[nivo_slider source=”post” link=”image” size=”620×450″ limit=”30″ effect=”random” speed=”600″ delay=”3000″]LONDON, England ● Britain’s Jason Kenny lived up to his reputation as the fastest man on the cycling track after beating French rival and multiple world champion Gregory Bauge in the final of the men’s sprint.
Kenny took silver behind Sir Chris Hoy in the same event at Beijing four years ago but was preferred to Hoy under the one-rider-per-nation rule introduced for the 2012 Games.
Kenny lost 2-0 to Bauge at the World Championships in Melbourne in April, but after setting the fastest qualifying time on Saturday he went into the final as favourite and he certainly didn’t disappoint.
With the flag-waving home crowd cheering him on the Bolton-born Kenny blasted his way past his French opponent to take a one nil lead and then cleverly held Bauge off in the second to win the gold.
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GOLD MEDALS AWARDED TODAY
Shooting – Men’s 50m Free Rifle Three Positions – Niccolo Campriani (ITA)
Shooting – Men’s Trap – Giovanni Cernogoraz (CRO)
Equestrian – Team Jumping – Great Britain
Sailing – Women’s Laser Radial – Xu Lijia (CHN)
Sailing – Men’s Laser – Tom Slingsby (AUS)
Gymnastics – Men’s Rings – Arthur Zanetti (BRA)
Gymnastics – Women’s Uneven Bars – Aliya Mustafina (RUS)
Gymnastics – Men’s Vault – Hak Seon Yang (KOR)
Cycling – Men’s Sprint – Jason Kenny (USA)
Wrestling – Men’s 60kg Greco-Roman – Omid Haji Noroozi (IRI)
Wrestling – Men’s 84kg Greco-Roman – Alan Khugaev (RUS)
Wrestling – Men’s 120kg Greco-Roman – Mijain Lopez Nunez (CUB)
Weightlifting – Men’s 105kg – Oleksiy Torokhtiy (UKR)
Athletics – Women’s Pole Vault – Jennifer Suhr (USA)
Athletics – Women’s Shot Put – Nadzeya Ostapchuk (BLR)
Athletics – Men’s 400m Hurdles – Felix Sanchez (DOM)
Athletics – Women’s 3000m Steeplechase – Yuliya Zaripova (RUS)
Athletics – Men’s 400m – Kirani James (GRN)
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After helping to win last week’s team sprint the 24-year-old became Team GB’s first double gold medallist of the Games and took the host nation’s impressive medals haul in the velodrome to five golds and a bronze from seven events.
It was Kenny’s fourth career Olympic medal after Gold in the team sprint four years ago in Beijing where he also won silver in the individual discipline.
Kirani James of Grenada won the most gruelling of athletics track races on Monday when he easily beat the field to win the 400 metres gold.
After a blistering start 19-year-old James looked in control of the race, but he really came into his own at the two hundred metre mark putting a sizeable distance between himself and the rest of the field.
His pace was just too hard to handle for his rivals as the world champion he crossed the line in national record time of 43.94 seconds. World junior champion Luguelin Santos of the Dominican Republic brought the rest of the field home for silver almost half a second later while Lalonde Gordon of Trinidad and Tobago won bronze.
The United States, winners of the last seven Olympic men’s 400 metres titles, were not represented in the final for the very first time.
Eight years after winning his first Olympic 400 metres hurdles title in Athens Felix Sanchez struck gold again.
The two-time world champion from the Dominican Republic surged into the lead with a blistering pace in the final 30 metres to stun the field in a winning time of 47.63 seconds.
After winning his semifinal heat Michael Tinsley of the United States claimed silver in a season best 47.91. Javier Culson of Puerto Rico took bronze while Britain’s world champion Dai Greene crossed the line in fourth six tenths of a second behind.
Great Britain were on top of the podium earlier in the day when they won team show jumping gold after a tie-breaking jump-off with the Dutch to claim their first title in the discipline since the 1952 Helsinki Games.
Britain’s four-man team, comprising of Ben Maher, Scott Brash, Peter Charles and Nick Skelton, produced three clear rounds in the jump-off to take top spot.
54-year-old Skelton, who was last of the four to go, was competing in his sixth Olympic Games and he showed his experience with a dazzling and flawless run to claim his very first Olympic medal. Not bad for someone who has recovered from a broken neck sustained in 2000 and a hip replacement last year.
The multiple European team jumping champion, who has yet to knock a fence down in three days of competition, is now hot favourite for the individual title on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia, anchored by Prince Abdullah al Saud, took the bronze medal with a score of 13 faults, finishing ahead of Switzerland and Sweden and defending Olympic team champions the United States.
Aliya Mustafina handed Russia their first gymnastics gold in London when she won the women’s asymmetric bars.
It was Mustafina’s third medal in London after the 17-year-old she won team silver and all-around bronze last week. The 2010 all-around world champion finished 0.2 points clear of defending champion He Kexin of China.
27-year-old home favourite Beth Tweddle thrilled the thousands of Brits packed into the North Greenwich Arena with bronze in her last Olympics. It was Britain’s first individual medal in women’s gymnastics in the 116 years of the Games.
Arthur Nabarrete Zanetti became the first Brazilian to win an Olympic gymnastics gold medal when the 22-year-old secured the men’s rings title.
2008 Olympic champion Chen Yibing of China was squeezed into the silver medal position by 0.1 points while Italy’s Matteo Morandi won the bronze.
Yang Hak-seon stumbled into the record books as he became the first South Korean gymnast to strike gold at the Olympics with victory in the men’s vault final.
The 19-year-old world champion was in dazzling form once again and lived up to his billing as favourite and one of the most exciting Gymnasts in the world.
Yang stormed down the runway and launched into a spectacular triple-twisting front somersault, which he invented and is now named after him. But the “oohs and aahhs” that accompanied his soaring flight through the air were quickly replaced by stunned gasps as he almost ran off the mat on landing.
However so high was the difficulty of the leap, 0.2 higher than any of the jumps performed by his rivals, he still drew 16.466. After two vaults he earned an average score of 16.533 edging out Russia’s Denis Ablyazin on 16.399.
Italian Niccolo Campriani thrashed the field to win the men’s 50 metres three position rifle gold medal upgrading the silver he won in the men’s 10m air rifle earlier in the Games.
The 24-year-old claimed gold at the Royal Artillery Barracks in south east London with an Olympic record of 1278.5. Kim Jong-hyun of South Korea was a distant second on 1272.5 with American Matthew Emmons suffered with some final shot wobbles and had to settle for third on 1271.3.
Croatian waiter Giovanni Cernogoraz beat Italy’s Massimo Fabbrizi in a shootoff to win the men’s trap on Monday to close the London Games shooting competition in dramatic fashion.
Both men had finished locked on 146 targets out of 150. After five perfect shots, Fabbrizi missed with his sixth in the sudden death decider while Cernogoraz coolly hit his last orange clay for gold.
American number one Jennifer Suhr claimed the women’s pole vault Olympic title with a winning leap of 4.75 metres.
Yarisley Silva of Cuba won silver and defending two-time champion and crowd pleaser Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia had to be content with the bronze after failing to go above 4 metres 70.
Britain’s Holly Bleasdale finished in a tie for sixth.
Nadzeya Ostapchuk of Belarus won gold in the women’s shot put turning the tables on defending champion New Zealand’s Valerie Adams, who had come out on top in their last nine encounters but this time had to settle for second best and the silver.
Ostapchuk produced a third-round throw of 21.36 metres to claim her country’s first athletics gold of the Games. Adams threw 20.70 while Russia’s Evgeniia Kolodko won the bronze with 20.22.