Olympics day 10 late wrap: Kenya’s Chebet gets 5,000m gold, Biles bows to Andrade

There were medals in athletics, gymnastics, surfing and cycling in the late action on day 10 of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Monday:

Athletics: Kenya's Chebet charges to 5,000m gold, Kipyegon's silver reinstated

Kenya's Beatrice Chebet won the women's Olympic 5,000m as she delivered a textbook performance to outkick compatriot Faith Kipyegon, whose silver medal was reinstated after she had been controversially disqualified.

Chebet won in 14 minutes 28.56 seconds as the Netherlands' Sifan Hassan (14:30.61) claimed silver and Italian Nadia Battocletti took bronze (14:31.64).

Chebet produced a thrilling finish to win the first medal for her country at the Paris Olympics and smiled widely as she crossed the line after an exhausting performance.

World champion Kipyegon had finished second in 14:29.60 but was disqualified after a clash with Ethiopian world record holder Gudaf Tsegay on the penultimate lap.

Her silver medal, however, was later reinstated after an appeal by the Kenyan team, pushing Hassan down to bronze-medal position and bumping Battocletti off the podium.

“Congratulations to Faith Kipyegon, her silver medal has been reinstated,” Athletics Kenya said on social media platform X.

“Kenya's team officials led by Milka Chemos, Bernard Ouma and Team Manager Peter Angwenyi successfully appealed and won her case.”

Chebet, runner-up at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and bronze medallist in Budapest last year, took the early lead and hung in with Kipyegon through much of the race before surging past her off the final bend.

Tokyo champion Hassan was in fifth place heading into the final 400 and dug deep to try to hang on to her Olympic crown but could not match the Kenyans' speed around the final turn.

Chebet hugged and cheered with Kipyegon as the pair donned Kenyan flags to wild applause from the packed Stade de France.

It quickly became clear, however, that Kipyegon would not join her on the podium as her name disappeared from the results list and she was later marked disqualified.

“I am so sad for Faith and I hope justice will be done. Because Faith did not do anything bad,” Chebet said. “I think she will get it [the medal] in the end.”

Hassan stood squinting at a monitor showing the results as Battocletti stood by in a confusing scene minutes after the race.

“I'm happy for you guys — for me, I don't care,” Hassan said.

The Dutchwoman will continue a gruelling Paris campaign with the 10,000m and marathon on her agenda.

“It's my crazy thing, I just want to complete it. I know people have done [three events] before but not in the 10,000m and marathon. I'm very curious,” said Hassan.

“Could I podium? Could I even complete [the races]? I'm trying to fight with myself.” 

Athletics: Peerless Duplantis caps golden night with pole vault world record

Sweden's Mondo Duplantis retained his Olympic pole vault title with ludicrous ease on Monday, needing only four successful attempts to take gold with 6.00m, then capped a memorable night by beating his own world record with a clearance of 6.25.

Duplantis, one of the hottest favourites of the entire athletics programme, went above and beyond to the delight of the crowd.

Having seen off silver medallist American Sam Kendricks and Greece's bronze winner Emmanouil Karalis for the gold, he duly knocked off 6.10 at the first attempt to overhaul Thiago Braz's Olympic record 6.03 from the 2016 Rio Games.

With all other events finished, the capacity Stade de France crowd then focused fully on his bright yellow shirt and neon pink-lit pole frame as he tried to beat the world record of 6.24 he set in April.

The first two attempts were close but he slipped over and around the bar with incredible athleticism on the third, bringing a deafening roar from the 69,000 fans who had stayed to witness athletics history.

Still only 24, Duplantis is the world record holder, double Olympic, double world, triple European and double indoor world champion.

Around three hours earlier, the pole vault had been something of a sideshow to the track action as Duplantis entered the fray at 5.70 and promptly cleared it by about a metre.

He sat out 5.80 before flying easily over 5.85, as others all around him were starting to fall by the wayside.

He then cleared 6.00 — the ultimate target for most vaulters — as if he was warming up, and that was all he needed.

Kendricks, the 2017 and 2019 world champion and 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for Covid-19 after his arrival and spoke this week about the turmoil he suffered as brands considered him “damaged goods”.

The pent-up emotion exploded when he equalled his season’s best of 5.95, but he could not get over 6.00m with three attempts, leaving Duplantis as the winner on that height, without a fail.

Karalis, 24, cleared his personal best of 5.93 this season and was delighted to get over 5.90. His attempts at 5.95 and 6.00 never looked convincing but he was delighted with his bronze having finished joint-fourth in Tokyo.

It was Greece’s fourth bronze in the event but first since 1956, after a shared bronze in the first Games of 1896, when the winning height was 3.30m.

Athletics: American Allman wins second successive women's discus title

Valarie Allman of the US captured her second consecutive Olympic women's discus gold medal on Monday, unleashing a 69.50m effort on her fourth throw that was nearly 2m better than the rest of the field.

