THE SEOUL GAMES : Roundup : Louganis in Second Place After Opening Dives From Platform

Greg Louganis, perhaps a day away from becoming the first man to win both diving events in consecutive Olympics, was second after Monday’s opening session of platform preliminaries.

He had 181.17 points after the four required dives of the 10 qualifying rounds and trailed Xiong Ni of China, who had 187.65.

The original field of 26 will be cut to 12 for Tuesday’s 10-round final. No preliminary scores are carried over.

Louganis, 28, of Boca Raton, Fla., won the springboard event last Tuesday. He had no problems Monday when he was fourth after the first round and second after each of the next three.

Jan Hempel of East Germany was third with 178.02 points, followed by Vladimir Timochinine of the Soviet Union with 175.92, Craig Rogerson of Australia with 173.73, Li Kongzheng of China with 172.89 and Gueorgui Tchogovadze of the Soviet Union with 171.66.

Women’s Basketball: Australian coach Robert Cadee called it the biggest victory ever for Australia after his team had handed the Soviet Union its first defeat, 60-48.

U.S. coach Kay Yow, who saw the Australians pull off their upset, said the result could mean trouble for the Americans, who will be facing the Soviets on an Olympic court for the first time since losing to them in the 1976 final.

“They could come out snarling against us after this,” she said.

The upset lifted Australia past the Soviets in the group A standings and gave them a semifinal date with Yugoslavia Tuesday. Australia and the Soviet Union completed the round-robin with 2-1 records, but Australia won the top seeding on head-to-head results.

Soccer: Defending silver medalist Brazil won the battle of the South American soccer giants Sunday, beating Argentina, 1-0, on a goal by midfielder Geovani to earn a place in the semifinals.

In other quarterfinal matches, West Germany ended Zambia’s run of upsets with a 4-0 win, three of the goals coming from Juergen Klinsmann; the Soviet Union overwhelmed Australia, 3-0, with midfielder Alexei Mikhailichenko scoring once and having a part in the other two goals, and Italy won a tense extra-time duel against Sweden, 2-1, after the Swedes had missed a second-half penalty kick.

Cycling: The Netherlands’ Monique Knol outsprinted a pack of 40 riders to the finish line Monday and won the women’s 82-kilometer cycling road race.

Knol, who took the lead with fewer than 5 kilometers to go, was timed in 2 hours 52 seconds for 5 laps around the 16.4-kilometer road course.

West Germany’s Jutta Niehaus finished second and Laima Zilporitee was third. Inga Benedict of the United States finished eighth in the field of 53 cyclists.

Three-time world cycling champion and pre-race favorite Jeannie Longo of France, riding a month after suffering a hairline fracture of the hip, took the lead briefly on the last lap but fell off the pace and finished 21st.

Yachting: Star and Flying Dutchman were the only two classes that sailed, allowing them to catch up with the six other classes that had five race completed. Two days of racing remain.

The Star and Flying Dutchman races had been called off Sunday because of heavy weather--the same reason given for calling off the other classes Monday, when the wind was significantly less, from 12 to 20 knots.

In Star, Canadians David Ross MacDonald and Donald Bruce MacDonald placed first to move into second behind Brazil’s Torben Grael and Nelson Falcao. Mark Reynolds of San Diego, with crewman Hal Haenel, Hollywood, placed fourth to slip from first to third in the standings.

In Flying Dutchman, Paul Foerster, Corpus Christi, Tex., and crewman Andrew Goldman, Greenwich, Conn., were leading at the second mark and apparently headed toward their best finish of a disappointing series when their boat capsized rounding the mark. They recovered to finish 10th and stand in 10th place. David Wilkins and Peter Kennedy of Ireland won the race.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Dan Torten, who started with his brother Ram in the men’s 470 class race on Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day, said, “We have been told that as of now we will probably be sent home.”

The Torten brothers were the only Israeli sailors to go onto the course on Yom Kippur last Wednesday, the day Israeli entrants were told to observe the holiday.

Shooting: The Eastern Bloc dominated the 13 events as the United States objected to a new final shoot-off system designed to create drama for the benefit of television.

A silver medal by U.S. Army officer Erich Buljung of Ft. Benning, Ga., was the only medal won by the United States. It was America’s worst Olympic shooting performance since the 1956 Olympics.

If the old system had been used, the United States would have had two golds, a silver and a bronze, and the Soviet Union would have had two more golds instead of bronzes.

The Eastern Bloc nations won 20 of the 39 medals, including 4 golds and 11 medals by the Soviet Union.

Weightlifting: Anatoli Khrapatyi won the 90-kilogram (198-pound) division to give the Soviet Union its third gold medal.

Khrapatyi’s teammate, Nail Moukhamediarov, won the silver and Slawomir Zawada of Poland collected the bronze. Both had total lifts of 400 kg (882 pounds), but Moukhamediarov gained the higher prize because he weighs less than Zawada.