremy Wariner in 2:55.39 minutes.

There was drama in the high-jump with Hellebaud and Vlasic both leaping 2.05m but Hellebaud winning on the on the cruel countback rule because she made the height on her first attempt while Vlasic took two jumps. Norway's Thorkildsen won his second Olympic gold with a fifth-round javelin throw of 90.57m.

The Olympic athletics events end with the men's marathon on Sunday.

Earlier in the Bird's Nest Benfica winger Angel Di Maria scored the only goal of the game as Argentina beat Nigeria to defend their Olympic football title.

Playing in sweltering midday conditions in front of a near- capacity 89,000 crowd Di Maria scored in the 58th minute, chipping goalkeeper Ambrose Vanzekin after running onto a Lionel Messi pass.

France's Julien Absalon won the men's mountain bike and Sabine Spitz of Germany was in a class of her own as she captured gold in the women's event.

Spitz, 36, cycled away from her rivals early in the 27-kilometre course and had enough time to carry her bike across the finish line in delight.

But German joy turned to disappointment in the canoe/kayak competition as, despite favourites billing it failed to win a single race on a day in which China took an unexpected gold.

Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun were very popular winners in the K2 500m division, just ahead of Russians Sergey Ulegin and AlexanderKostoglod in a photo finish.

With Ma Lin's table tennis victory that took the Chinese to 49 golds just one short of a half century they will hope to mark up in one of tomorrow's six boxing finals.

They were denied the 50th gold in diving when Australia's Matthew Mitcham stopped a Chinese clean sweep in the event with victory in the men's 10-metre platform.

Mitcham withheld the challenge of Zhou Luxin, who led going into the final round, to win with a total of 537.95 points. Zhou had to be satisfied with silver on 533.15 while Russia's Gleb Galperin claimed bronze with 525.80 points.

Russia are finishing Beijing very strongly and they moved up to third in the medals table on the penultimate day of action. Maxim Opalev won the men's C1 500m canoe race, its synchronized swimming team took gold and there was gold for Rakhim Chakhkiev in the heavyweight boxing.