Summer Olympics, Day 15: David Boudia Wins Diving Gold For U.S.

All eyes were on Caster Semenya on Saturday afternoon. The South African runner has been subjected to gender testing in recent years, which has caused her to withdraw from -0 and then be reinstated into -- international competition. She won silver in the 800 meters in her first major meet following her reinstatement, at the 2011 World Championships, and she was unable to improve on that finish in London.

That’s because Russia’s Mariya Savinova captured the gold medal, continuing her recent domination of the event. She beat Semenya in the World Championships last year and has won five major meets since finishing fifth, well behind Semenya at the 2009 World Championships.

The United States women’s 4x400m relay team left very little doubt on the way to a gold medal. The U.S. women finished in 3:16:87, more than three seconds ahead of the Russians, who finished in second place with a time of 3:20:23.

With the big lead, there was very little suspense when Sanya Richards-Ross started the final leg of the race.

There was no shortage of speed in the men’s 4x100m relay final Saturday, but Usain Bolt’s speed was too much for the United States to overcome and Jamaica took home the gold.

The United States and Jamaica were essentially even going into the final handoff, but that is when Bolt took over and simply ran away from Ryan Bailey to help Jamaica set a new world record at 36.84 seconds. There was nothing the United States could do when Bolt kicked it into high-gear and they admitted as much after the race.

Having won gold in the men’s 10,000m, Great Britain’s Mo Farah had already had a successful 2012 Olympics heading into Saturday’s men’s 5000m final. However, he had a little extra incentive to add a second gold, something he accomplished with a winning time of 13:41:66.

Farah’s wife, Tania, is pregnant and expecting soon, giving him even more reason to add a second gold medal to the collection.

Qiu Bo of China entered the 10-meter platform competition -- the marquee diving event at the Olympics -- as the overwhelming favorite. He won the men’s platform at the 2011 World Championships, easily defeating David Boudia by over 40 points. On Saturday, Boudia got the best of Qiu, putting in the best dive of the competition with his final dive off the platform to capture Olympic gold.

It’s the first gold medal in any diving event for the United States since 2000 and the first individual medal for a man since 1992. The last time an American man won on the platform was in 1988, when Greg Louganis captured gold.

The United States added to their large medal haul on Saturday, going over 100 total medals for the 2012 London Olympics and ensuring that they’ll finish on top of the medal count, whether one chooses to determine that count by gold medals or total medals. The United States captured gold medals in women’s basketball, men’s diving and women’s track on Saturday.

China continues to have a strong Olympics and added to their total with a men’s boxing gold and numerous other medals on Saturday. Russia was boosted by a huge day in track and field, where they won four gold medals to expand their lead over Great Britain in third place.

In one of the “wow” moments of the 2012 Olympics, American David Boudia unleashed a stunning last dive to win the gold medal in the men’s 10-meter platform diving in London. China’s Qiu Bo, the heavy favorite, took silver and British superstar Tom Daley won the bronze.

“@davidboudia just won the Olympic Gold. Do I need to say any more?” American diver Nick McCrory tweeted after the event. McCrory finished ninth. Matthew Mitcham, the 2008 platform gold medal winner, was floored, tweeting: “@davidboudia DAVID YOU BLOODY MASSIVE LEGEND!!! MY HERO!!! Xx”

Boudia won by the barest of margins -- 1.8 points -- by scoring 102.6 on his sixth and final dive, the best of any diver in the competition. Qiu scored a 100.8 on his final dive. The two divers entered the final dive tied, trailing Daley by .15 points. The British diver managed a 90.75 on his final attempt, hurt by the fact that it was a lesser degree of difficulty than Boudia and Qiu’s dives.

It was the first gold medal for any U.S. diver since 2000 and the first for an American man since Mark Lenzi won the springboard in 1992. Boudia was the first American man to win gold in the platform -- the sport’s premier event -- since Greg Louganis in 1988.

Louganis was on hand to watch the competition, the first time he has been at an Olympics since 1996 (which he told me when Outsports interviewed him a week before the Games). He deserves some of the credit for the success of the American divers -- who won four medals -- having served as an athlete-mentor for U.S. diving since 2010. Divers credited him for being an invaluable mentor and role model.

“What an incredible competition,” Louganis told USA TODAY after the event.

Boudia almost did not have a chance to dive Saturday. He was doing well in qualifying on Friday, then practically belly-flopped on his fourth dive (getting an awful 44 points) before rallying to become the 18th and final diver to earn a spot in the semifinals.

This is the second consecutive Olympics that an amazing final dive knocked the Chinese off the gold medal stand in the men’s platform. Four years ago, it was Mitcham, whose win three months after coming out made him a hero in the gay community. Mitcham failed to make the finals this time, hobbled by an abdominal injury.

