Rio 2016: Elaine Thompson crowned sprint queen

Jamaica's Elaine Thompson celebrates with her country's flag after winning gold in the women's 100-meter final. (Photo: AP)

Elaine Thompson inherited the mantle of Olympic 100 metres champion from fellow Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on Saturday but Mo Farah simply refused to relinquish his 10,000m crown as the Briton recovered from a fall to retain his title.

Fraser-Pryce, who took bronze in a fantastic final, became the third athlete in two days to discover why no woman has ever managed to win three individual athletics titles in a row, after Ethiopian 10,000m runner Tirunesh Dibaba and New Zealand shot-putter Valerie Adams both came up short on Friday.

Jessica Ennis-Hill also failed in her bid to defend her heptathlon title, pipped to gold by 21-year-old Belgian student Nafissatou Thiam, who said she had only dreamt of a top-eight finish prior to the event.

Farah, however, just does not know how to lose when it comes to the big races. The Briton has won the 10,000m in the last two world championships and the 5,000 in the last three.

He has now won back-to-back Olympic 10,000m golds and is seeking to retain the 5,000m too, hoping to emulate Finn Lasse Viren, the only man to defend both titles in 1976 and who also fell while winning the longer race in 1972.

Every one of Farah’s victories have come in virtually the same way as he sits in behind a group of Ethiopians and Kenyans before blasting out an unstoppable final lap. There was a twist on Saturday, however, as he tripped and fell early in the race when he tangled with his American training partner Galen Rupp with 16 laps remaining.

He bounced up quickly though and with the East Africans failing to test him by pushing the pace, there was an air of inevitability about the outcome as he swept past Kenya’s Paul Tanui and roared home.

“It’s hard mentally when you go down,” a tearful Farah admitted.

“I got emotional because you put so much work in and in one moment it’s gone. That one moment could be it.”

The 100m final initially appeared impossible to call after all eight women qualified in sub-11 second times but as it turned out, Thompson won comfortably in 10.71 after hitting the front at halfway.

America Tori Bowie took silver in 10.83 while Fraser-Pryce, running with an injury, edged out Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou by seven thousandths of a second.

American Jeff Henderson continued America’s proud tradition in the event when he flew 8.38 metres on his final jump, edging out South African Luvo Manyonga.

There was last-round drama in the discus as Germany’s Christophe Harting produced 68.37m with the penultimate throw to snatch the gold from Pole Piotr Malachowski and match his brother Robert’s success from four years ago.

Sumgong wins women’s marathon Jemima Sumgong made the most of a kick with 6km to run to win Kenya’s first ever Olympic women’s marathon gold on Sunday.

Sumgong timed 2hr 24min 04sec for Kenya’s first-ever women’s marathon gold over the 42km course that finished at Sambodromo with temperatures hitting 28 Celsius.

Bahrain claimed only their second medal in any sport when Eunice Kirwa took silver, 9sec adrift of Sumgong, while defending champion Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia claimed bronze, at 26sec.