Beachvolley: German beach volleyball duo Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst took gold in the early hours of yesterday, beating Brazil in gusty conditions to win their country’s first female Olympic medal in the sport and silence the partisan Copacabana crowd. The Germans used the wind and their height advantage, with Walkenhorst’s dominance at the net proving too much for Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas as they won 21-18 21-14 in the final that ended past midnight. US duo Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross beat Brazilians Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes to take bronze.
Volleyball: A less experienced US men’s volleyball team demolished Poland in straight sets on Wednesday and moved up to the semifinal. With eight of their 12 players competing in the Olympics for the first time, the United States outplayed Poland, 25-23 25-22 25-20, ousting a team that won the 2014 World Championship. The US face Italy in the semi-finals today after the Italians beat Iran 3-0.
Athletics: Jamaica’s relay team ensured Usain Bolt would have the chance to go for a third successive sweep of all the Olympic sprint titles when they qualified for the 4x100 metres final at the Rio Games yesterday. With the 100m title already secured, Bolt was looking for his second Rio gold medal in the 200m final last night before backing up in the sprint relay today. His compatriots Jevaughn Minzie, Asafa Powell, Nickel Ashmeade and Kemar Bailey-Cole avoided scuppering the unprecedented bid by finishing second in the second heat in 37.94 seconds.
Weightlifting: Rio 2016 Olympic bronze medallist weight-lifter Izzat Artykov of Kyrgyzstan was yesterday stripped of his medal after testing positive for strychnine, the Court of Arbitration of Sport said. The amendment of the official ranking of the men’s 69 kg weightlifting competition, and the reallocation of the bronze medal, is of the responsibility of the weightlifting federation and the International Olympic Committe. He is the first medallist at these Games to test positive for a banned substance.
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Canoe Sprint: Hungarian kayaker Danuta Kozak (picture) fought off a fearsome pack of competitors to defend her Olympic title in the women’s K-1 500 metres final yesterday. Kozak, 29, claimed the fifth Olympic medal of her career and her second gold of the Rio Games in one minute 52.49 seconds, 1.82 seconds faster than silver medallist Emma Jorgensen of Denmark. New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington, who won gold in the women’s kayak single 200 metres, took bronze.