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Third-placed China faces worst medal haul since 1996 Olympics

Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar, who shared the Olympic bronze in 2012 and had the leading mark of the season entering the Olympics, took the silver at 2.36. The tweet has since been deleted.

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The British team has been enjoying its most successful Olympics of all time, now with 19 gold medals, matching China. Based on the commodity prices of the metals involved, gold is worth in the neighbourhood of US$600, silver about US$300 and bronze next to nothing. It has ended the Games in second place since 2004 and boasted of a 51-gold bonanza in 2008, its highest ever tally, when it hosted the Beijing Olympics.

These are the five biggest stories and events to watch on Thursday at the Rio Olympics. “Our bill will prevent the IRS from penalizing Team USA’s champions and ensure that our athletes can remain focused on fulfilling their Olympic dreams without fear of the tax consequences”.

The practice of giving out solid gold medals was abandoned at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden and was replaced by what is today, a sliver and copper alloy with a small amount of gold in comparison. Its domination of badminton was also shaken when its mixed doubles pairs and second-ranked women’s doubles pair were eliminated.

British Olympic officials responded with a warning to their athletes, it said.

An article from The Guardian titled “The Great Fall of China” sums up how leaders and sports fans are gradually accepting that their athletes are far from bringing in the expected number of medals they hoped for. Many commentators said that enjoying sport, rather than obsessing about gold medals, was increasingly important to China.

“The Chinese people have made progress, we don’t need gold medals to boost our confidence and are no longer as harsh on our athletes”, said one user on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

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Derek Drouin of Canada has won the men’s high jump gold medal at a height of 2.38 meters, adding the Olympic title to his world championship victory past year.

USA gymnastics team gold medal