Great Britain went into the day hoping for a repeat of London 2012 when Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford nearly brought the house down at the Olympic Stadium by winning gold medals on the same evening.
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Farah now tries to follow the path of Viren in becoming only the second man to sweep the 5,000 and 10,000 in consecutive Olympics.
In defeating the United States with a world record time of 4 minutes, 10.26 seconds in the women’s team pursuit, the 24-year-old became the first British woman athlete to win three gold medals – adding to the two she won at the London Olympics in 2012.
Luvo Manyonga of South Africa took silver to claim his first Olympic medal while Britain’s defending champion Greg Rutherford had to settle for bronze.
Not even a fall can stop Mo Farah of Great Britain.
The Team GB athlete was coming into the race as the defending champion after winning gold at London 2012.
After crossing the line, he collapsed to the blue tartan of the Olympics Stadium in Rio, having overcome another stern examination of his undoubted at the very last.
“I know 7.90 metres is not good but it was just a matter of making (the) finals”, Rutherford said.
Talking about his fall, he said: “When you go down, you get really emotional and I just tried to pick myself back up and believe in myself”. I knew how hard I’ve worked and I wasn’t going to let that go.
Jeff Stevenson claimed the gold medal with his final jump.
With just over 100m to go, Farah produced his famed kick of extra pace, edging back in front. ‘You can’t imagine how hard you work for it and in one moment it could have gone.
In a tearful interview after the long jump final, Greg Rutherford said he was “gutted” to finish with a bronze medal.
The reason being that during the race he clipped American runner Galen Rupp, and fell while running the 10k in the 2016 Rio games.
In doing so, 24-year-old Trott became the first British woman athlete to win three gold medals – adding to the two she won at London 2012.
Ennis-Hill, who came back from having a baby to win the world title a year ago, led overnight but Thiam sneaked into a five point lead after a personal best 6.58 metres with her final attempt in the morning long jump. Looking back winning a medal would have been awesome, but being an already prideful person would it have made me worse?
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“I always wanted to do it for her”. I was down in fourth and I’ve managed to come out and get myself a medal, but I came into the championships to win, I’m not here to finish third and it’s very frustrating.
