Olympic Track and Field 2016: Women's Discus Throw Medal Winners and Results

Sandra Perkovic failed on five of her six attempts in the discus throw event at the 2016 Rio Games on Tuesday, but her one attempt that landed in play was good enough to bring home gold for Croatia. 

The 26-year-old defended her discus throw gold from the 2012 London Games, dwarfing the field with a throw of 69.21 meters. She is the first woman since Evelin Jahl to win back-to-back golds in the event and just the second all time.

That said, it was far from a breezy performance.

Medal	Thrower	Distance
Gold	Sandra Perkovic (Croatia)	69.21 meters
Silver	Melina Robert-Michon (France)	66.73 meters
Bronze	Denia Caballero (Cuba)	65.34 meters

As she did during the qualifying round, Perkovic struggled to get a legal throw off. Her first two attempts were waived off due to violations. But the third time proved to be the charm, as she set her one and only mark of the morning. Three more faults left her sweating out the rest of the field that was trying to catch up.

Melina Robert-Michon of France came closest, posting a throw of 66.73 meters on her fifth attempt. She had two of the three longest throws and set the pace early with a 65.52-meter throw on her first try. Denia Caballero took home bronze for Cuba at 65.34 meters.

Dani Samuels of Australia and Su Xinyue of China rounded out the top five.

A 2012 gold medalist and 2013 world champion, Perkovic came to Rio de Janeiro attempting to atone for a surprising second-place finish at the 2015 World Championships. Caballero took home the gold in Beijing last year with a throw on par with her performance Tuesday.

It was a disappointing result that seemed to be weighing on Perkovic coming into qualifying. She barely survived with two fouls in her three attempts to make it into the final and then made mistake after mistake to give her opponents chances. But it goes to show that when you have Perkovic's otherworldly gifts, sometimes it takes only one attempt to get it right.

Her gold brings Croatia's total to three in these Games and its overall medal count to four. France's 27 medals sit fifth on the overall count, while China remains in second with 47.