Tokyo 2020 – Day 10: three more medals for Team GB

Great Britain won the Olympic team eventing title for the first time in 49 years to clinch an 11th gold in Tokyo, with silver medals in the individual event and weightlifting following on Monday.

The eventing team – made up of Oliver Townend, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen – were in gold-medal position going into the final stages of the competition after the dressage and cross country on Sunday, leading by 17.9 penalties. In the show jumping stage, they comfortably retained the top spot, winning with a score of 86.30. Australia took the silver, and France the bronze.

The success in the eventing left the riders in a good place for the individual category, and it was McEwan who pulled through, claiming a silver. McEwen, on Toledo De Kerser, performed incredibly well, following his earlier clear rounds in the team show jumping and cross-country stages. Germany’s Julia Krajewski won the individual gold.

Team GB’s final medal of the day came courtesy of Emily Campbell, who landed the first women’s Olympic weightlifting medal for Great Britain with silver in the +87kg category. She finished with a total of 283kg, while gold went to China’s Li Wenwen, who set a new Olympic record of 320kg. The event was overshadowed with controversy due to the presence of Laurel Hubbard, the first transgender athlete to compete at an Olympics in a different gender category to the one in which they were born. However, in the snatch stage, the New Zealander failed to record a successful lift at 120kg, and twice at 125kg, and so failed to progress further into the competition.

Much of the day saw Team GB athletes qualifying for later stages in their events. Laura Kenny began her quest for gold at a third successive Games, with the GB four setting the second fastest time of 4:09.022 in the women’s cycling team pursuit. The German team set the fastest time, a world record of 4:07.307, but the GB time was enough to set up a race against the USA in the first round on Tuesday. The men’s four were fourth fastest, with a GB best-ever time of 3:47.507.

Laura Muir finished second in her 1500m heat with a time of 4:3.89, reaching the semi-finals, as did teammate Katie Snowden (in 4:02.77). James Heatly and Jack Laugher reached the men’s diving 3m springboard semi-finals, while Deborah Kerr qualified for the women’s kayak single 200m semi-finals. Holly Bradshaw reached Thursday’s pole vault final, clearing 4.55m after the competition was postponed due to adverse weather conditions. The women’s hockey team also advanced to the semi-finals after a shootout win over Spain.

In the athletics, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands won gold in the women’s 5000m. Earlier in the day, the Dutch athlete produced a miraculous recovery after a heavy fall to win a 1,500m heat, keeping alive her dream of completing the treble – the women’s 1,500m, 5,000m and the 10,000m, a feat never before accomplished.

In the gymnastics floor final, the USA’s Jade Carey won gold with a complex routine that scored 14.366 – GB teams Jessica and Jennifer Gadirova came sixth and seventh respectively. Meanwhile, Simone Biles confirmed that she would compete in the beam on Tuesday, her only chance for an Olympic medal at the Tokyo Games after withdrawing from her other events to focus on her mental health.

Medal table:

1. China

Gold (29), Silver (17), Bronze (16), Total (62)

2. USA

Gold (22), Silver (25), Bronze (17), Total (64)

3. Japan

Gold (17), Silver (6), Bronze (10), Total (33)

4. Australia

Gold (14), Silver (4), Bronze (15), Total (33)

5. Russian Olympic Committee

Gold (12), Silver (21), Bronze (17), Total (50)