Paris Olympics:
Lyles edges out Thompson to win sensational 100m gold
BBC – US sprint star Noah Lyles won the Olympic 100m title by five-thousandths of a second from Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in a dramatic photo finish at Paris 2024.
Showman Lyles overhauled his rivals in the second half of the race to triumph by the finest of margins in a personal best 9.79 seconds.
That was the same time as Olympic debutant Thompson, who led for most of the race.
The United States’ former world champion Fred Kerley took bronze in 9.81, edging out South Africa’s Akani Simbine for the podium.
All eight finalists finished within 0.12secs of Lyles in a remarkable race.
In the end it was Lyles, an athlete who thrives on the sport’s grandest stages and who won three golds at last year’s World Championships, who sprinted away in celebration once the official result appeared on the big screen.
Tennis
REUTERS – Novak Djokovic described beating Carlos Alcaraz to claim the Olympic singles gold medal at the fifth attempt as the biggest achievement of his career on Sunday.
The 37-year-old Serb ended an eight-month trophy drought with a vintage display to win 7-6(3) 7-6(2) and complete his career Golden Slam in memorable fashion, not dropping a set in six matches at Roland Garros.
He is the oldest man to win the Olympic singles title since tennis returned to the Games in 1988 and remarkably he did it 21 days after being pummelled by Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final and two months after undergoing knee surgery.
“I won the bronze in my first Olympic Games (2008) and ever since then failed to win the medal and played three out of four Olympic Games in semi-finals and couldn’t overcome that obstacle,” Djokovic, proudly wearing his medal, told reporters.
“And then now at age 37, with a 21-year-old that is probably the best player in the world right now, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back and playing incredible tennis.
“When I take everything into consideration, this probably is the biggest sporting success I’ve ever had in my career.”
Badminton
People across Taiwan on Sunday celebrated their men’s doubles badminton gold medal victory over Chinese opponents that sparked scenes of jubilation while also exposing deeper geopolitical divides between the two sides.
Wang Chi-Lin and Lee Yang of Taiwan, the reigning champions from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, won a three-game thriller against China’s Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang.
In cities across Taiwan, from Wang’s home in the capital Taipei to southern Kaohsiung, and Lee’s hometown on the island of Kinmen just off the coast of China, public screens were set up that lured thousands of fans.
The island competes as ‘Chinese Taipei’ rather than as Taiwan, to avoid objections from China, which claims the island as its own territory.
Swimming
Iron-man Bobby Finke and the U.S. women’s medley relay team shattered world records in golden performances as the Olympic swim meet ended in exhilarating fashion on Sunday with the Americans on top again.
Floridian Finke took down Sun Yang’s 12-year 1,500m world record as he retained the gold medal in the lung-busting event before the American women smashed their previous world mark for gold in the medley relay.
The golds saw the Americans finish with eight at the top of the swimming medal table, one more than second-placed Australia.
It was by no means an American shut-out, though, with the U.S. men’s medley relay team suffering their first defeat ever at Olympics meets dating back to the 1960 Rome Games.
China, anchored by the human missile Pan Zhanle, took the gold ahead of the U.S. team, whose talisman Caeleb Dressel took his first minor medal from a previously uniform set of nine golds.