virginia thrasher and hoàng xuân vinh: the first medals
early morning american teen virginia thrasher won the first gold medal of the river games at the deodoro range in the women’s 10 meter air rifle event. she got off to a strong start with her first shot in the eight-shot final, earning the competition’s highest score of 10.9! she then picked up where she left off, setting an olympic record of 208.0 ahead of 2004 and 2008 olympic champion du li of china. “I am very happy to start the Rio Games with a gold medal for my country,” exclaimed the American.
in the afternoon, hoàng xuân vinh also produced a historic achievement by winning vietnam’s first olympic gold medal. hoàng emerged victorious in the suspenseful men’s 10m air pistol event, overcoming his nerves to beat brazilian felipe almeida wu with the last shot of the final. “doing this gold medal is a memory of life, never forget it”, delighted the Vietnamese champion.
A strong start in the Olympic pool!
the first day of swimming competition in the barra de tijuca olympic pool was rich in emotions. australia got off to a good start, with mack horton winning the 400m freestyle, beating chinese champion sun yang; and the australian quartet of madison wilson, brittany elmslie, bronte and cate campbell beat their american rivals and runner-up katie ledecky in the final of the 4x100m freestyle relay, setting a new world record of 3:30.65.
another two world records were broken on Saturday, August 6. hungary’s “iron lady” katinka hosszu kicked off her medal harvest in rio by breaking the women’s 400-meter medley world record (4:26.36), leaving america’s maya dirado nearly five seconds behind her. in the same distance in the men’s competition, the victory went to the Japanese kosuke hagino, with the third best performance of all time (4:06.05).
in the 100 meter breaststroke, british adam peaty set a new world record with 57.55. then yusra mardini from syria became the first member of the refugee olympic team to compete in the river games. she finished first in her 100m butterfly heat, cheered on by onlookers.
a copacabana win for greg van avermaet in the road race
at the age of 31, belgian cyclist greg van avermaet scored the biggest victory of his career, beating the other two escaped cyclists, danish jakob fuglsang and polish rafal majka, who had been alone in front before be caught at only 1400 m. from the finish line.
goalkeepers from the republic of korea celebrate at the sambadrome
It took little time for the archers of the Republic of Korea to achieve their 20th Olympic title in this sport. Eliminated by the United States in the London semi-final in 2012, they exacted revenge in the final at the sun-soaked sambodrome, not dropping a set all day. Americans Zach Garrett, Brady Ellison and Jake Kaminski shot accurately enough to beat Indonesia in the quarterfinals and then China in the semifinals; but against kim woojin and ku bonchan, number 1 and 2 in the world respectively, and lee seung-yun (number 6), there was nothing to do. the Koreans thrashed their rivals from the first set, with perfect shots: six arrows in the 10th! ku was better in the temple of the carioca culture by putting all his arrows in the 10 in all three sets! Before securing top spot, the trio swept the Netherlands in the quarterfinals and then Australia in the semi-final.
lightweights liven up judo competition
on the tatami in carioca arena 2, the 2015 women’s -48 kg world champion and bronze medalist in beijing 2008, paula pareto, fulfilled her dream at age 30, by winning the first gold medal in the history of the Argentinian Jew. among the men, in the -60 kg category, the gold medal went to russian beslan mudranov thanks to a waza-ari in extra time of the “golden point” against his kazakh opponent yeldos smetov, offering russia its first victory in river.
emese szasz puts his opponents to the sword
the first fencing competition at the five-ring star of carioca arena 3 was the women’s épée, in which hungarian veteran emese szasz dominated her way to a hard-fought final against italian rossella fiamingo. It was she who started the strongest, before Szasz made 12 in total, and finished strong with a double hit and a final score of 15-13. At 34, she had reached the pinnacle of her career.
tanasan sopita from thailand opens weightlifting in river
on stage in pavilion 2 of riocentro, the 21-year-old Thai sopita tanasan lifted a total of 200 kg, with the two best performances of the day: 92 kg in the snatch and 108 kg in the clean and jerk, to win the first title of weightlifting in river She “had a lot of confidence that she was going to win. I expected to do it and I am very proud to have won the gold,” said tanasan. “I am very happy, because this is Thailand’s first victory in these olympic games. I am very proud to have won it for my country.”
at the other venues of the games
The tennis competitions began with a shock result, which saw the number five seed venus williams, eliminated by the belgian kirsten flipkens in three sets. united states under kevin durant (25 points) started their campaign on the right foot by beating china 119-62 in pool a, in the first round of the men’s basketball tournament. In women’s handball, the Norwegian champions were defeated in the first group match by their Brazilian rivals (31-28). on the mats of the rio olympic arena, gymnasts competed to determine the best eight teams and 24 best individual competitors who would advance to the final. China, holders of the title, finished first ahead of the United States, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, Ukraine and Germany. oleg verniaiev of ukraine dominated the individual qualifying round ahead of japan’s london 2012 olympic champion kohei uchimura and russia’s david belyavskiy. It was also the first day of the eventing competition, with the dressage section in which germany topped the team classification, followed by france and australia. The rest of the venues also held women’s rugby sevens, volleyball, water polo, table tennis, boxing and rowing competitions.