Five more gold medals were handed out in boxing Saturday and the host country won one of them when Great Britain’s Luke Campbell took home gold in the men’s 56kg category.

Campbell defeated John Joe Nevin from Ireland, winning 14-11. The 24-year-old Campbell won the first round 5-3 before dropping the second round 4-5. The fighters went into the third round with Campbell holding a slight 9-8 lead, but he secured the gold medal with a 5-3 third round. Campbell’s gold was Great Britain’s second boxing gold of these Olympics and third medal overall.

Norway have captured the gold medal in women’s handball for the second consecutive Olympic games, defeating Montenegro 26-23 in the final. The Norwegians barely qualified for the knockout stage of the competition, finishing in fourth place in their group, but they ripped off three consecutive impressive wins to capture gold.

The match got off to a slow start, but the goals started pouring in around seven minutes into the match. It was close throughout, with Norway holding a narrow lead over Montenegro through most of the game. The eventual silver medalists had the game tied with under 10 minutes to go and came back within one goal multiple times after that, but Norway pulled away late, scoring the last two goals of the game.

For the first time since Greg Louganis, the United States has won a gold medal in men’s 10-meter platform diving. David Boudia ended the drought Saturday night at the London Aquatics Center, winning America’s first male diving gold in any event since 1992.

Boudia, a silver medalist at the 2011 World Championships, scored 568.65 points on his six dives, edging China’s Bo Qiu by 1.7 points. Tom Daley, one of Great Britain’s most popular athletes, won the bronze medal. It’s the first Olympic medal for Daley, who made his Summer Games debut in Beijing when he was just 15 years old.

Jan Philipp Rabente scored both goals in Germany’s 2-1 victory to give his squad their second consecutive gold medal in men’s field hockey.

One side was going to make history in the match: either Germany would defend its medal or the Netherlands would become the first country ever to win both men’s and women’s gold. The match was tied after Mink van der Weerden scored his tournament-leading eighth gold, but Rabente notched another score with less than five minutes left in the match to earn the gold for the Germans.

Brigetta Barrett jumped a personal best to earn a surprise medal for the United States in the high jump, leaping 2.03 meters.

Barrett’s previous personal best was 2.01 meters, but on the world’s biggest stage, the University of Arizona athlete recorded her highest jump ever of 2.03 meters, or 6 feet, 7.92 inches. Russia’s Anna Chicherova, who had won bronze in Beijing and gold at the 2011 World Championships, notched a jump of 2.05, which Barrett could not match on three tries, ending the competition.

Usain Bolt’s claim to being the greatest athlete and/or Olympian in the history of the world is certainly a bold one. Bolt’s staggering performance in Olympic finals gives him powerful evidence to back it up.

Here are Bolt’s six performances in Olympic finals, in chronological order:

Scott Coleman lost to the eventual gold medalist, Toghrul Asgarov of Azerbaijan, in the semifinals of the men’s 60kg wrestling tournament, but he won his repechage matchup to earn a bronze medal in one of three freestyle weight classes contested Saturday.

The majority of today’s medals went to Central Asian nations - two golds went to Azerbaijan after not having won a gold out of any of their first seven medals, the third went to Uzbekistan - but the United States came close, as all three American competitors on the day ended up losing to an eventual gold medalist. Jake Herbert in the 84 kg weight class fell to Azerbaijan’s Sharif Sharifov in the quarterfinals amidst some controversial scoring decisions, while Tervel Diagnev made it to the semis of the 120 kg weight class before losing to Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov. Only Campbell was able to perform well in the repechage, as Diagnev lost in a bronze medal match.

Modern pentathlon is kind of a niche sport. The combination of running, swimming, fencing, shooting and horse jumping used to be played out over five days until Olympic spectators finally stood up and said, “Yeah, we’re good for maybe one day of this, tops.” And right they were! Because one day of modern pentathlon is the exact right number of days. And if you go to just one day of the event, you might see an awesome moment like the one after the jump.

I mentioned that show jumping is one of the events in the modern pentathlon, but what I neglected to mention is that each athlete is required to ride an unfamiliar horse. So sometimes, you’ll get a horse who totally doesn’t care about the prestige of being in the Olympics (given that horses don’t have any respect for history or national pride, and also because they’re horses). When that happens, a horse may do something like this (Via Deadspin):

It was billed as a showdown between the United States and Jamaica, and it did not disappoint, but in the end, having Usain Bolt run your anchor leg turns out to be a pretty neat advantage.

Jamaica won gold in the men’s 4x100m Saturday night at the Summer Olympics in 36.84 seconds, smashing their own world record that they set at the 2011 World Championships by 0.20 seconds. It’s the second-straight Olympic win for the Jamaicans int he event, and for Bolt, it’s his second consecutive Games with three gold medals.

