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News

Highlights From Day 8

Published 14 August 2016

An emotional Mo Farah wrote his name into British history as the first athlete to collect three Olympic gold medals with a masterful performance in the 10,000m.

Farah showed immense power and courage to recover from a fall mid-race and grow in strength to carve through a world-class field to victory.

Moments later, Greg Rutherford launched on to the long jump podium in bronze medal position. There was to be no repeat of the triple gold which illuminated Super Saturday in London, but Rutherford admirably earned his medal under intense pressure with his biggest jump of 8.28m on his final attempt.

And the evening finished with Jessica Ennis-Hill claiming heptathlon silver with a magnificent effort to lead home the 800m, but the London 2012 champion was ultimately denied the chance to retain her crown by a sensational display by Nafissatou Thiam. The Belgian recorded five PBs across the seven events to take the title by 35 points, while Katarina Johnson-Thompson finished sixth overall.

The 23-year-old laid down an impressive long jump performance as she attempted to recover from a sub-par shot put round on Friday. Heading into round six, Ennis-Hill lay second and Johnson-Thompson third, five and 51 points behind leader Thiam of Belgium, but a disappointing javelin display from Johnson-Thompson, a best score of 36.36m, effectively put her out of medal contention. 

It left defending champion Ennis-Hill as Britain's main medal hope heading into the 800m, needing to gain a near-10 second advantage to overhaul Thiam at the top of the standings. She led from the front to clock the quickest time possible and, although Ennis-Hill fell painfully short, she showed her class throughout.

Cycling – Track

A monster session in the velodrome saw Great Britain take a third track cycling gold in the women’s team pursuit with a huge world record, as well as guaranteeing gold and silver in the men’s individual sprint.

Laura Trott became the first British female to win three Olympic gold medals when she and teammates Elinor Barker, Joanna Rowsell Shand and Katie Archibald posted an electrifying team effort to defeat USA in the gold medal race.

The quartet defended the gold medal won at London 2012 by a margin of 2.2 seconds, despite only moving ahead at the 2km point. They smashed the world record for a third time in the event, topping the scale at 4:10.236 in the final.

Moments later, Becky James added another medal, this one a silver, in a dramatic finish in the women’s keirin. With one lap remaining, James was camped at the back of the field before surging through and attacking the finish line to nudge ahead of Australia’s Anna Mears and just behind the Netherlands’ Elis Ligtlee, who took gold.

After winning the team sprint title on Thursday, Great Britain’s sprinting dominance continued with three-time Olympic gold medallist Jason Kenny and Callum Skinner both advancing to Sunday’s individual sprint final to guarantee Britain another gold and a silver on the Rio track.

Rowing

A gold and a silver from the men’s and women’s eights confirmed Great Britain top the Rio 2016 rowing medal table with three golds and two silvers in total.

The day eight medal haul began with the women’s eight and the formidable American boat asserting its superiority on the race. The British octet fell behind early on but showed their toughness and resolve to battle through the fleet and pip Romania to take silver, a first ever medal for Britain in the women’s eight.

Around twenty minutes later, it was the turn of the men’s eight, touted to be challenging the German boat for supremacy. GB took control of the race from the off and raced hard to a half-length lead at half-way. From then on their fantastic form took over and they never looked back.

Swimming

Great Britain wrapped up events in the pool at Rio 2016 with an outstanding silver in the Men’s 4x100m medley relay to record our best ever swimming performance at an Olympic Games.

The team’s sixth medal in the pool arrived in the finale, when Adam Peaty pulled GB back from sixth to first and James Guy held his own going head-to-head with Michael Phelps in butterfly. USA were too strong on the back end but Duncan Scott hung in for second place behind Phelps, who landed his 24th Olympic gold medal.  

Earlier, there was agony for Fran Halsall, who led throughout the 50m freestyle final but was beaten to the touch by three swimmers to miss out on gold by 0.06 seconds and fall short of bronze by 0.02 seconds.

Halsall then joined the women’s 4x100m medley relay team, along side Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Georgia Davies and Chloe Tutton. They finished seventh in the final in a time of 3:56.96.

Tennis

Defending Olympic champion Andy Murray guaranteed a medal for Great Britain in the men’s singles with a comprehensive straight sets semi-final victory over Japan’s Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-4.

Golf

Justin Rose is the clubhouse leader heading into the final day of the Olympic gold competition on Sunday. He lies one shot clear of Sweden’s Henrik Stenson in second and six shots clear of three players, including USA’s Bubba Watson, in fourth. Rose is searching for Great Britain’s first golf medal since 1900, although the last time the sport was contended was 1904.

Sailing

Giles Scott tightened his grip on the top of the finn class leaderboard with a first and a third in races seven and eight to lead by 16 points with two more fleet races remaining.

Ben Saxton and Nicola Groves encountered a difficult day in the Nacra 17 with 13th, 12th, and 16th place finishes in races seven to nine, but still remain third overall with three more races before the medal race.

Nick Thompson placed 6th and 22nd in the final two fleet races in the laser class, leaving him sixth overall heading into the medal race, 10 points off the podium. Two tenth place finishes for Alison Young leaves her 10th heading into the laser radial medal race.

Badminton

Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis booked their place in the men’s doubles quarter-final with an impressive victory over Poland’s Adam Cwalina and Przemysław Wacha. 21-18, 21-16.

Chris and Gabby Adcock were eliminated from the mixed doubles, following a 21-18, 25-27, 9-21 defeat against another Polish pair, Robert Mateusiak and Nadieżdżą Ziebą.

Hockey

GB Women took top spot in their pool with a dramatic late turnaround against the USA.

Both teams went into the match with 100 per cent records of four wins from four and were playing off for the right to progress as pool winners. USA took a 1-0 lead after the interval but two goals in the last eight minutes from Sophie Bray and Alex Dawson turned the game on its head as Great Britain go into the quarter finals on top form.

Boxing

Joe Joyce opened his Rio 2016 campaign with a technical knock-out against Cape Verde boxer Davilson Dos Santos Morais to advance to the last eight of the super heavyweight competition.

Gymnastics – Trampolining

There was a top ten achievement mixed with a tinge of disappointment for Nathan Bailey after he missed out on the eight-man trampoline final by finishing ninth in qualifying with a score of 106.795

Click here to read our Look Ahead to Day 9.

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