Summer Olympics 2016: Winners and Losers in Rio on Day 11
There are just a handful of days remaining in the 2016 Summer Olympics, but the upsets are still coming in waves, producing plenty of winners and losers in Rio de Janeiro on Day 11.
One of the biggest winners came in one of the final events of the night, as Omar McLeod became the first Jamaican to win gold in the 110-meter hurdles.
While some of his competitors barreled through several hurdles, McLeod ran a flawless race. If he did clip a hurdle, it wasn't enough to affect him, and he strode to victory by 0.12 seconds. It was the culmination of an incredible year in which he won the 60-meter hurdles at the World Indoor Championships in March and then ran 9.99 seconds in the 100-meter dash in April.
But the 110 hurdles also produced one of the day's biggest losers, as Team USA failed to medal.
With 20 gold, 20 silver and 17 bronze medals in the event's history, the United States entered the night with more than twice as many medals (57) as the rest of the world combined (26). Oregon's Devon Allen ran his heart out as NBC frequently cut to footage of his football teammates watching, but he finished fifth, and Ronnie Ash was disqualified. That left the U.S. off the podium for just the second time in Olympic history—the other being 1980, when the United States did not compete in Moscow.
Read on for the rest of Tuesday's biggest winners and losers.
Winner: Sweden Shocks Soccer World...Again
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Despite scoring just three goals in its five matches, Sweden's women's soccer team pulled off its second consecutive massive upset to advance to Friday's gold-medal match.
It has turned this tournament completely upside down, eliminating the two favorites for gold in back-to-back rounds.
As was the case in Friday's win over the United States—and in its 5-1 loss to Brazil on Aug. 6—Sweden was dominated throughout its semifinal match against Brazil. The hosts owned a 33-6 advantage in shots, including a 10-2 edge in shots on goal, and possessed the ball nearly twice as long as Sweden did.
But the Swedes dug in their heels on defense, survived a flurry of golden opportunities for Brazil late in extra time and forced yet another match to penalty kicks. Incredibly, that's the third match in this tournament to go into PKs, even though there hadn't been a single women's shootout in any prior Olympics.
Sweden won 4-3 in the shootout with Lisa Dahlkvist converting the match-winning shot, just as she did against the U.S. Hedvig Lindahl stopped two shots, including Andressa's attempt in the fifth round, which opened the door for Dahlkvist's winner.
And Sweden wasn't called a "bunch of cowards" for winning the match, so that's progress.
Loser: The Host Country's Athletes
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Despite the litany of concerns in the months leading up to the opening ceremony, Rio has done a solid job hosting the 2016 Olympics.
Its athletes didn't do much to capitalize on that home-field advantage Tuesday, though.
In addition to the upset loss to Sweden in women's soccer, the world No. 1 women's beach volleyball tandem of Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes was beaten handily in the semifinals by Germany's Kira Walkenhorst and Laura Ludwig, 21-18, 21-12.
Brazil also got quite the scare in the men's beach volleyball semifinals with Alison and Bruno Schmidt scraping by the Netherlands' Robert Meeuwsen and Alexander Brouwer 21-17, 21-23, 16-14.
The other women's beach volleyball team of Agatha and Barbara reached the gold-medal match by beating the United States' Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross, but that was little consolation for the two-time reigning Olympic gold-medal indoor volleyball team losing to China in the quarterfinals—after getting through their five games in pool play without dropping a single set.
Moreover, Brazil narrowly missed out on two medals in sailing, finishing fourth in both the men's laser and finn events. And both the women's handball and men's water polo teams were eliminated in the quarterfinals of their tournaments, ensuring they won't be getting any medals, either.
Brazil did get a gold medal from lightweight boxer Robson Conceicao, and Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos earned silver in the men's 1,000-meter canoe single. However, the day produced far more heartbreak than jubilation for the host country.
Winner: Team USA Gymnastics
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Simone Biles had already cemented her status as one of the biggest winners of the 2016 Olympics long before Tuesday afternoon's floor exercise finals.
Biles led the United States to gold in the team competition before winning gold in the individual all-around and the vault. She had a slight hiccup in Monday's balance-beam competition to end up with bronze, but she picked up her fifth medal and fourth gold with yet another mesmerizing floor exercise routine. How the judges managed to deduct 0.934 points is a mystery, but she still won with ease.
Aly Raisman was also a big winner, taking silver to Biles' gold, which she also did last week in the individual all-around. Raisman won three Olympic medals and now has six in her career.
