A sudden, heavy rainfall forced two baseball matches of the Beijing Olympic Games to halt on Thursday afternoon.

The rain struck the baseball range at Wukesong in west Beijing at around 12:50 p.m. Thursday, when China and South Korea were at a scoreless draw in the second half of the fourth inning, and the United States led the Netherlands 6-0 in the seventh inning.

Maintenance staff covered the range with plastic film, while some one third of the spectators chose to stay in the stands.

Both matches resumed at 2:30 p.m., with China and South Korea proceeding to the sixth inning, still at a zero-all draw, and the U.S. expanding their lead to 7-0 in the seventh inning, but had to halt again due to the rain.

Later on Thursday, the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) announced that the China-South Korea game had been postponed to Aug. 17, which originally had no game schedule.

There was no immediate decision regarding the other match, but the IBAF may rule over the match result according to competition rules.

The thunder shower on Thursday afternoon also affected a softball match between the United States and Canada in the Fengtai Softball Range, which was halted twice.

In the Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park, the finals of two events in the Olympic rowing regatta were postponed to Friday also due to the rain.

This was the second time that rain interrupted the rowing competition, with the first interruption taking place last Sunday.

However, the beach volleyball competition in the Chaoyang Park of Beijing was not affected by the weather, with the players completing their matches in the rain as scheduled.

(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2008)