Ah, the blissful dawn chorus of the Hong Kong taxi driver as they go honking and revving their way around the city, not the greatest sound wake up to. But then you get us dropping into your inbox, with a quick recap of the night’s action to peruse alongside your milk tea or semi-skimmed decaf, half-caf thing. And all of sudden everything seems better, right? Anyway, while you were sleeping, this is what was happening in Paris.
The men’s 1,500-metres was supposed to be a straight shootout between between Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr, somebody forgot to tell Cole Hocker. The American came out of nowhere to pass Kerr on the outside and win in an Olympic record 3 minutes, 27.65 seconds.
Kerr took silver in a national record 3:27.79, while another American, Yared Nuguse, ran a personal best 3:27.80 for bronze.
Ingebrigtsen, the defending champion, finished fourth in 3:28.24. There was more American gold in the women’s 200m, with Gabby Thomas, the bronze medallist from Tokyo, winning in 21.
83 seconds. Julien Alfred added silver to her 100m title in a time of 22.08, Thomas’ compatriot Brittany Brown takes third in 22.
20. At some point the Olympics is going to realise that much like highly ranked fencers don’t need to start at the very beginning of a tournament, the USA should probably just appear in the semi-finals of the men’s basketball. The NBA All-Stars swept aside Brazil 122-87 in their last eight encounter, and now face a test against a Serbian side boasting two of their own stars in Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic.
Serbia came through a tough game against Australia, winning 95-90 in overtime. France, meanwhile, still have some skin in the tournament after getting past Canada 82-73, but Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Olympics is over, after his Greek team lost 76-63 to Germany. The place to hold boxing in Paris is Roland Garros, apparently, because obviously once the precision and beauty of a Novak Djokovic groundstroke is over, the next best thing is bruised knuckles and busted noses.
Still, some people like that sort of thing, and for those that do there was plenty to cheer last night, not least for Philippines’ Aira Villegas, who earns herself a bronze medal in the women’s 50kg. Her conqueror, Buse Naz Cakiroglu of Turkey, faces China’s Wu Yu in the final. A game of two halves Brian, or in this case two completely different games of four halves, some extra time and nearly 20 minutes of time added on.
In the first of the women’s football semi-finals, Sophia Smith scores the only goal five minutes into extra-time to continue a dream start for new USA boss Emma Hayes, as they overcome Germany 1-0. And in Marseille, there are six goals and 17 minutes of time added on as Brazil beat Spain 4-2. After the highs of Quan Hongchan’s gold and Chen Yuxi’s silver in the women’s 10m platform, two other Chinese athletes had their turns to stand on the podium.
China’s Zhao Jie won bronze in the women’s hammer throw with a distance of 74.27 metres. Gold went to Canada’s Camryn Rogers with a throw of 76.
97, while the USA’s Annette Echikunwoke hurled a season best 75.48 to take silver. And in Greco-Roman wrestling, which we don’t really talk about that much, if at all, Cao Liguo took silver in the men’s 60kg final, losing to Japan’s Kenichiro Fumita.
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