Letsile Tebogo snatched a stunning Olympic gold in the men’s 200m Thursday to deny Covid-hit Noah Lyles a sprint double, while LeBron James’ USA survived a huge scare from Serbia to reach the men’s basketball final.
In another sparkling performance on the track at the Stade de France, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone smashed the world record to win the women’s 400m hurdles gold.
The brash Lyles was keen to showcase his speed and endurance in his preferred 200m after winning one of the closest 100m finals in modern Olympic history.
But Botswana’s Tebogo stunned the American with a storming run, relegating Lyles to bronze and his US teammate Kenneth Bednarek to silver.
The first African to win 200m gold, Tebogo clocked a continent-wide record time of 19.46sec, leaving a distraught Lyles prone on the track. Lyles later revealed he had tested positive for Covid two days ago.
“It was really a beautiful race for me,” Tebogo said.
“When we made it to the final, my coach just told me, ‘Now my job is done, it’s up to you to see what you can do’,” he added.
Hours later, Lyles said on social media his Games were likely over.
“I believe this will be the end of my 2024 Olympics,” the sprinter posted on Instagram.
The 400m women’s hurdles had been billed as perhaps the race of the Games, pitting McLaughlin-Levrone against Femke Bol of the Netherlands — the two fastest women ever over the distance.
In the end, the race was hardly a contest, McLaughlin-Levrone taking the field apart to register a staggering world record of 50.37sec.
America’s Anna Cockrell took silver in 51.87sec while Bol trailed in third in a time of 52.15sec.
Another record fell in the men’s javelin, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem hurling an Olympic record of 92.97 metres with his first effort to win the country’s first gold since 1984.
Grant Holloway won gold in the men’s 110m hurdles in a time of 12.99sec to finally add an Olympic title to the American’s host of world golds.
In the morning session, the American men and women both powered through their 4x100m relay heats to warn off any rivals aiming to challenge their dominance.
Stung by having to settle for 100m silver, Sha’Carri Richardson ran her anchor leg in an eye-popping 9.99sec to see the women home.
USA comeback
At a packed Bercy Arena, the United States had to come back from 17 points down to beat Nikola Jokic’s Serbia 95-91 to keep their bid for a fifth straight men’s basketball gold medal alive.
But it took a massive fourth-quarter effort to finally overhaul the Serbs, who were ahead for most of the game and led 76-63 heading into the fourth quarter.
Stephen Curry scored 36 points and James had a triple-double of 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
“To come back the way we did… I’ve seen a lot of Team USA basketball, and that was a special one,” Curry said.
Hosts France, led by the towering Victor Wembanyama, lie in their path to gold after edging Germany 73-69 in the first semi-final.
Dedicated to her dog
Earlier Thursday, Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands won a gruelling battle against her competitors and the water current in the 10-kilometre swim in 2hr 3min 34sec.
She devoted her gold to the memory of her pet dog, Rio, who died in May.
“Swimming is my everything but so was he. My father said ‘Swim one more time and do it for him’ and that’s what I did,” she said.
Water quality in the Seine has been in the spotlight during the Games despite a 1.4-billion-euro ($1.5-billion) effort to improve sewerage and water treatment.
Organisers have been forced to scrap several training sessions and postpone the men’s individual triathlon after assessing the water to be too dirty to swim in.
In the velodrome, Frenchman Benjamin Thomas claimed the omnium title while New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews charged to what she called an “unreal” women’s keirin gold.
On the golf course, unheralded Swiss player Morgane Metraux took the halfway lead after a spectacular front-nine of 28 in a six-under-par 66, taking her to eight-under for the tournament.
World number one Netherlands secured their first gold in men’s hockey since 2000, beating Germany in a penalty shoot-out.
The Dutch are hoping to make it a double as the women face China for gold on Friday.
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