Gardiner adds Olympic 400m Gold to his World Title
The 25-year-old from Bahamas, residing in the US, powered his way to the Gold Medal with a season’s best timing of 43.85 seconds.
Gardiner, who had a semi-final position in his only Olympic five years ago, had to work hard for his maiden Olympic title against a quality field that included former champion Kirani James and rising USA star Michael Norman.
Colombian Jose Zambrano failed to go under 44s but yet managed to win the Silver Medal in 44.08s. James added the full set over three Olympics winning the Bronze Medal in 44.19s.
There was no sign of breaking Russian Yelena Isinbayeva’s world and Olympic mark of 5.06m set in Zurich and Beijing in 2009 in the Women’s pole vault.
In fact there wasn’t anybody to break the five-metre mark as USA’s Katie Nageotte only had a performance of 4.90m to take the Gold Medal.
Nageotte easily cleared the 4.50m that saw nine of her competitors go out of the competition before moving on to 4.80m – and finally taking home the laurels when she was able to clear the bar when it was raised to 4.90m.
None of the other three athletes who reached past the opening round were able to clear the 4.95m height that Nageotte eventually went over.
Anzhelika Sidorova of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Team followed the American to the podium with the Silver with 4.85m while Holly Bradshaw of Great Britain took the Bronze.
Damian Warner became Canada’s first Olympic champion in the Men’s decathlon, finishing with a new Olympic record of 9,018. He becomes just the fourth decathlete in history to go beyond the 9,000 point mark.
France’s world record holder Kevin Mayer took Silver with 8,726 points. Ashley Moloney clinched the Bronze Medal with a new Australian record of 8,649 points.
Belgium’s Nafi Thiam successfully defended her Olympic heptathlon title underlining her supremacy in the combined events over two days.
Thiam became only the second woman to win back-to-back titles in the event since USA legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee in Barcelona 1992.
The 26-year-old Thiam amassed a total of 6,791 points over the seven events followed by a Dutch 2-3 on the podium with Anouk Vetter and Emma Oosterwegel winning the Silver and Bronze medals with totals of 6,689 and 6,590 respectively.