Keshorn Walcott had the longest toss in the javelin throw, earning Trinidad and Tobago its first ever medal in the field portion of the Olympics and only its second gold in any event.

Trinidad and Tobago is no stranger to track and field success - the Caribbean nation, like many others, has had sprint success - ever wonder where track commentator Ato Bolden hails from? - but that’s always been limited to the “track” part of “track and field”, as the country had never taken a medal in any non-running athletics event. It’s also the first gold for the T-and-T since Hasely Crawford won the 100m in 1976.

The United States won gold in the women’s 4x400m relay race Saturday night at the Summer Olympics, and to say they won in dominating fashion would be an understatement to domination.

Team USA won by nearly a full four seconds, finishing in 3:16.87. By the second lap, there was little doubt which foursome would win gold, and by the beginning of the third lap, that doubt had been removed and the other seven countries were racing for second.

The United States fell to Brazil in four sets during the women’s volleyball gold medal match Saturday to take home the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Despite a hot start, Fabiana Claudino and Brazil ultimately proved too powerful for Team USA.

The United States dominated the first set, winning 25-11. Brazil recorded back-to-back points just once during the set, setting up the U.S. for what looked like an easy victory. The Brazilians roared back, however, showing their strength to win the second set, 25-17.

A pair of Russians reached the podium in the women’s 800m, with Mariya Savinova winning the race easily while South African Caster Semenya showed she was more than an interesting side story at the Olympics by taking silver.

Semenya had endured a humiliating process that saw authorities question her gender after winning gold in the 2009 World Championships. She was eventually allowed to compete, taking silver in the 2011 edition of the World Championships and following up by doing the same in London. However, she was no match for Savinova: the Russian had taken gold in those 2011 World Championships and repeated here, putting more than a second between herself and Semenya, winning in 1:56.19.

Mo Farah has won the gold medal in the men’s 5000 meters, becoming the first to do so on home soil, giving Great Britain its marquee moment from the Olympic track at the London Games. Farah, a week after winning the 10,000m, crossed the finish line Saturday night in 13:41.66, becoming just the seventh athlete ever to accomplish the rare double. He’s also the first British runner to win gold in either of the distance events.

Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel won silver, just 0.32 seconds behind Farah, and Kenya’s Thomas Longosiwa took bronze.

David Svoboda won what could be the final men’s modern pentathlon event at the Olympics on the 100th anniversary of its inception, outpacing China’s Cao Zhongrong on the final lap of the running portion of the event to take gold.

Svoboda and Cao entered the combined run/shoot portion of the event second and first, getting a nice head start on their competitors after their performances in the first three events. The combined stage was a novelty at these Olympics: not only is this the first time the event has put the running and shooting events of the five-discipline biathlon-style event in an attempt to make the competition more fan-friendly, it was also the first time the competitors used laser pistols - LASER GUNS - rather than real air pistols. Cao paced the race, but wasn’t fast enough to hold off Svoboda after the final shooting round, as Svoboda took the lead and won comfortably in the last 1km cross-country run. The performance was still a success for Cao, who became the first Asian to medal in the event.

With the 2012 Summer Olympics in London in its final stretch, the United States has all but wrapped up its dominance in the overall medal count. Team USA added two more medals so far on Saturday, taking bronze in women’s cross-country mountain biking and men’s 60 kg freestyle wrestling thanks to Georgia Gould and Tervel Ivaylov Dlagnev, respectively. The U.S. is also guaranteed to added gold and/or silver medals in the women’s volleyball and basketball gold medal matches later in the day.

Russia has been one of the day’s biggest winners, adding eight more medals to their tally. They added four gold medals, including wins in both the men’s AND women’s racewalk. They have little chance of catching China, however. The Chinese are comfortably in second place, adding two medals so far on the day.

The men’s 4x100 meters relay on Saturday at the 2012 Olympics may be the last chance fans have to see Usain Bolt run in an Olympic event. They won’t be able to see it live on television, of course, but NBC does have a live online stream for the event.

The event is available live through NBC Live Extra, and is the last track final of six on the day. Here’s the listing of those.

After ending the three previous Olympics with a loss to the United States, Lauren Jackson earned her fourth consecutive Olympic medal and Australia’s fifth with a win in the bronze medal game over Russia, 83-74.

Jackson is already plenty decorated: she’s a three-time WNBA MVP, three-time scoring champion, and has earned the WNBA championship twice with the Seattle Storm. But she’s been unable to lead Team Australia to victory over the United States. In 2000, 2004, and 2008, these losses came in the gold medal match. This time, the two squads were faced up in the semifinals, meaning the Opals’ loss put her in the bronze medal game.