China's Feng Bin took silver with 67.51, while former double Olympic and world champion Sandra Elkasevic of Croatia also threw 67.51 but had to settle for bronze because Feng's second-best effort topped the Croatian's.

Having locked up gold before her final throw, the American who is unbeaten this season, stepped into the circle to huge applause and after hurling the discus 69.21 sprinted to her coach Zebulon Sion and leapt into his arms.

“I am on cloud nine,” she said. “Until it was all done I didn't let myself believe it was going to be true. To walk away as champion — I can't believe it.”

Allman fouled badly on her first throw, saying she felt the nerves.

“Knowing this is the Olympic final and everything we put in for years, not just one year, is going to come down tonight. It took a minute to find my groove and my coach was good about helping me get settled and reminding me what to think about.”

Allman, who became the fourth woman to win two Olympic gold medals in discus, had served notice she was the one to beat when her throw in the qualifying round topped the field by nearly 4m.

Allman was a dancer growing up before switching to discus in high school, finding she was a natural at spinning in the throwing circle.

France's Melina Robert-Michon earned some of the loudest cheers of the night. The 45-year-old, who won silver at the 2016 Olympics, finished 12th with a throw of 57.03m in a remarkable seventh Olympic appearance. Her seven Olympics matched Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey's record number of appearances for a woman in track and field.

Robert-Michon, who was a flag bearer for France at the opening ceremony, has no immediate plans to retire, hoping to compete in next year's world championships in Tokyo.

The event was missing Yaime Perez, who boasts the best throw this season of 73.09 — more than a metre better than Allman's best. Perez is ineligible after defecting from Cuba to the US two years ago. 

Gymnastics: Biles bows to Andrade in floor final at Paris Games

It definitely was not the ending Simone Biles was expecting as she was surprisingly upstaged in the floor exercise final by Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade — but a silver medal on Monday capped the American's remarkable Olympic comeback.

Stepping out of bounds with both feet at the end of two of her four tumbling passes meant she missed out on the top prize in the floor final, with the six tenths of a point penalty she incurred making the difference between gold and silver.

That score of 14.133 did not stop Biles from earning an 11th Olympic medal.

The final day of the artistic gymnastics programme also saw Biles suffer disappointment in the balance beam final as she finished fifth after slipping off the 10-cm wide apparatus. Italy won their first ever Olympic title in women's gymnastics when Alice D'Amato emerged as the surprise winner in a beam competition where four of the eight finalists suffered falls. The celebrations did not end there for Italians, with D'Amato's compatriot Manila Esposito scooping bronze behind Chinese silver medallist Zhou Yaqin.

Like Biles, Japanese sensation Shinnosuke Oka will be heading home with four Olympic medals, with three of them being glittering gold. The 20-year-old's Games breakthrough continued as he finished with the bronze in the parallel bars, behind back-to-back Olympic champion Zou Jingyuan and Ukrainian silver medallist Illia Kovtun.

Zou handed China their second gymnastics gold of the Games, while Kovtun earned Ukraine their first podium finish. Just two hours later Oka emerged triumphant with his gravity defying routine on the horizontal bar, a final that was riddled with errors.

Colombian teenager Angel Barajas took silver and Taiwan's Tang Chia-hung and China's Zhang Boheng shared bronze despite botched performances.

With the hundreds of TV and still cameras capturing her every move, there was no doubt that Biles was the standout star of the Paris Olympics.

But she is also the ultimate teammate and rival.

She whopped with joy and hugged fellow American Jordan Chiles tightly after her friend was promoted from fifth to the bronze-medal position when her score was upgraded to 13.766 after a successful enquiry submitted by the Americans right at the end of the floor exercise competition.

Biles, the world's most decorated gymnast with 41 world and Olympic medals, admitted that exhaustion had started to creep in on the final day of a gruelling competition.

“Obviously wasn't my best performances but at the end of the day, whoever medalled, medalled,” she said.

“I'm not very upset or anything about my performance at the Olympics. I'm actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it's over.”

Biles was heavily favoured coming into the floor final given the difficulty of her high-flying floor routine but paid the price for miscuing two of her landings, which meant she lost out on winning a fourth gold medal of these Games.

Biles' routine got off to a promising start when she nailed her triple twisting double back but the power she generates during the tumbling sequences left her completely stepping out of bounds on her next attempt.

She again found herself out of the marked area on her final pass.

The flawed performance left her anxiously looking up at the scoreboard and when her mark flashed up, she found her name below Andrade's on the standings. She lost the gold medal by just 0.033 of a point.

Andrade claimed the top prize for producing a near flawless, albeit less difficult, display which was rewarded with a score of 14.166 from the judges.

Proving there were no hard feelings, a beaming Biles then joined Chiles in hailing the new Olympic floor exercise queen.

The American duo turned to face Andrade and then bowed to her from the lower platforms of the podium as the Brazilian stepped up accept her prize with her arms raised high — a moment that quickly went viral.

“She's so amazing. She's a queen,” Biles said of Andrade, who had finished runner-up to the American in the all-around and vault finals.

