Nothstein takes silver in sprint final

 STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) -- The way Marty Nothstein figured it, Germany's Jens Fiedler needed the "best day of his life" to beat him in the Olympic men's sprint final. He had one.
 Fiedler beat the American in the first two races of the best-of-3 final Sunday, leaving Nothstein with a silver medal.
 Nothstein, of Trexlertown, Pa., was trying to salvage some American pride in the wake of his teammates' poor showing in cycling, but he lost the first race by less than an inch and never led in the next against the two-time gold-medal winner.
 "Going into today I told a few people, 'He's going to have to have the best day of his life to beat me," Nothstein said. "And he did."
 Also on Sunday, Italy's Antonella Bellutti beat France's Marion Clignet, formerly of Bethesda, Md., for the women's individual pursuit gold medal.
 Italy's Silvio Martinello won the gold medal in the men's points race and Nathalie Even-Lancien won the women's inaugural points race following a 2 1/2-hour rain delay, giving France its fifth gold medal, seventh overall.
 Nothstein's silver was just the second medal in nine events for the Americans, who boasted before the Olympics that they had the world's best bicycles.
 But the U.S. pursuit team and its sleek SuperBikes were ousted, along with Rebecca Twigg in the women's individual pursuit, last week. Those were two medals the U.S. team was counting on to go with the silver Erin Hartwell won in the 1-kilometer time trial.
 So, the dejected U.S. team pinned its hopes on the 25-year-old Nothstein, who beat reigning world champ Darryn Hill of Australia and Canada's Curt Harnett, the bronze medalist at Barcelona, to reach Sunday's gold medal race.
 On Saturday, Nothstein predicted he'd win America's first cycling gold since the Los Angeles Olympics. He said he was the strongest and fastest sprinter on the velodrome, and he had the home crowd.
 But Fiedler got the best of Nothstein in the match sprints, where two riders jockey for position for two of the three laps, trying to gain an advantage for the final sprint, about 200 meters from the finish.
 "He knows if I get the front, the race is pretty much over," Nothstein said.
 "It was clear I had to take the front," agreed Fiedler, who also upset Australia's Gary Neiwand in the semifinals.
 Canada's Curt Harnett beat Neiwand for the bronze medal.
 Bellutti, who set the Olympic mark on Friday with a time of three minutes, 32.371 seconds in the women's individual pursuit, was timed in 3:33.595 on Sunday.
 Clignet -- an epileptic who was born in Hyde Park, Ill., but started riding for France in 1991 after a frustrating struggle with U.S. coaches -- finished in 3:38.571. The bronze went to Germany's Judith Arndt.
 Martinello, the reigning world champion points racer, took the gold with 37 points, followed by Canada's Brian Walton with 29 and Australia's Stuart O'Grady with 27.
 Even-Lancien won the women's race with 24 points, one more than Ingrid Haringa of the Netherlands. The bronze went to Lucy Tyler Sharman of Australia with 17 points.
 In the points race (24 kilometers for women, 40 kilometers for the men), a rider wins by either lapping the field or by scoring the most points based on position in key laps.
 Brian McDonough, of Winston-Salem, N.C., finished 19th. Jeanne Golay, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., was 17th in the women's race after an early spill. She also crashed in the women's road race on July 21.