TOKYO — A roundup of gold medals from Sunday, August 8, at the Tokyo Games:
BASKETBALL
WOMEN’S
Brittney Griner scored 30 points, and the United States won its seventh straight gold medal in women’s basketball, beating Japan 90-75.
Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi have been part of five of those gold medals. Nobody has played more Olympic games for the U.S. than Taurasi with 38. Bird is second with 36 in her final Olympics.
This golden streak started in 1996 in Atlanta with Dawn Staley a player. Staley joins the late Anne Donovan as the only Americans to help the U.S. win gold as players, assistants and then head coaches.
A’ja Wilson added 19 points and Breanna Stewart scored 14 as the Americans dominated inside again. The U.S. extended its Olympic winning streak to 55 consecutive games dating to the 1992 bronze medal game.
Japan finished with the silver in the host nation’s first appearance in the medal round. Japan finished eighth at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. France won bronze.
BOXING
MEN’S LIGHTWEIGHT
Andy Cruz won Cuba’s fourth boxing gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, beating U.S. lightweight Keyshawn Davis 4:1 in the final.
Cruz beat Davis for the fourth consecutive time in their amateur careers, but he had to rally with an impressive third round after Davis swept the second on all five judges’ cards.
Cruz joined two-time Olympic gold medalists Roniel Iglesias, Arlen Lopez and Julio Cesar La Cruz with championships in Tokyo.
Armenia’s Hovhannes Bachkov and Australia’s Harry Garside won lightweight bronze.
WOMEN’S LIGHTWEIGHT
Kellie Anne Harrington of Ireland has won gold in the women’s lightweight division, beating Beatriz Ferreira of Brazil 5:0 in a close bout.
Harrington is a 31-year-old career amateur who spent the past half-decade waiting for her shot to follow in the footsteps of Katie Taylor, who won gold for Ireland at the inaugural women’s Olympic boxing tournament in London.
Finland’s Mira Potkonen and Thailand’s Sudaporn Seesondee won bronze.
CYCLING TRACK
WOMEN’S SPRINT
Kelsey Mitchell of Canada won gold in the women’s sprint event in track cycling, sweeping past Olena Starikova of Ukraine at the Izu Velodrome.
Mitchell upset reigning world champion Emma Hinze of Germany in the semifinals before facing off with Starikova, who likewise had upset 2019 world champion Lee Wai Sze of Hong Kong in her semifinal match.
Mitchell led wire-to-wire against Starikova in the first of their best-of-three final. Then, she held Starikova off in a drag race to the finish to win Canada’s second gold in the event after Lori-Ann Muenzer’s at the 2004 Athens Games.
Lee easily swept past Hinze to win the bronze medal.
MEN’S KEIRIN
Jason Kenny became Britain’s most decorated Olympian by defending his gold medal in the keirin. That gave Kenny seven golds to break a tie with cyclist Chris Hoy and nine overall to break a tie with Bradley Wiggins.
Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia outsprinted Dutch rider Harrie Lavreysen for the silver medal.
Lavreysen won bronze.
WOMEN’S OMNIUM POINTS
Jennifer Valente got up from a crash in the omnium-ending points race to hang on for the gold medal, capping what had been an otherwise frustrating and disappointing Olympics for American cycling.
Valente won the opening scratch race, picked up three sprints in the points race and performed well in the elimination race to take an eight-point lead into the points race, where points are awarded for sprints every 10 laps.
She wound up taking second in the final sprint to secure the gold medal.
Yumi Kajihara took silver for Japan. Kirsten Wild earned bronze for the Netherlands.
RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS
The Russian rhythmic gymnastics juggernaut collapsed in Tokyo when the county’s team lost the gold medal to Bulgaria one day after also losing the individual competition to Israel.
Russia claimed the silver medals in both.
On Sunday, Bulgaria’s five-woman team won gold by beating Russia in the group final, a two-part competition beginning with routines where performers dance with balls, followed by a set of hoops and clubs. Italy placed third.
TRACK AND FIELD
MEN’S MARATHON
Eliud Kipchoge pulled away late and no one could come close to catching him as the 36-year-old from Kenya defended his Olympic marathon title.
Kipchoge finished in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 38 seconds on a breezy and humid Sunday along the streets of Sapporo. It was more than 80 seconds ahead of runner-up Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands. Bashir Abdi of Belgium earned bronze to close out the track and field portion of the Tokyo Games.
VOLLEYBALL
WOMEN’S
The United States won its first Olympic gold medal ever in women’s volleyball by beating Brazil in straight sets.
The U.S. won silver three times and bronze twice previously for the most medals by any country that hadn’t won gold. The Americans finally completed that quest by beating the country that denied them gold in the final match in both 2008 and 2012.
The victory allowed U.S. coach Karch Kiraly to join China’s Lang Ping as the second person to win gold as a player in volleyball and then lead a country to gold as coach. Kiraly won gold indoor as a player in 1984 and ’88. He also won gold in beach volleyball in 1996.
Serbia beat South Korea for the bronze medal.
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