“First, it was an all-Black podium, so that was very exciting for us. But then Jordan was like, should we bow to her? And I was like, absolutely.”

Andrade was really touched by the gesture.

“They are the world's best athletes and what they did means a lot to me. I feel honoured,” said the Brazilian.

Despite the less than ideal finale, the Paris Games still marks a triumphant comeback for the 27-year-old Biles, whose three golds in Paris included leading the US to the team title.

She withdrew from the Tokyo Games three years ago suffering with a mental block known as the “twisties” — a temporary loss of spatial awareness experienced by some gymnasts when completing high-difficulty elements. Her withdrawal caused concern among her vast fan base about whether she would ever set foot on the Olympic stage again as Biles took a two-year break from the sport.

She returned healthy, happy and as dominant as ever as she qualified for her third Games and has not ruled out competing at the Los Angeles Games in 2028. She said she leaves Paris proud.

“I've accomplished way more than my wildest dreams,” Biles said.

“Not just at this Olympics, but in the sport. So I can't be mad at my performances.”

Surfing: Vaast takes gold for France and Tahiti, American Marks triumphs

Tahitian Kauli Vaast surfed a near perfect final to claim the gold medal for France in the men's event at Teahupo'o on Monday, leaving Australian tube-riding maestro Jack Robinson with silver.

Caroline Marks of the US added Olympic gold to her 2023 world title with a tight victory over Brazil's Tatiana Weston-Webb in the women's final.

Brazil's Gabriel Medina won the bronze medal in the men's event with France's Johanne Defay finishing third in the women's.

The 22-year-old Vaast, who grew up in Tahiti's Teahupo'o and has caught some of the best waves of all-time at the perfect reef pass, quickly established dominance and never gave it up, sparking celebrations on spectator boats in the channel and on shore.

“The dream came true. I can't believe it right now but I just made history — for me, for all Tahitians, for Polynesia and France,” Vaast said, adding that he had lost his voice screaming back at local fans as he did a victory lap on a jet ski.

“A lot of people surf and it's part of our culture ... I'm proud to say that surfing is born in Polynesia, so it means a lot for me.”

As Vaast collected his gold medal, a rooster — a symbol of France — ran around the presentation area and a Polynesian conch shell was blown.

After Teahupo'o delivered the greatest day of Olympic surfing competition last week, waves for the morning of finals day failed to live up to expectations, with infrequent swells and tricky winds.

But conditions improved as the day progressed and the men's finals were held in clean, overhead barrels at “The End of the Road”, as Teahupo'o is also known.

Vaast, sporting a mohawk haircut courtesy of his younger brother, drew first blood, scoring a 9.5 out of 10 after pumping through a long, deep tube.

Robinson followed with a slightly smaller version, but came out after the wave spit a blast of water and air into the channel to score a 7.83.

Vaast quickly got another excellent score, an 8.17 for some searing turns to total 17.67 and leaving the Australian chasing a near perfect score.

Robinson had looked like the man to beat after knocking out Medina and American John John Florence in earlier rounds but the West Australian, who employs meditative breathing techniques and named his first son Zen, could not will another wave to come and had to settle for silver.

Waves were infrequent for the women's final too, with a flurry at the end almost giving Weston-Webb enough to snatch victory from Marks. The Brazilian came up just short, however, finishing with a two-wave total of 10.33 to Marks' 10.50

Earlier, the women's semifinals were filled with drama as Marks and Defay finished with their two-wave totals tied, the American squeaking through courtesy of the highest scoring single wave.

In semifinal two, Brisa Hennessy suffered a brain fade and dropped in on Weston-Webb without priority, incurring a penalty that cost the Costa Rican all the points from her second scoring wave.

Cycling: Britain's women power to team sprint gold as records tumble

Britain's women blazed to gold in the Olympic track cycling team sprint when they powered to victory against New Zealand with their third world record of the evening on Monday.

Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane made sure the track cycling programme began with a bang as they dominated the competition in stunning fashion.

Welsh rider Finucane, the individual world champion, made it a glorious Olympic debut as she led the team home.

Britain had not even qualified a team for the team sprint since 2012 but came in with great expectations and did not disappoint as they dominated the opening event of the week.

They clocked a world record 45.186 seconds in the final with New Zealand's trio of Rebecca Petch, Shaane Fulton and Ellesse Andrews finishing in 45.659. World champions Germany had to be content with the bronze medal after beating the Netherlands.

Defending Olympic champions China were a poor sixth.

Britain has been a track powerhouse ever since the Beijing Olympics but the women's sprint had not been a happy hunting ground. That all changed on Monday.

They began the session by breaking China's world record in the qualifying round to make a statement of intent.

Incredibly, favourites Germany, with trio Pauline Grabosch, Emma Hinze and Lea Friedrich, lowered the mark again in the first-round heats, before New Zealand went even quicker.

Britain then beat Canada in their heat in yet another world record to reach the final and guarantee a medal.

New Zealand started well and had a narrow lead but Britain stormed back and there was no stopping Finucane. 

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