The gold is a welcome salve for Bartoletta, the only member of the USA team to compete in both the long jump and the 100m.
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Gulfport’s Brittney Reese, the former Ole Miss standout, won silver in the women’s Olympic long jump on Wednesday night. Now Reese is vying for another gold medal in the long jump at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Here as well she wasn’t the only American on the podium, beating Brittney Reese, finishing with 7.15 to pick up silver.
Reese has been the dominant figure in the event since winning her first outdoor world championship in 2009, following a fifth-place finish the previous year at the Beijing Olympics.
The tweets and headlines concerning the men on the U.S. Olympic team weren’t pretty Wednesday night.
Tianna Bartoletta added Olympic gold to her World Championship long jump title with a personal best of 7.17 metres.
Brittney Reese (USA) during the women’s long jump final in the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games at Estadio Olimpico Joao Havelange.
“It was indescribable, a lot of years of hard work”, he said. “I’m just looking forward to tomorrow”. That’s the event she won during the London Olympics.
To think, the evening got off on the wrong foot when Justin Gatlin surprisingly went out in the semifinals of the 200. There went another showdown with Usain Bolt.
“For me, it has been an honor to be able to come out here”, Gatlin said.
Like, how hard the Kenyans are to beat and how the Americans haven’t captured an Olympic medal since 1984.
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Reese meanwhile, refused to be downcast by the loss, happy with a silver after two years where she was plagued by injury. “Once I got those things out of my head, things turned around”. It kept going with another Jamaican, Elaine Thompson, completing the first 100-200 women’s double since 1988. “But to win this event after all that time and still be here and be a more mature athlete, a more serious athlete, more deliberate athlete in my approach to the sport and more business like, it’s really validating for sure”. If I could just execute every step, each little tiny thing I’d be OK and that’s what I did today.
