Olympic roundup: Team USA’s Masai Russell wins 100m hurdles in photo finish
TRACK AND FIELD: Masai Russell couldn’t stay asleep. She’d close her eyes and start dreaming. Each time the unconscious film played in her mind, she looked up at the scoreboard and saw her name in first place.
So in Saturday’s women’s 100-meter hurdles final, she had one thought after she surged through the final 10 meters and leaned across the line for another thrilling photo finish at Stade de France.
“Stop playing with me! Stop playing with me!”
She proved she wasn’t one to play with. Because when the results came in, after an eternity of seconds, the board did indeed reveal Russell’s name first, the USA flag to its left and 12:33 seconds to the right. Then came the name Cyrena Samba-Mayela, the French woman from whom gold was snatched, with a time of 12:34 seconds.
Russell was an Olympic champion. Officially. By .01 seconds. And just .03 seconds ahead of defending Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico.
• Benjamin anchors U.S. relay gold: No issues with this men’s relay team.
The quartet of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Rai Benjamin completed the four laps around the track in an Olympic-record 2:54.43 to claim U.S. gold in the men’s 4×400 relay for the fifth time in the last six Olympics.
Benjamin, the gold medalist in Friday’s 400-meter hurdles, began the anchor leg with a lead and fought off Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo – the 200m gold medalist – at the finish line.
Botswana took silver with a time of 2:54.53. Great Britain took the bronze in 2:55.83.
• U.S. women close track with gold: The athletics portion of the Paris Games ended with the United States crossing the finish line, the opponent distant in the rear view, in a display of superiority.
Just as it was for most of the week.
The U.S. women’s 4×400 relay team, the final track event at an epic Olympics, blazed to the gold medal with a time of 3:15.27. Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas and Alexis Holmes put together a dominant performance illustrative of American track and field’s dominance in the 33rd Olympiad.
Unsurprisingly, it was McLaughlin-Levrone who flipped the race with a blistering lap in 47.71 seconds. The second-fastest leg – by anyone – was Femke Bol of the Netherlands at 48.62.
Ko’s gold secures spot in LPGA Hall of Fame
GOLF: Lydia Ko realized it all at once. History. History, in real time.
A victory at Le Golf National meant more than a gold medal. Preposterous, but true. This was a chance for the 27-year-old former world No. 1 to both complete a career Olympic medal collection – silver in 2016, bronze in 2020, gold in 2024 – and secure her place in the LPGA’s Hall of Fame.
How’s that for pressure?
The enormity of it all seemed to start setting in midway through Saturday’s final round of the Olympic women’s golf competition. Holding a five-shot lead, Ko rinsed an approach on 13 and started looking uncomfortable on what had been an otherwise flawless day. She scrunched her face and looked at the leaderboard.
The hardest part about golf is often how much time one has to think. All that time between shots. All that time waiting for others to play. Time to think big thoughts. One can only imagine what was in Ko’s mind and what she was trying to keep out.
Only a week ago, Jon Rahm led the men’s golf competition by four strokes on the back nine. The Spaniard didn’t medal, let alone win. He came undone. Scottie Scheffler ended up taking the gold.
Ko refused such a fate but at least tempted it. She built a five-shot lead early in the back nine, allowed it to shrink to one, but managed to hold on.
Reaching the 18th hole, Ko rolled in a closing birdie, dropped her putter and covered her face. A closing 1-under 71 was good enough for gold. The New Zealander finished the week at Le Golf National at 10-under, finishing two shots clear of the field.
Chiles’ floor score reversed
GYMNASTICS: Four seconds too late.
Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal in the floor exercise is now in the hands of the International Olympic Committee because her coach missed a one-minute deadline to clarify her score by four seconds.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport made that ruling Saturday, dropping the American gymnast’s final score to 13.666, one-tenth of a point lower than the score that had boosted her to the podium five days ago, just behind Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who won gold, and her teammate Simone Biles, who earned silver.
The International Gymnastics Federation affirmed the court’s decision Saturday, reinstating Chiles’ initial score, which drops her to fifth, and declaring Romania’s Ana Maria Bărbosu the third-place finisher. But it said the reallocation of medals is handled by the IOC.
– From wire services