South Korea stun Cuba in baseball preliminaries

ON THE TOP: South Korea players celebrate after defeating Cuba in a men's preliminaries baseball game at the Beijing Olympic Games.

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Beijing: South Korea toppled defending champions Cuba 7-4 on Tuesday to confirm their status as the surprise package of the Olympic baseball tournament and gold medal contenders.

With just one game remaining in preliminary round play, the plucky Koreans have already taken an impressive list of scalps to move top the standings with a 6-0 record.

Triple Olympic gold medallists Cuba, 2000 Olympic champions the United States and Baseball World Classic winners Japan have all fallen to the Koreans, who have even surprised manager Kim Kyung-moon with their play.

"When we came into these Games I thought that maybe we would have four victories from the seven preliminaries," Kim said.

"But unexpectedly, I think we are fortunate because since we beat the US in a very tough first game the good luck has stayed with us and we have won all our games. Before we came to these Olympic Games people were talking that the US, Cuba and Japan are very strong. But no matter whether a team is strong or weak there are many factors that can affect results," he said.

The top-of-the-table clash between the tournament's only unbeaten teams began with Cuba racing to a 3-0 lead in the second inning.

But the Koreans, as they have throughout the Olympics, battled back to push across five runs in the fourth, Ko Young-min providing the big hit with a two-run single.

In other action, Canada (2-4) rebounded from four consecutive one-run losses to beat the Netherlands, 4-0. Both the Canadians and Dutch have been eliminated from medal contention.