But the biggest winner of the day in U.S. gymnastics was Danell Leyva.
Leyva wasn't even supposed to be in Rio. Despite his bronze medal in the individual all-around in London four years ago, Leyva failed to make the team at the Olympic trials in late June. He was named an alternate, which meant he would only compete if a member of the team suffered an injury and could not perform.
But that's exactly what happened to John Orozco.
Orozco has been through hell and back in the past four years. He was the poster boy of the United States' failures in London, suffered multiple injuries and his mother died. His life journey hit yet another pothole when he tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee while training in mid-July.
That heartbreaking development made it possible for Leyva to compete, and he capitalized by winning silver in both the parallel bars and the horizontal bar on the final day of gymnastics in Rio.
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Loser: China Women's Badminton Doubles
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China winning gold in women's badminton doubles is just about the surest Olympic bet a gambler can make. Since it became an event in 1992, China's women have won five gold, three silver and four bronze medals, including multiple medals in five of six Games and a gold-silver-bronze sweep in 2000.
Entering 2016, and factoring in the IBF and BWF World Championships along with the Olympics, China had won a staggering 18 consecutive gold medals in women's badminton doubles—a run that dated back to 1996.
But that streak ended Tuesday morning when Tang Yuanting and Yu Yang lost in the semifinals to Denmark's Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl 21-16, 14-21, 21-19.
Had it been China's only loss, we would have made this a "Winner" slide for the Danish duo. However, it was China's third loss of the tournament.
Tang and Yu lost to South Korea's Chang Ye Na and Lee So Hee 21-18, 14-21, 21-11 in group play. And that loss came less than 12 hours after China's Luo Ying and Luo Yu were blown out by South Korea's Jung Kyung Eun and Shin Seung Chan 21-10, 21-14, which kept China from sending two teams to the quarterfinals.
This marks the first Olympics that won't feature a pair from China in the women's badminton doubles final.
Winner: Moldova Joins the Medal Count
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Moldova has never won a gold medal at the Summer Olympics. That drought remained intact for at least another day. But it reached the 2016 medal table with Serghei Tarnovschi's bronze in Tuesday morning's men's 1,000-meter canoe single.
It perhaps made up for Moldova's near-miss in the women's hammer throw Monday. Zalina Marghieva tossed the hammer 73.5 meters on her fourth try, temporarily jumping into third place with two rounds to go. But Germany's Betty Heidler and Great Britain's Sophie Hitchon squeezed her out in the final rounds. Marghieva had to settle for fifth place.
Tarnovschi picked up Moldova's torch, though, qualifying for the men's C1 finals by winning his Monday heat by nearly three full seconds. The gap between bronze and fourth place in the finals wasn't anywhere near that wide. Tarnovschi edged Russia's Ilia Shtokalov by a mere 0.111 seconds in the four-minute race.
Could Tarnovschi complete a double-dip to become the nation's all-time leading medalist at the age of 19? He and older brother Oleg will compete in qualifying heats of the men's 1,000-meter canoe double Friday morning.
Loser: Australia Women's Basketball
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Australia was never going to win gold in women's basketball. Because despite going 5-0 in pool play to win Group A, it was overshadowed by the five-time reigning Olympic champion United States.
The Americans entered Tuesday having won 46 consecutive games at the Olympics—including 45 by double digits. In pool play in Rio, they were 5-0 with an average margin of victory of 40.8 points per game. Their closest game was a 26-point blowout victory over Serbia.
So, the Aussies entered the quarterfinals as the favorite to secure the silver medal. Get the job done and it would be their sixth consecutive Olympics with a medal in women's basketball after bronzes in 1996 and 2012, along with three silvers in between.
However, that dream was dashed to bits in the quarterfinals when Serbia pulled off a 73-71 upset.
It was a nail-biter from start to finish. Neither team led by more than five at any point in the first half, and the margin was three points or fewer for the final 13-plus minutes.
For a brief time in the third quarter, it looked like Australia was going to pull away. Leilani Mitchell scored eight points in 70 seconds to give Australia a 48-39 lead with 4:55 remaining in the period, but Serbia went on a 12-2 run over the next two minutes, 17 seconds to reclaim the lead.
From there, it was a tug-of-war Serbia won when Marianna Tolo's potential game-tying layup missed the mark as time expired.
Elizabeth Cambage scored a game-high 29 points for the Aussies, but for the first time since 1992, Australia will be absent from the podium.
