Grant Holloway, the World champion in 110m hurdles, and the only man to go under 13s this year, had a healthy lead at the halfway stage in the final on Thursday but landed hard after the eighth barrier and lost his rhythm. Seizing the opportunity, Jamaica’s Hansle Parchment came through strongly to win in a season-best 13.04s and pull off one of the biggest shocks in athletics at Tokyo. Holloway’s silver came 13.09.
“It’s unbelievable that I caught this guy (Holloway). I’m really grateful.” said Parchment.
Glory for Gardiner
World champion Steven Gardiner ran a smart race to take the 400m gold in 43.85s and become the first man from the Bahamas to win an individual Olympic gold. And in a repeat of the 2019 Doha Worlds, Colombia’s Anthony Zambrano was second in 44.08.
American Ryan Crouser produced the greatest series in shot put history as he defended his title with a 23.30m best which was very close to his world record (23.37m). All his throws either equalled or bettered the Olympic record of 22.54m while his compatriot Joe Kovacs won silver (22.65m).
Also breaking the Olympic record was Canadian Damian Warner who became the fourth man in history to break 9000 points in decathlon while triumphing with 9018 points. Frenchman Kevin Mayer, the World record holder, was second with 8726.
Emulating Joyner-Kersee
And Belgian Nafissatou Thiam, a two-time World champion, became the second woman in history to win back-to-back Olympic heptathlon titles — after Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1988 and 1992) — with 6791 points.
Portugal’s Pedro Pablo Pichardo was in a world of his own in the triple jump. All his jumps easily beat the rest of the field and his gold came with 17.98m with China’s Yaming Zhu taking silver in 17.57.
Shaky
While Pichardo was very steady, American Kate Nageotte was very shaky. She missed the opening height of 4.50m twice but bounced back to win the pole vault title with a 4.90m, pushing World champion Anzhelika Sidorova to silver.
Nothing was expected of the three Indians in the 20km race walk and while Sandeep Kumar — the National record holder with 1:20.16s — finished 23rd in 1:25.07, Rahul Rohilla (1:32.06) and K.T. Irfan (1:34.41) took the 47th and 51st spots.
Italy’s Massimo Stano staved off a strong challenge from Japanese favourites Koki Ikeda and Toshikazu Yamanishi to take the title in 1:21.05s in Sapporo.
World champion USA, home to six of world’s 10 fastest men this year, finished sixth in its 4x100m relay heats and failed to qualify for the final. Jamaica was the fastest overall going into the final while China, surprisingly, was second.
