On what was billed by some as ‘Wonderful Wednesday’, Great Britain doubled their medal tally from the first four days, recording six medals across six different events, including a pair of heroic golds and a historic gymnastics bronze.
Read day five's highlights below:
Canoe Slalom
The youngest member of the Great Britain canoeing squad, Joe Clarke, showed nerves of steel to produce the run of his life to take K1 gold at the Whitewater Stadium.
The 23-year-old was eighth up out of ten and executed an error-free run in 88.53 seconds to top the leader board. He could then only stand back and watch as Slovenia’s Peter Kauzer finished 0.23 behind for silver and Clarke celebrated GB’s second gold of the Games.
Diving
Chris Mears and Jack Laugher performed a near flawless display of diving to land the Olympic 3m springboard synchro title. The British duo took control of the competition at the half way point and never looked back, holding off the challenge of the USA and China.
Mears and Laugher executed fabulously under pressure in the final round, following a huge final dive from the Americans, to finish with 454.32 points, over four points clear of USA in silver. With this medal, British Diving hit their upper medal range (1-2).
Cycling – Road
Chris Froome executed a skilful ride in testing conditions to claim bronze in the men’s time trial and begin Great Britain’s medal rush on day five.
Outstanding runs by Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellera and Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands in the damp and gloomy conditions left Froome with work to do as last out of the gate. He could not outpace them but joined them on the podium with a late surge to force Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo down to fourth by four seconds. Froome clocked a final time of 1:13:17:54.
Geraint Thomas, a last-minute addition to the start list, finished ninth. In the women’s time trial, Emma Pooley posted a final placing of 14th in a time of 46:31.98. The USA’s Kristin Armstrong claimed gold in 44:26.42.
Shooting
Steve Scott started a run of five British medals in the space of four hours when he defeated compatriot Tim Kneale in the double trap bronze medal match.
The duo had qualified for the final stage of competition as third and fourth best and, following the six-person semi-final, they both shot 26 from 30 targets and advanced to the bronze match in a shoot-off at the expense of Australia’s James Willett.
Scott was imperious in the head-to-head, shooting a perfect 30, as Kneale missed two targets to see the bronze medal head to his fellow countryman. Shooting’s upper range medal target (1-2) has now been achieved, following Ed Ling’s single trap bronze.
Judo
Sally Conway delivered a remarkable bronze medal, beating two world champions en route to a place on the podium. After Houda Miled of Tunisia was disposed of in the last 32, Conway defeated former world champion Gévrise Emane of France in the last 16 and Israel’s current world champion Linda Bolder to reach the final four.
Despite taking down Yuri Alvear three times in the semi-final, the Colombian came back to take the win and move on to the gold medal match. Conway picked herself up and downed Austria’s Bernadette Graf to ensure her presence on the podium at Carioca Arena 2, which delivers judo’s medal target for the Games (0-1).
Gymnastics
A sublime display from Max Whitlock earned a bronze medal, Great Britain’s sixth medal of the day, and our first in all-around event for 108 years.
In a competition of phenomenal depth and quality, Whitlock produced a top-class floor display in a wide open final round to secure a place on the podium, behind Kohei Uchimura of Japan and Ukraine’s Oleg Verbiaiev. Nile Wilson finished in eighth place, with Brinn Bevan in 25th.
Sailing
A big day for Giles Scott pushed him to second overall in the finn class standings behind Vasilij Žbogar. In Wednesday’s two races, Scott finished second to the aforementioned Slovakian before getting the better of him in race four.
A change of fortunes for Nick Thompson has seen him force his way back into the running in the laser class. A second place in race five and victory in race six has seen his overall ranking improve to second. A sixth and a ninth for Alison Young, means she lies in 13th in the laser discipline.
The 470 event got under way, with Saskia Clark and Hannah Mills starting with a fourth place and following up with a seventh place finish to stand fifth overall. In the men’s event, Luke Patience and Chris Grube opened with a 21st place and improved with a fifth place finish in race two, putting them eleventh. In the Nacra 17 event, third and fourth places in their opening races puts Ben Saxton and Nicola Groves second overall.
Rugby Sevens
Great Britain booked their place in the inaugural Olympic rugby sevens tournament semi-final, where they will face South Africa, after a cagey extra-time win over Argentina. The match ended in a stalemate and Dan Bibby’s score settled matters, 5-0, and sent GB through to the final four.
In a scintillating final pool match, Britain topped pool C with a 100% records with a 21-19 triumph against New Zealand. Simon Amor’s team had opened up a 21-10 half-time lead with tries from Tom Mitchell, Mark Bennett and Dan Morton, before New Zealand fired back and GB clung on.
Swimming
Andrew Willis narrowly missed out on a medal in a tightly-contested 200m breaststroke final. The Brit qualified as second fastest but trailed in the race early. Willis finished strongly but had left himself too much to recover and touched 0.08 seconds behind third-placed Russian Anton Chupkov. The gold went to Dmitriy Balandin of Kazakhstan.
Duncan Scott, who has been on the Rio 2016 podium in the bronze-medal winning 4x200m freestyle relay team, swam a brilliant fifth place in the 100m freestyle final in a time of 48.01. Molly Renshaw swam a British record to qualify third fastest for the 200m breaststroke final, Chloe Tutton also qualified as seventh quickest. Dan Wallace produced a stunning swim to make the 200m individual medley final as fifth fastest qualifier, after finishing fourth in his semi-final in 1.57:97 behind Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte of USA.
Rowing
More inclement weather put paid to the rowing schedule for the second day of the Games, so it was back to the drawing board for the schedulers. GB rowers now compete in four finals on day 6. See our Look Ahead to Day 6 for more details.
Hockey
GB women improved their record to three wins out of three with a 3-2 triumph over Argentina. Helen Richardson-Walsh’s double and Sophie Bray’s strike gave them an advantage but the South Americans hit back to set up a nervy finish.
Despite Ashley Jackson’s late goal, the men’s team went down 2-1 against Australia. It leaves them fifth in Pool A and no room for error in their last pool match against Spain on Thursday.
Equestrian
In the opening round of the dressage competition, Great Britain finished the Grand Prix third in the overall standings behind Germany and the Netherlands. In the individual ranking, Fiona Bigwood, on Atterupgaards Orthilia, finished third on 77.157, with Spencer Wilton, on Super Nova III, joint seventh on 72.686.
Archery
Patrick Huston progressed through the round of 32 with a 6-4 victory over the Netherlands’ Rick van der Ven but was eliminated at the round of 16 stage by Korea Republic archer Bonchan Ku 6-0.
Weightlifting
Rebekah Tiler finished 10th overall in the 69kg competition, as China’s Xiang Yanmel struck gold. The 17-year-old posted impressive 10th place finishes in both the snatch, clean and jerk rounds.
Click here to read our Look Ahead to Day 6