Fatal crash: Germany’s canoe slalom coach Stefan Henze has died as a result of the head injuries he sustained in a car crash in Rio on Friday. The 35-year-old was travelling back to the athletes’ village in a taxi when they hit a concrete barrier head on. Henze is a former Olympian who won a silver medal in the canoe slalom C2 in 2004.
Weightlifting: China ensured top place in the weightlifting medals table for the fifth successive Olympic Games when Meng Suping won her nation’s fifth gold. Sarah Robles, in third place in the +75kg, won the first weightlifting medal for the United States since 2000.
Sailing: France’s Charline Picon claimed Olympic gold in the women’s RS:X sailboard competition in a fiercely contested medal race that pushed Italy’s Flavia Tartaglini, the leader before the medal round, out of the podium positions. China’s Chen Peina won silver and Russia’s Stefaniya Elfutina took bronze.
Steeplechase: Bahrain’s Ruth Jebet blew away the competition to win the women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase gold yesterday, but narrowly missed out on the world record. Jebet ran a bold race, bursting into the lead after a few laps and setting a blistering pace to win in 8 minutes, 59.75 seconds, just shy of the 8:58.81 world record set by Russia’s Gulnara Galkina at the 2008 Beijing Games. Kenya’s Hyvin Kiyeng was nearly 50m from the finish line when Jebet won, and had to settle for silver. Emma Coburn won the first US medal in the steeplechase after placing third.
Cycling: Australian track cycling great Anna Meares will be a spectator when the Olympic sprint gold is decided today after failing to qualify for the quarter-finals. Reigning sprint champion Meares, who claimed a sixth Olympic medal when she finished third in the keirin on Saturday, was narrowly beaten by Hong Kong’s Lee Wai Sze in the Rio velodrome yesterday. Then she failed to make it through the repechage.
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Hammer throw: Pole Anita Wlodarczyk (picture) underlined her dominance of the women’s hammer by throwing a world record 82.29 metres to win Olympic gold yesterday. Wlodarczyk, 31, screamed in delight before the projectile even landed, knowing she had done enough to better the mark of 81.08 she set earlier this month. Zhang Wenxiu, of China, threw 76.75 to add a silver medal to the bronze she won in London 2012. Sophie Hitchon was third with a British record 74.54.