Kenny and the horsemen add to Britain’s gold haul
LONDON, Aug 6: Hosts Great Britain pushed their title haul to 18 with victory in the team show jumping and individual men’s sprint in deafening noise at the Olympic Park Velodrome on Monday.
Cyclist Jason Kenny extended Britain’s dominance in the velodrome as he overcame France’s Gregory Bauge for the hosts’ fifth cycling gold through seven track events.
Kenny, who had never beaten Bauge before, justified the British team’s decision to enter him in the event instead of defending champion Chris Hoy by beating Bauge 2-0 in the best-of-three finals.
Britain then beat the Netherlands in a jumpoff for the gold medal in team show jumping, their first gold in the discipline in 60 years after three members of Britain’s four-man team — Nick Skelton, Ben Maher and Peter Charles — rode clear rounds to give the host team the victory.
On the final day of shooting at the Olympic range, Giovanni Cernogoraz of Croatia beat world champion Massimo Fabbrizi of Italy in a shoot-off to win gold in men’s trap.
Iran’s Omid Haji Noroozi won gold in the 60kg Greco-Roman wrestling category, brushing aside Georgian outsider Revaz Lashkhi in the final while Alan Khugaev of Russia won gold in the 84kg category defeating Egypt’s Karan Mohamed Gaber Ebrahim.
In weightlifting, Oleksiy Torokhtiy of Ukraine won gold in the men’s 105kg division at the ExCel Arena as he lifted a total of 412kg to beat Iran’s Navab Nasirshelal by just one kg.
At the Olympic Park, Nadzeya Ostapchuk of Belarus won the women’s shot put event with a winning distance of 21.36 metres, pushing defending champion Valerie Adams of New Zealand into second place.
Meanwhile, Italy’s reigning 50km walk champion Alex Schwazer was withdrawn from the Olympics for failing a drugs test.
Separately, American judoka Nicholas Delpopolo was kicked out after admitting eating food spiked with marijuana — although he said it was a “mistake”. Delpopolo, 23, had finished seventh in the men’s 73kg category.
In better news from the track, Algerian Taoufik Makhloufi, a medal prospect in the 1,500m, was reinstated for Tuesday’s final after he had been provisionally thrown out for the unusual offence of not trying hard enough in an 800m heat.
The athletics programme at the Games continues apace and Australian world champion Sally Pearson clocked the fastest first-round time of 12.57sec in the opening 100m hurdles.
Over at Wembley, Japan, bidding to become only the second side in history to hold the World Cup and Olympic crowns at the same time, beat France 2-1 to reach the final of the women’s football tournament.
In women’s hockey, New Zealand and Britain joined defending champions the Netherlands in the last-four following the last round of group matches.—Agencies