SAINT-DENIS, France — A runaway win in one relay and another that was oh-so-close. A long-awaited celebration for France and a high jump competition that felt like it would never end.
What tied it all together on a frantic final day of Olympic track and field at the Stade de France was the most familiar sight of all: Americans on the medal stand, over and over again.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas brought the curtain down on track by romping to a win in the women’s 4×400 relay Saturday for America’s 34th overall medal at the track and 14th gold. Thomas was part of the U.S. gold-medal win a night earlier in the 4×100 women’s relay.
Turning the race into a laugher on laps 2 and 3, the 400-hurdles and 200-meter gold medalists helped the U.S. finish more than 4 seconds ahead of second place and only .1 second off the world record set by the USSR in 1988.
The winning time: 3 minutes, 15.27 seconds.
“I think this generation of track and field is just on a different level,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who now has four gold medals in four events (to go with six world-record runs) over her career. “Everything is improving, including us, including our technique, including how we prepare. I don’t think anything is impossible at this point.”
In another race involving a different sort of .1-second margin, American hurdle gold medalist Rai Benjamin edged out 200-meter champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in the men’s relay.
“I calculated that run very well, to a ‘T,’” Benjamin said. “I have a really good, high track IQ on people and how they run and how to do a quick time, so I didn’t have to get out too hard. Let’s just save it up to come home.’”
Two more close races lead to American gold and, finally, a medal for France
Fittingly, the final day of a track mee t full of close calls and surprises featured two more races decided by .01 seconds — an 800-meter win by Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi and a 100-meter hurdles victory for American Masai Russell.
Russell edged out Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France. A heartbreaker, maybe, but it marked the home country’s first and only medal of the track meet and brought as big a burst of cheers as anything on a day where seven medals were awarded.
“I want to celebrate with the French public because they supported me and pushed me throughout all these Olympic Games,” Samba-Mayela said.
Wackiness in the high jump pit and a tiebreaker for $50,000
Over in the high-jump pit, there were moments where it looked like the gold wouldn’t be decided before Sunday’s closing ceremony.
New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and America’s Shelby McEwen each missed three times at 2.38 meters, triggering a jump-off at the same height for the title.
They both missed, which started the bar moving down. McEwen missed. Then Kerr missed. Then McEwen missed again — the 11th straight between the two.
Finally, Kerr cleared 2.34 meters, peeled himself off the mat, ran a big semicircle into the javelin landing zone — thankfully long out of service by that point — collapsed on his back and covered his face with his hands.
In one of the more memorable moments from the last Olympics, the top two jumpers had finished in a tie, agreed to share the gold medal and then hugged it out to celebrate. This time, there was an unprecedented $50,000 first prize on the line that chipped away at that beautiful Olympic spirit.
Was the 50K on McEwen’s mind when he decided to go for the win, not the tie?
“Most definitely,” he said. “I’ve got a family to feed. So of course it was.”
Best medal haul for U.S. track in modern-day Olympics
McEwen’s loss still helped the U.S. reach 34 medals – the most for any country at a non-boycotted Games since the early 20th century, when there were more events and fewer nations involved.
The 14 golds are the most in a non-boycotted Olympics since Bob Beamon, Tommie Smith and John Carlos led the U.S. to 15 wins in 1968.
For such a dominant performance, it felt only fitting that McLaughlin-Levrone had a role in the final act.
The 25-year-old, who owns the world’s fourth-fastest time in the 400 to go with her latest world record in hurdles, ran her leg in 47.71. That was .91 seconds faster than the next fastest woman in the field, Femke Bol, who took the Netherlands to silver.
That McLaughlin-Levrone barely clipped feet with Thomas when they passed the baton between the second and third laps felt like a distant memory — long forgotten by the time the “Star-Spangled Banner” played for the last time in the last medal ceremony of the night.
With around 200 meters to go, “Gabby and Syd kind of started walking on the track and they had to pull them back,” said Shamier Little, who ran the opening leg. “We were kind of celebrating. Of course, anything can happen.
“But it wasn’t going to happen.”
Wanyonyi of Kenya wins men’s 800 in another race decided by .01 second
In a speedy men’s 800, Wanyonyi beat Canada’s Marco Arop by .01 seconds in a photo finish, finishing in 1:41.19, only .28 off the world record. American Bryce Hoppel’s national record of 1:41.67 was only good for fourth.
Ingebrigtsen gets a win, this one in the 5,000
Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the 5,000 meters in a relatively drama-free race after much-hyped 1,500 four nights earlier against Britain’s Josh Kerr turned into a disappointing fourth -place finish.
Ingebrigtsen won in 13 minutes, 13.66 seconds to add this title to wins at the last two world championships.
Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi finished second and Grant Fisher of the U.S. finished third.
Japan wins only gold of the meet — a gold in javelin
Haruka Kitguchi won Japan’s only medal of the meet — a gold one —with a season-best throw of 65.80 meters. She’s the first Japanese woman to win a medal in any throwing event at the Olympics.
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