Well. What a day – and night – that was. Catch up with it all here in the briefing then stay strapped in for the live blog to take you all the way through day 10 in Rio.
The big picture
Can you be struck by lightning three times? The men’s 100m field certainly was as Usain Bolt lolloped home in 9.81 seconds – a bit slow, sure, but who’s counting that when we’re counting gold medals? Bolt now has three successive Olympic golds in the 100m, an unrivalled feat by an unparalleled athlete. He beat crowd non-favourite Justin Gatlin into second; Canada’s Andre De Grasse was third. So relaxed was Bolt he had time to tweet as he crossed the finish line:
Jamaica Stand Up!!!
— Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) August 15, 2016
This for you my people
He’ll be pacing himself, too, for the 200m final on Thursday and 4x100m relay on Friday. After all, as he told reporters after his win: “I’m getting older.” Bolt is 29.
Bolt’s win crowned a packed night of proper Olympic stories: Team GB’s Andy Murray triumphed over Argentina’s Juan Martín Del Potro after a torturous four-set match (7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5) to duplicate his 2012 men’s tennis singles gold; South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk tore away with Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record in the men’s 400m final – and from lane eight too.
You should also know:
- Russia’s sole athlete Darya Klishina cleared to compete after appeal.
- Paralympic Games: countries still waiting for vital travel grants.
- Two Rio show jumpers disqualified for overuse of whip and spurs.
Picture of the day
Fresh from 100m victory, Usain Bolt brushed aside the tsunami of cameras and microphones to make his way over to Wayde Van Niekerk, who’d just busted the world record in the 400m (and who – though he’s not racing them in Rio – is pretty nifty over 100m and 200m too, incidentally).
Team GB roundup
Second place in the medals table, you say? A stonking day for Team GB nabbed five more gold medals – two of them belonging to Britain’s best ever gymnast, Max Whitlock, who triumphed on the floor and the pommel – and three silvers. The fact that two of those silver winners – Callum Skinner in the men’s sprint cycling, and Louis Smith in the pommel horse final – came second to British teammates is worth a couple of bonus smug points.
Nick Dempsey, in the windsurfing, claimed his silver behind Dorian van Rijsselberghe of the Netherlands – both medals assured before the RS:X final even began. His son, Dempsey reported, had told him: “It’s OK, Daddy, you’ve got two silvers now, which is the same as one gold.” And you can’t argue with maths.
Jason Kenny bested Skinner with ease to take the men’s sprint gold. He now has five Olympic golds, plus another track whirl in the keirin on day 11. A gold there would bring him to Sir Chris Hoy levels of Olympic-ness and add his name to the list of surely-Sirs alongside Murray and Mo Farah.
And Justin Rose is Britain’s first Olympic champion in golf since 1904. I mean, he’s the only Olympic champion in golf since 1904 but today’s briefing is all about the hyperbole.
Looking ahead to day 10, and Christine Ohuruogu won’t feature in tonight’s 400m finals, having failed to move up from the semis. Mark Cavendish lies third with three events left in the cycling omnium, and Charlotte Dujardin will hope to make it gold for the second Olympics in a row by making her horse do weird things really well in the individual dressage.
Team USA roundup
Just the two golds on day nine, and if you were a betting person you wouldn’t have bothered with either of them, for your reward would have been in buttons. America’s Jack Sock and Bethanie Mattek-Sands beat America’s Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram 6-7, 6-1, 10-7 in the mixed tennis doubles finals, divvying up the gold and silver as they did so.
And gymnast-of-gymnasts Simone Biles took gold in the women’s vault, the nailed-on certainty of the result bouncing her opponent Hong Un-jong, of North Korea, into attempting a move even Biles can’t do: a triple-twisting yurchenko. Hong couldn’t do it either, as it turned out. A 15.966 and Biles somersaulted away with her third Rio gold. Teammate Madison Kocian won silver in the uneven bars.
It was silver too for US 100m hope Justin Gatlin, who was roundly booed as he entered the stadium. From the start he had the edge over Usain Bolt – but it’s the end that counts. And by then, Bolt was up, up and away.
- Ryan Lochte reveals details of gunpoint robbery by Rio gang posing as police.
- Gabby Douglas ‘heartbroken’ as online abuse targets gymnast, mother says.
