Eaton, however, wasn’t the only Oregonian who had an record-setting night.
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On a night where Usain Bolt won the 200, and marked a 100-200 three-peat, his greatness should not be ignored.
Bolt is expected to make his final Olympic appearance Friday in the 400 relay final where he and Jamaica are two-time defending champions.
Crouser took the lead in the second round by more than a foot with a 72-103/4 blast and was never challenged.
“There was some pressure to make it to the finals”, Powell said, clearly relieved he didn’t have to deliver any bad news to his friend, who was busy preparing for the 200 final.
World champion Eaton finished with 8893 points, incredibly matching exactly the Olympic record after 10 lung-busting events.
There were also victories for the United States in the men’s and women’s 400m hurdles, Kerron Clement and Dalilah Muhammad taking gold.
Clement was so confident of winning a first Olympic individual gold that in January he pushed aside his other track medals and cleared out an empty space in the trophy cabinet in his Gainesville townhouse.
Muhammad’s USA teammates avoided a nightmare in the 4×100 relay.
With 3 1/2 days of competition to come, the United States already has 20 medals at the Olympic track stadium, including 6 gold. The U.S. won 29 medals, including nine golds, in London. The baton went down, the Americans protested, and they got another go. They were timed in 41.77 seconds, the top qualifying time.
Before most of the crowd had arrived, the U.S. women’s 4x100m relay team, disqualified in the morning’s heat but reinstated on appeal, took the opportunity to record a qualifying time for tomorrow’s final in a re-run involving just themselves. “Nothing and no one was going to stop me from achieving that”.
With only one event remaining, Eaton had a slim lead on Kevin Mayer of France, but Eaton outran Mayer in the final event, the 1,500 meters, to secure the gold medal.
Eaton said: “You look at 10 events, how can’t there be one stinking point in there somewhere?”
American Bob Mathias (1948, 1952) and Daley Thompson of Great Britain (1980, 1984) were the two previous back-to-back decathlon winners.
Croatia’s Sara Kolak won the women’s javelin, another first-time Olympic champion like Crouser.
Also Thursday, South Africa’s Caster Semenya, the outright favorite for the women’s 800-meter title, qualified for the final as she breezed to victory in her semifinal heat, pretty much unchallenged, in 1 minute 58.15 seconds.
While Bolt failed to challenge his stunning world record time of 19.19secs, he was nevertheless a clear victor and has now won the 100m and 200m at three successive Games – a staggering and unprecedented feat.
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Ashton and Brianne: Power couple of Rio Olympics was posted in Sports of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 21, 2016 and was last updated on August 21, 2016.
