By Sevket F. ERBAY from Stade de France
Nafissatou Thiam, one of the greatest names in multi-events, has posted her long achievement list with a new entry: three-peat in the Olympic heptathlon, becoming the first multi-eventer—male or female—to do this.
Thiam opened the second day with minus 48 points against longtime rival Katarina Johnson-Thompson in jump jump. The bitter rivals performed very similarly in the morning as the gap just shrank three points after the fifth event. However, Nafi made a massive step for the title in her premium event javelin and threw 54.04 in the first attempt. Although she didn't extend the gap between KJT in the next two tries, she regained the lead in the competition by 121 points, meaning Briton needed almost eight and a second gap in the final run.
Nafi Thiam started to chase KJT for the 800 metres and escaped a scary fall around 250 metres after crossing with Sofie Dokter. She quickly reacted and continued to Thrace in the fast-running lead group. After a 60-second lap, Johnson-Thompson accelerated as she clocked a personal best of 2:04.90. Thiam continued to push and came to the finish line in 2:10.62—three seconds inside her PB, which gave her yet another title.
The 29-year-old Belgian collected 6880 points, 36 points clear of Johnson-Thompson, who finally got an eluded Olympic medal as silver. And the "other" Belgian Noor Vidts has outclassed Swiss record breaker Annik Kalin and United States' Anna Hall to get bronze.
The final event of the evening was the 400-metre hurdles men's race. Rai Benjamin got sweet revenge for the Tokyo 2020 final against Karsten Warholm and clocked a very fast 46.46 season best equal. Still, it's looking slow compared with the previous Olympic final, which saw a fantastic 45.94 world record. Alison dos Santos, 2022 world champion, claimed yet another bronze after returning from a heavy injury.
CHEBET HITS THE DOUBLE
Women 10,000 metres final proved a couple of things: Beatrice Chebet's arrival at the scene and the Ethiopian disaster at the Games. World record holder Chebet ran a classy race again by clocking a 30:43.25 mark for the victory to complete an unexpected distance double here in Paris. 2000-born Chebet edged one-month younger Italian rival Nadia Battocletti, who also spent a brilliant Games with two national records, a fourth-place in 5K and a historic silver in 10K. Battocletti competed here as a double European champion and deserved much respect with a high-class win over the African stars. Defending champion Sifan Hassan climbed the podium once more like she did five days ago in 5000 metres - has five Olympic medals now in total.
When their arch-rivals took the gold, the Ethiopian team suffered yet another huge loss. Under the presidency of distance legend Derartu Tulu, they did not have any podium places in women's 10,000 metres at the Olympics. Their best hope, Gudaf Tsegay, current world champion, was just able to finish sixth in the final.
In the field events, the titles went to Europeans. In the triple jump, three Cuban-born Europeans covered the podium, and Jordan Diaz claimed the Olympic champion title by just two centimetres over Tokyo winner Pedro Pichardo. Meanwhile, the upcoming German Yemisi Ogunleye secured the shot put title by throwing an exact 20 metres to beat Kiwi putter Maddison-Lee Wesche, who spent nearly the whole competition on top but just came second in the end.
