Brazil won their first gold medal of the Rio Olympics as Rafaela Silva triumphed in the women’s 57kg judo.
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Silva upset World No. 1 Sumiya Dorjsuren of Mongolia for what was a hugely welcome win for the host after apathy and protests in the run-up to South America’s first Olympics.
But the victory provided some vindication for the racial abuse Silva, who is black, endured from Brazilians after missing out on a medal at the 2012 London Games.
A day after adding a record 19th gold medal to his collection, Michael Phelps swam in preliminaries of the men’s 200 meter butterfly, where he holds the Olympic record, and fellow American Katie Ledecky is focusing on the women’s 200 meter freestyle. Born in the notorious City of God community in Rio de Janeiro, Rafaela had the strong support of the fans in the Carioca Arena 2, and especially from her family who were there to support her.
Silva “spent the first eight years of her life in the City of God, getting into fights with boys and getting expelled from school”, SI’s Alexander Wolff wrote. Her first match lasted only 46 seconds. They said I was an embarrassment, that judo wasn’t for me. Silva gave the team the ultimate inspiration to proceed the medal hunger because judo it the frontrunner of Brazilian sport.
But there were no detractors among the partisan Brazilian crowd at the Olympic Park, which erupted in patriotic cheers at her victory, shouting “Ra-fa, Ra-fa”. “The kids would love it and I want to create a dream for them, because nobody there [in the favela] has a dream”, she said, further hoping that this medal would open the doors for more medals for Brazil this week.
Australia made history by winning gold in the women’s rugby sevens, while Japan prevailed in the men’s team gymnastics final, beating Russian Federation and China, who took home silver and bronze, respectively. She crushed her own world record in the 400 freestyle Sunday night, touching almost 5 seconds ahead of her closest pursuer.
Silva took a few months off, but she soon resumed training and become the 2013 world champion. “I certainly feel pressure, but it just drives me to perform”.
Prior to Ono’s win, Japan had won bronze medals in each of the five other weight classes that had been contested this week. George Lyon of Canada won the gold medal at the St. Louis Games in 1904 against a field of 74 Americans and three Canadians.
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MEDAL STRIPPED: A Ukrainian javelin thrower was stripped of his silver medal from the 2012 London Olympics, becoming the latest athlete disqualified after the retesting of stored doping samples.
