The penultimate day of the games sees the start of the boxing finals where 13 nations are represented. Team GB have 3 boxers through to the finals as do Ukraine with Cuba, Italy and Kazakhstan all supplying 3 fighters. Other highlights are the men’s 5000m final, the women’s Elliott 6m gold medal match and the men’s football final. Ed Mckeever has medal chances in the K1 200. Canoeing final while the men’s modern pentathlon celebrates 100 years at the Olympics. There are women’s finals in Basketball, Handball and Volleyball and in the Diving Tom Daley is a medal hope in the men’s 10m platform final.
The first gold medal of the day may well be won in the 50k race walk with women’s 20k event starting at 5.00. Athletic relays including Usain Bolt and the Jamaican team. , women’s high jump and the women’s mountain bike race are other highlights in the proverbial packed programme.
We are underway with the 50K walk which will take about 3.5 hours. The Russians are in the lead group early doors.
Ed McKeever looking supremely confident wins gold for GB. More action at Eton Dorney and Ukraine win the C200m men’s event.
They have started fencing in the modern pentathlon and our guy is 5th mid way through the fencing but there is a long way to go. We are 90 minutes into the 50K walk and there are 3 Russians in the lead group. There are also two from Guatemala so I will be supporting them. It is always good to see the medals spread around – like the Tunisian who won gold in the open water swim yesterday. Erick Barrondo won silver in the 20K walk so he has to be in with a squeak here.
Lisa Carrington of New Zealand times her race to perfection to win gold in the women’s K1.
The race walk has been going nearly 3 hours and the Russians are 1-2-3. Finland and Russia are lining up for the women’s Elliott bronze match.
Evening now and a good deal has happened – where do we start?
The sailing has been a pleasure to watch and today provided two close races. Finland came from behind to pip Russia for the bronze and the surprise package Spain beat the hot favourites Australian 3.2.
The modern pentathlon is a gruelling event but the winner David Svoboda put in a confident run at the finish to get the better of Cao of China with the Hungarian Adam Marosi taking bronze.
After the success of our women’s hockey team yesterday there was no such success for the GB men’s team who were always second best in the bronze medal match going down 3.1. Germany retained their gold medal beating Holland 2.1.
This afternoon’s football final produced a major upset with the compact, organised Mexico beating the odds on favourites Brazil 2.1. Brazil gained some consolation in the women’s volleyball final. Despite being well beaten 25.11 in the first set they came back to win gold.
In the women’s basketball Australia beat Russia 83.74 but it was a good day for Russia in the athletics. They won both the 50k men’s walk and the 20k women’s walk. They also won the women’s 800m with Savinova coming home untroubled. The women’s high jump also went to Russia thanks to a commanding performance from Anna Chicherova.
Performance of the day though came from GBs Mo Farrer who completed the double by adding the 5,000m gold to the 10,000m he won last week. This was a really wonderful performance from Mo getting the tactics absolutely spot on. Two sports that proved watchable today were the Rhythmic gymnastics and the mountain bike race. Once again it was Russian gold in the gymnastics thanks to Evgeniya Kanaeva while the mountain bike gold went to Julie Bressett of France who made most of the running.
The final athletics track event were the remaining relays where the USA “dream team” stormed to victory in the women’s 400m x 4 while in the men’s 4 x 100m there was no stopping Usain Bolt and Jamaica.
As I am typing this there is a cracking woman’s handball final taking place. There are 7 minutes left Norway lead Montenegro 21.20 and the Montenegrin goalkeeper has just made a triple save.
We have had some boxing finals tonight. First up was the light flyweight division where Zou Shimming of China defended his title beating hi Thai opponent, a result that did not go down well with the crown after the Thai boxer had received a controversial public warning.
The bantam weight final made history as the first ever final between boxers from GB and Ireland. The straight punching Luke Campbell took gold against the busy, aggressive Irishman John Hoe Nevin.
Cuba, so dominant in Olympic boxing until recently failed to win a single gold in the 2008 games but Iglesias scored a well earned first gold for them in 2012 with some skilled boxing against a Ukrainian opponent who never stopped coming forward.
Norway retain Handball gold but what a commendable performance from Montenegro. The Norwegian royal family were in the crown. Spain won bronze.
Tom Daley has the bronze – good effort in a high quality final with USA winning gold thanks to David Boudia.
In the middleweight final it’s Brazil v Japan. Japan have it by one point – it’s been an up and down sort of day for the Brazilians. Once again a public warning for the Brazilian was crucial.
One for more to go in the heavyweight division and it’s Russo of Italy v Usyk of the Ukraine. In the basketball USA are running away with it 63.37. No big surprise there. Russo gives it everything in a close bruising contest but the Ukrainian gets it by 14.11.
ahorse 