Olympic 2016 Medal Count: Updates on Monday's Medal Standings for Each Nation
With swimming shifting to the back burner following Michael Phelps' historic weekend, the prime-time focus of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has moved to track and field.
Usain Bolt captured his third straight Olympic gold in Sunday night's 100-meter sprint, and Monday will see the women's 400 and men's 800 crown their next champions. Men's pole vault is also in its finale, joined by events in boxing, weightlifting, wrestling, cycling, gymnastics, sailing, equestrian and marathon swimming.
Here is a look at all of the action from Day 10 in Rio, including an updating medal count following each event.
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Marathon Swimming: Women's 10KM
| Gold | Sharon van Rouwendaal (Netherlands) | 1:56:32.1 |
| Silver | Rachele Bruni (Italy) | 1:56:49.5 |
| Bronze | Poliana Okimoto (Brazil) | 1:56:51.4 |
The open-water 10-kilometer swim is a test of endurance, and the Netherlands' Sharon van Rouwendaal proved that Monday by taking over the second half of the race to earn gold.
Her time of one hour, 56 minutes and 32.1 seconds was more than 16 seconds ahead of second place Aurelie Muller of France, who battled Italy's Rachele Bruni down to the last stroke. Muller defeated Bruni by just eight hundredths of a second. However, controversy enveloped the event, as Muller lost out on her silver when it was ruled she had made an infraction and was disqualified.
Bruni was rewarded silver as a result. Poliana Okimoto of Brazil, seemingly heartbroken moments before when Bruni touched fractions of a second ahead of her, ascended to bronze. Xin Xin of China came in fourth, and American Haley Anderson rounded out the top five.
Van Rouwendaal, 22, was in second at the halfway mark but gained strength during the event's stretch run. She overtook Muller by the third split and opened up a sizable lead that proved insurmountable.
This is the first gold medal for van Rouwendaal and the fifth overall for the Netherlands in Rio.
Track and Field: Women's Hammer Throw
| Gold | Anita Wlodarczyk (Poland) | 82.29 meters |
| Silver | Zhang Wenxiu (China) | 76.75 meters |
| Bronze | Sophie Hitchon (Great Britain) | 74.54 meters |
Anita Wlodarczyk entered the women's hammer throw final as the heavy favorite. She made sure to prove why with a world-record throw of 82.29 meters to bring the gold back home for Poland. Her throw was more than five meters better than second-place Zhang Wenxiu of China. Great Britain's Sophie Hitchon earned bronze.
The 31-year-old Wlodarczyk previously won silver at the 2012 Games in London. She has broken the world record in this event on six different occasions, breaking her own record four times. The previous mark of 81.03 meters was set by Wlodarczyk last year. She was the first woman in history to break the 80-meter mark in hammer throw.
The Polish embassy congratulated her on her record-setting day:
Poland now has two golds and five medals overall. Wenxiu's silver keeps China in second place on the medal count with 46. Great Britain is third with 39.
Track and Field: Women's 3,000M Steeplechase
| Gold | Ruth Jebet (Bahrain) | 8:59.75 |
| Silver | Hyvin Jepkemoi (Kenya) | 9:07.12 |
| Bronze | Emma Coburn (United States) | 9:07.63 |
Ruth Jebet doesn't turn 20 until November. On Monday, she brought home her first Olympic gold medal with a dominant performance in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
The Bahraini runner scored the second-best time in history, completing the race in 8:59.75. She was just a second off the world-record time and finished more than seven seconds ahead of second-place Hyvin Jepkemoi. The Kenyan defeated American Emma Coburn by just over a half second to take silver.
Coburn set an American record at 9:07.63 to become the first U.S. woman to take home a medal in the distance-running event.
“I feel so lucky that that’s part of my story,” Coburn said, per Paul Myerberg of USA Today.
Jebet's medal is the first gold for Bahrain and second overall for these Olympics. Kenya has taken back four medals, including three silvers—most coming in long-distance events. Coburn's bronze was the 70th medal overall for the United States in Rio.
Equestrian: Individual Dressage
| Gold | Charlotte Dujardin (Great Britain) | 93.857 |
| Silver | Isabell Werth (Germany) | 89.071 |
| Bronze | Kristina Broring-Sprehe (Germany) | 87.142 |
Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro earned their second straight gold medal in individual dressage, dominating the field with a near-flawless routine.
Dujardin's 93.857 score was more than four points better than second-place German Isabell Werth. Germany also brought home bronze thanks to Kristina Broring-Sprehe's strong run.
