RIO DE JANEIRO: South Korea’s Inbee Park won the first Olympic gold medal in women’s golf since 1900 with a commanding five-stroke victory on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Park, who is the LPGA’S youngest hall of fame qualifier, capped off an exceptional Olympic performance after recovering from injuries that kept her off the course for two months this year.
World number one Lydia Ko of New Zealand won the silver medal, edging out China’s Shanshan Feng by one stroke.
Britain’s Nicola Adams wrote herself into the history books once more as she became the first woman to retain an Olympic boxing title here.
Adams won a unanimous points decision over France’s Sarah Ourahmoune in their flyweight final to add to the gold she won at London 2012 — the first time women’s boxing had featured at an Olympics.
Bronze went to China’s Ren Cancan — Adams’s victim in the 2012 final and in the semi-final here — and the Colombian Ingrit Valencia.
Wearing red, the 33-year-old Adams enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges, but Ourahmoune did catch the Briton with a decent right that momentarily deterred her.
Adams, whose gold in London in 2012 made her a media darling in Britain and one of the faces of that Games, was again on top in the second round, landing the cleaner punches and getting the crowd on its feet with one savage attack.
The third was more of the same. Ourahmoune was up against it and one Adams left jab rocked the Frenchwoman, who was trying to become a second woman from France to win Olympic boxing gold in two days after Estelle Mossely’s triumph on Friday.
Adams just had to steer clear of trouble in the fourth and final round, but it is not in her nature to hold back, and one blow to the Frenchwoman’s rib cage left her gasping for air.
Allyson Felix hit her own landmark with a fifth gold as the US women won their 4x100m relay, a day after winning a reprieve into the final.
Felix, long jump gold medallist Tianna Bartoletta, English Gardner and Tori Bowie combined to clock the second fastest 4x100m relay ever run, in 41.01 seconds. Felix is the first women athlete to reach five golds.
The US team were forced into a solo re-run of their qualifier on Thursday, having overturned a disqualification for a dropped baton exchange between Felix and Gardner.
Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi won the women’s pole vault after virus-stricken defending champion Jenn Suhr crashed out.
Kenyan former world champion Vivian Cheruiyot reeled in 10,000m champion Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia to win the women’s 5,000m title.