Paris (AFP) – LeBron James’s USA won a fifth straight Olympic men’s basketball crown on Saturday while on the track, Jakob Ingebrigtsen claimed the 5,000m after his disappointment at 1,500m. The US edged Brazil 1-0 in the women’s football final at the Parc des Princes thanks to Mallory Swanson’s winner. The Americans claimed the gold medal for a record-extending fifth time.
The USA’s dream team of NBA superstars held off France 98-87 to take their tally of men’s Olympic basketball golds to 17. In a rematch of the Tokyo Olympics final, the US again proved too much for France’s sensational NBA Rookie of the Year, Victor Wembanyama, and his teammates. For Kevin Durant, it was a record fourth Olympic gold. James earned his third, and Stephen Curry claimed his first in his maiden Olympic appearance, contributing eight three-pointers to the effort.
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As the track and field programme wrapped up, Ingebrigtsen bounced back from his unaccustomed fourth place in the 1500m earlier in the week. He made tactical errors in that race, but in the 5,000m on Saturday, the Norwegian overcame the team tactics from his Ethiopian rivals to cross the line in 13min 13.66sec for gold, with Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi taking silver. Ingebrigtsen said, “It’s just an amazing feeling. The contrast in sports is unique: when you succeed, and sometimes you have a bad experience. It’s amazing to have this.”
In a lightning-fast men’s 800m, Emmanuel Wanyonyi held off world champion Marco Arop of Canada. It was the fifth Olympics in a row that a Kenyan has won the event. Wanyonyi, 20, clocked a personal best of 1min 41.19sec for victory, making him the third fastest man in history, and Arop took silver just one-hundredth of a second behind in a North American record. Pre-race favourite Djamel Sedjati of Algeria claimed bronze with 1:41.50 and shrugged off a raid by anti-doping investigators on the Olympic Village room of his coach earlier this week. “Nothing (important) happened. These are things that athletes can face,” Sedjati said after Saturday’s race.
In a rare athletics gold for New Zealand, Hamish Kerr won the men’s high jump after a dramatic jump-off with American Shelby McEwen after both cleared 2.36 metres. Masai Russell of the United States snatched victory in the women’s 100m hurdles, edging out France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela, who clinched the host nation’s first athletics medal of the Games. The dominant Americans finished the track and field programme with 14 golds, topped off by wins for both their 4x400m relay teams. Kenya were a distant second with four golds. The women’s marathon will be the last athletics event on Sunday.
Earlier, Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola broke the Olympic record to win the men’s marathon as reigning champion Eliud Kipchoge dropped out before the end. In scenes captured by an AFP reporter, two-time Olympic champion Kipchoge turned to fans and handed over his shoes, bib, and socks to supporters, receiving a rapturous reception. In the boxing ring, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting won her final, ensuring that the two fighters at the center of a major gender controversy both take home gold.
A day after Algeria’s Imane Khelif clinched the 66kg title, Lin claimed the 57kg crown with a unanimous points decision win over Poland’s Julia Szeremeta at Roland Garros. Lin and Khelif have been under intense scrutiny for much of the past two weeks in a furore that has drawn fire from the likes of Donald Trump and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
China underlined their total domination of Olympic diving by winning their eighth gold out of eight events, as Cao Yuan triumphed in the men’s 10m platform. The Chinese also swept the board in table tennis for the sixth time in Olympic history, with China’s women overpowering Japan in the team event. New Zealand’s Lydia Ko upgraded to a gold in the women’s golf, completing her set of Olympic golf medals during a tense final round, with Germany’s Esther Henseleit finishing two shots behind. The former world number one won silver at the 2016 Rio Games and bronze in Tokyo.
Away from the sport, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said he would not seek a third term, declaring, “new times are calling for new leaders.”
© 2024 AFP