Monday marked Dujardin's third gold medal and fourth overall in dressage competition. She was previously part of the silver-medal team for Great Britain earlier in Rio. Her latest triumph was Great Britain's 40th medal of these Games and 16th gold, the latter number ranking second behind the United States.
Germany's pair of medals brought its total to 19.
Gymnastics: Men's Rings
| Gold | Eleftherios Petrounias (Greece) | 16.000 |
| Silver | Arthur Zanetti (Brazil) | 15.766 |
| Bronze | Denis Ablyazin (Russia) | 15.700 |
Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece passed gymnastics' biggest test of strength with flying colors, earning a score of 16.000 to take home gold in the men's final.
Petrounias defeated defending champion Arthur Zanetti by 0.234 points for the win. Zanetti, a Brazilian, came into the event as a favorite of both the home crowd and some experts. But Petrounias brought the win back to Greece with an excellent routine that combined difficulty and near-flawless execution.
"We worked very much in the details and to be stable and keep my face without expression, so this is a big deal to not move and hold the positions a little bit more than normal," Petrounias said, per of Reuters. "And if you have a good landing, as I had, I think I might have been the only one who stuck it, that's how the 16 came. That was my goal from the beginning, my 16."
The win is Greece's second gold medal in Rio.
Denis Ablyazin of Russia earned a bronze with a score of 15.700.
Gymnastics: Men's Vault
| Gold | Ri Se-gwang (North Korea) | 15.691 |
| Silver | Denis Ablyazin (Russia) | 15.516 |
| Bronze | Kenzo Shirai (Japan) | 15.449 |
Ri Se-gwang brought home the gold for North Korea in the vault competition, posting a score of 15.691. It's the second gold and seventh overall medal for the North Koreans in these Games.
Se-gwang narrowly defeated Russian Denis Ablyazin, who turned in an overall score of 15.516. Ablyazin brought home a pair of medals on the day for Russia and will walk away one of the most accomplished male gymnasts in Rio.
Kenzo Shirai of Japan earned bronze with a score of 15.449, edging out Romanian Marian Dragulescu on a tiebreak. Russia sits fourth in the overall medal count with 32, while Japan is fifth with 27.
Overall Picture
The rest of the world is in a race for second place in the medal tracker at the 2016 Rio Games because the United States holds a commanding 29-medal lead through Monday’s action.
The Americans have 75 medals compared to second-place China’s 46 and third-place Great Britain’s 41. Russia checks in at a distant fourth with 35 overall medals.
Any thought that the end of the swimming competitions would mean the end of the United States’ reign atop the standings has quickly disappeared. Gymnasts Simone Biles and Laurie Hernandez added a silver and bronze to that total, respectively, when they competed in Monday’s balance beam final.
The lost out to gold medalist Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, but it was almost a shock when Biles didn’t win after capturing gold in the team, individual all-around and vault competitions already in these Olympics. She wobbled some on the beam on Monday and needed to regain her balance, which cost her deductions.
Next up for Biles is Tuesday’s floor final, and Rachel Axon of USA Today said a medal there would make her only the fourth American gymnast to earn five medals in a single Games (Mary Lou Retton 1984, Shannon Miller 1992 and Nastia Liukin 2008).
Biles wasn’t the only notable American to win silver on Monday. Sprinter Allyson Felix finished in second place in the dramatic women’s 400-meter final. The Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller dove across the finish line to post a gold-medal time of 49.44 seconds, while Felix finished in second at 49.51 seconds.
NBC Olympics passed along a look at the memorable moment:
Felix still made American history in the process, as NBC Olympics noted:
Elsewhere on the track, American Clayton Murphy won bronze in the men’s 800-meter final behind gold-medalist David Lekuta Rudisha of Kenya.
It wasn’t all good news during Monday’s events for the United States, as Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt beat Philip Dalhausser and Nicholas Lucena in a thrilling three-set match in the quarterfinals of the men’s beach volleyball competition.
The host nation also enjoyed some success in track and field when Thiago Braz da Silva won the pole vault competition. According to Seth Rubinroit of NBCOlympics.com, the victor “became the first Brazilian man to win an Olympic gold medal in Rio.”
He had the support of the crowd as he beat out silver-medalist and defending Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie of France and bronze-medalist Sam Kendricks of the United States. Da Silva also set an Olympic record during the win when he cleared the 6.03-meter mark.
While there were plenty of memorable moments for athletes from around the world on Monday, the United States is still in pole position in the medal race. That doesn’t figure to change anytime soon given the wide gap between it and the rest of the countries.
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