- Men’s basketball: USA 100-97 France.
Australia team roundup
A day to forget, although I’m just about to remind you of it. No medals won and the men’s hockey team are out of the Games, bettered by the Netherlands 4-0 in the quarter-finals. The men’s water polo team are on their way home too, fifth in their group and waving goodbye to a quarter-finals place.
Matthew Glaetzer finished a frustrating fourth in the men’s sprint final in the velodrome, and Anna Meares survived a scare to scrape into the last eight of the women’s sprint.
On the running track it was Games-over for Annelise Rubie and Morgan Mitchell, losing in the women’s 400m semifinals; and for Linden Hall, Zoe Buckman and Jenny Blundell, who did not make the women’s 1,500m final. A little lift – a 2.29m one – came from Brandon Starc, who qualified for the men’s high jump final on Wednesday. And another one courtesy of the Boomers, finishing second behind the US in the men’s basketball standings and now off to the giddy heights of the quarter-finals.
It’s not as if the athletes can even head to the beach to unwind: they’re now banned after dark from Ipanema, Copacabana and the others that aren’t in songs, after US swimmers were robbed.
Diary
All times below are local to Rio: here’s the full timetable tweaked for wherever you are. Or add four hours for UK, add 13 hours for eastern Australia; subtract one hour for east-coast US and four for west coast.
There are 17 golds waiting for necks to dangle round today.
- First up is equestrian, where Britain’s London 2012 champion Charlotte Dujardin will be hoping for a repeat in the individual dressage from 10am.
- Back on track with cycling and the final three events of the men’s omnium: time trial at 10.21, flying lap at 4pm, and points race at 5.23pm. Team GB’s Mark Cavendish is currently in bronze-medal position. The women’s omnium also begins, with the scratch race at 10.59am.
- Five finals in the athletics: the women’s hammer throw at 10:40am; the women’s 3,000m steeplechase at 11:15; men’s pole vault at 8.35pm; the men’s 800m – with Kenya’s David Rudisha to one to watch – at 10.25pm; and the women’s 400m rounding off the evening at 10.45pm. Team USA’s Allyson Felix is the one to beat.
- Three finals in the gymnastics: in the men’s rings at 2pm; the men’s vault at 2.54pm; and oh look, here’s Simone Biles in the women’s balance beam at 3.46pm.
- You thought the swimming was over but no: it’s moved to open water. At 9am it’s the women’s 10km marathon. British hopes rest on Keri-Anne Payne.
- There’s also synchronised swimming, with the duets technical routine spinning into action at 11am.
- Sailing finals in the women’s laser radial at 1.05pm. The men’s laser follows at 2.05pm, with Australia’s Tom Burton guaranteed a medal finish. Alison Young and Nick Thompson race for Team GB.
- Team GB gold medal-winning diver Jack Laugher is back for the men’s 3m springboard preliminaries at 3.15pm.
- It’s the men’s boxing heavyweight final at 7.15pm. Russia’s Evgeny Tischchenko takes on Vassiliy Levit of Kazakhstan.
- At 7pm, it’s the medals decider in the men’s 105kg weightlifting.
- And two Greco-Roman wrestling gold bouts: men’s 85kg and the men’s 130kg.
Underdog of the day
No runner had ever won a 400m final from lane eight. No South African athlete had won an Olympic track gold since 1928. And then Wayde van Niekerk did it on night nine in 43.03, beating Michael Johnson’s 1999 world record time. (Johnson graciously labelled it “a joy and a surprise”.)
It was South Africa’s first gold in Rio, too, just to add the cherry to the top of the cake.
Ace of the day
Told by the BBC’s John Inverdale that he was the first person to win two Olympic gold medals for tennis, Andy Murray realised the presenter was forgetting the existence of women, telling him:
Venus and Serena have won four each.
Tweet of the day
A Canadian MP enjoys some misplaced limelight:
Thanks for the implausible congrats on #Olympic cycling gold, but the credit goes to my infinitely more talented UK namesake @JasonKenny107.
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) August 14, 2016
If today were a movie …
It would be Bolt. Of course we all know he doesn’t really have super-powers, but it’s a pretty convincing display of out-of-this-worldliness all the same.
And another thing
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