Winner: USA's Double-Double in Men's Triple Jump
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The men's triple jump was expected to be an epic duel between two athletes from the United States and one from Cuba.
Christian Taylor and Will Claye were the reigning Olympic gold and silver medalists, respectively. Claye had struggled in recent years, failing to reach the finals of the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, where Taylor and Cuba's Pedro Pablo Pichardo put on one heck of a show. It ended with Taylor winning gold with an incredible 18.21-meter hop, step and jump on his sixth and final attempt.
Pichardo recorded a triple jump of 18.08 meters in May 2015 and likely would have done no worse than silver in Rio were it not for an ankle injury that forced him to withdraw from the competition just hours before the qualifying round.
Because of Pichardo's setback, it became much more likely that Taylor and Claye would repeat what they did in 2012.
Taylor notched the best triple jump in qualifying with Claye finishing third. The pair wasted little time establishing their dominance in Tuesday's finals. On the first of his six jumps, Claye went 17.76 meters. Taylor was just a little better at 17.86 meters. Every other jump they made did not matter, as those were the final marks for gold and silver.
China's Dong Bin finished third after placing 10th in 2012—but the Americans were Nos. 1 and 2 on the podium once again.
A Few More Losers
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Japan's Dream of a Colossal Upset
With one-and-a-half minutes remaining in the second quarter, Japan's women's basketball team was surprisingly within two points of Team USA, frequently using backdoor cuts to get wide-open layups. But the United States closed the half on an 8-0 run, made some adjustments and blew Japan out of the water in the second half en route to a 110-64 win.
Yaime Perez, Cuba
Perez finished fourth in the women's discus at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, missing out on a medal by just 0.07 meters (less than three inches). She had the best throw in Monday's qualifying rounds—a 65.38-meter toss that would have been good for bronze in the finals—making her one of the favorites to medal. But she scratched on each of her first three tosses and was eliminated.
Jeffrey Julmis, Haiti
Julmis qualified for the semifinals of the men's 110-meter hurdles with a time of 13.66 seconds Monday night. But Tuesday night was a complete disaster. He seemed to come out of the starting blocks awkwardly and was nowhere close to clearing the first hurdle, falling into a somersault along with the apparatus he wasn't supposed to touch. Credit to him, though, for getting up and finishing the race, even if it was 12 seconds after everyone else and he was disqualified.
Men's Water Polo Group Winners
Hungary was undefeated in pool play, earning the No. 1 seed in Group A with two wins and three ties. Spain lost its first game of pool play, but it went 3-0-1 the rest of the way to win Group B. That made little difference in the quarterfinals, however, as Hungary lost to Montenegro 13-11 and Spain fell to Serbia 10-7.
A Few More Winners
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Tom Burton, Australia
Burton entered the final leg of the men's laser sailing race 10 points behind the leader, Tonci Stipanovic of Croatia. That meant Burton need to finish at least five spots ahead of Stipanovic in the final 10-sailor race to win gold. It was an unlikely proposition given Stipanovic's success throughout the week, but Burton finished third and Stipanovic ninth.
Armenian and Georgian Feats of Strength
Armenia (one medal) and Georgia (two) entered Tuesday without much success in Rio, but they dominated wrestling and weightlifting.
Georgia's Lasha Talakhadze won gold and set a world record with a combined total of 473 kilograms in the plus-105-kilogram division. His country-mate, Irakli Turmanidze, won bronze, while Armenia's Gor Minasyan and Ruben Aleksanyan finished second and fourth, respectively. On the mat, Armenia's Artur Aleksanyan won the Greco-Roman 98-kilogram weight class, while Migran Arutyunyan earned silver at 66 kilograms. Georgia's Shmagi Bolkvadze nabbed bronze in the 66-kilo class.
Great Britain's Cyclists
Nine medals were handed out in cycling track on Day 11: three each in women's omnium, women's sprint and men's keirin. Great Britain won four of those, including gold in the omnium (Laura Trott) and keirin (Jason Kenny). Rebecca James and Katy Marchant picked up silver and bronze in the sprint.
China's Table-Tennis Dominance
It has been a rough Olympics for overwhelming favorites in sports such as badminton, soccer, tennis and volleyball, but China continued to assert its table-tennis dominance with a 3-0 win over Germany in the women's team gold-medal match. Aside from the finals of both the men's and women's singles event, which featured China vs. China, China is undefeated in 23 matches with just Wednesday's men's team final against Japan standing between it and a perfect Olympics.
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