Today at the Olympics: French men win gold in handball, volleyball

France players celebrate as they won the men's gold medal handball match between France and Denmark at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 7, 2021. - Copyright AP Photo/Sergei Grits

By Euronews with AP

Published on 07/08/2021 - 09:47•Updated 16:56

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It's the penultimate day of action at the Tokyo Olympics. Here's a recap of who won what on Saturday.

It's the penultimate day of action at the Tokyo Olympics and the medals are flowing.

Up for grabs on Saturday are the gold medal for men's basketball, men's handball and men's football. Plenty of hardware also ready to be doled out on the cycling tracks and in the boxing rings.

Here's a recap of who won what on Saturday.

Handball

France's men's team won their third gold medal after defeating Denmark 25-23 in a thrilling match.

Les Bleus have now equaled Russia for the number of Olympic titles.

France ended the first half with a comfortable six-point lead but the Danes, who deprived les Bleus of gold in 2016, kept calm and steadily narrowed the gap, bringing it back to a one-point lead with a minute left on the clock.

But with just 30 seconds to go and as they were on the attack with the hope of equalising and taking the final into extra-time Denmark lost the ball and France took advantage of Denmark's empty goal to score the last point of the match.

Spain beat Egypt 33-31 for the bronze medal.

The French women’s team plays the Russian team for gold on Sunday.

Volleyball

The French men's team won its first-ever gold medal in volleyball beating Russia in five sets.

The French had only qualified for the Olympics four times before this year and never made it past the quarterfinals. But they made it through the knockout stage to earn the gold despite being forced to a fifth set after blowing a 2-0 lead in the final.

Jean Patry rallied the French late in the fifth set with a kill and an ace to put them ahead 13-11. Antoine Brizard then surprised the Russians when he sent a soft shot over the net instead of setting it to give France match point and they won it 15-12 when Maxim Mikhaylov’s shot went wide.

Argentina beat Brazil in five sets for the bronze medal.

Athletics

Sifan Hassan won the 10,000 metres for her second gold and third medal of the Tokyo Olympics after entering three long-distance races.

Hassan burst past world-record holder Letesenbet Gidey on the final turn and won in a time of 29 minutes, 55.32 seconds.

It completed an astonishing 5,000 and 10,000 double for the Ethiopian-born runner, who now competes for the Netherlands. She also won a bronze in the 1,500 metres.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway surged ahead as he rounded the last curve and set an Olympic record to win the 1,500-metres.

Ingebrigtsen ran behind world champion Timothy Cheruiyot for most of the race before kicking late to win the gold medal in 3 minutes, 28.32 seconds, beating the record of 3:31.65 set by Abel Kipsang of Kenya two days earlier in the heats.

Josh Kerr of Britain won bronze.

Neeraj Chopra has won India’s first gold medal in Olympic track and field with a throw of 87.58 meters to clinch the javelin title.

Chopra was the first athlete from India to win gold in javelin at the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games and he has set a new benchmark in Tokyo. He held off athletes from the Czech Republic to finish atop the podium.

Jakub Vadlejch took silver and former world champion Vitezslav Vesely bronze.

Team USA powered ahead to clinch the women's 4x400m title in 3 minutes, 16.85 seconds and giving Allyson Felix her 11th Olympic medal.

Poland finished second, 3.68 seconds behind, and Jamaica finished third.

Team USA pulled a double with the men also securing the gold in their 4x400m relay.

The U.S. men didn’t reach the final of the 4x100m relay, but the 4x400 team of Michael Cherry, Michael Norman, Bryce Deadmon and Rai Benjamin was never really in trouble as they completed four laps of the Olympic oval in 2 minutes, 55.70 seconds. It was a fifth gold for the U.S. men in the 4x400 since 1996.

The Netherlands took silver in a national record 2:57.18 and Botswana won bronze in 2:57.27.

Mariya Lasitskene won the Russian team's first gold medal in track and field at the Tokyo Games in the women's high jump withwinning height of 2.04 meters.

Nicola McDermott of Australia was leading until she missed her first attempt at 2.02. She cleared it on her next attempt for a national record but missed all three attempts at 2.04.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine finished with bronze after clearing 2 metres.

Pentathlon

Britain’s Joseph Choong set an Olympic record to win the men’s pentathlon, matching the gold medal won by Britain’s Kate French in the women’s event.

Choong finished third in the event’s swimming, first in fencing, 14th in riding and 15th in laser-run to set a new Olympic mark of 1,482 points.

Egypt’s Ahmed Elgendy won silver and Woongtae Jun of South Korea won bronze.

Britain is the first country to win the men’s and women’s individual modern pentathlon at the same Olympic Games.

Women's marathon

Peres Jepchirchir led a 1-2 Kenyan finish in the women’s marathon, withstanding the heat and humidity while running through the streets of Sapporo.

Jepchirchir finished in a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, 20 seconds in a race moved up an hour to avoid the heat. Her teammate Brigid Kosgei was second and American Molly Seidel, a relative newcomer to the marathon stage, took home the bronze.

There were 88 runners entered in the field, with more than a dozen recording a did not finish. That included world champion Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya.

Football

Brazil's men's team won its second consecutive gold medal with a 3-1 victory over Spain.

Brazil had a 1-0 lead at the half, but Mikel Oyarzabal tied it for Spain in the 61st minute off a cross from Carlos Soler. Malcom scored Brazil's second and winnign goal in the 108th minute.

Spain won the gold medal in 1992 and was also seeking its second Olympic title.

Mexico downed Japan 3-1 in the bronze medal match in Saitama on Friday.

Basketball

The U.S. has won its fourth straight Olympic men’s basketball gold medal, holding off France 87-82.

Kevin Durant scored 29 points for the Americans and joined Carmelo Anthony as the only three-time gold medalists in men’s basketball.

France defeated the U.S in the teams’ opening game in this tournament, snapping the Americans’ 25-game winning streak in the Olympics.

Slovenia and Australia will play later Saturday for the bronze medal.

Kayak and canoe

Germany has won the men’s kayak four 500 metres to make Ronald Rauhe the first man to medal in canoe sprint in five Olympic Games.

The German kayak was trailing Spain at the 250-meter mark before rallying to win by 0.226 seconds. Spain won silver and Slovakia won bronze.

Hungary has won the gold medal in the women’s kayak four 500 meters.

Hungary finished 0.61 seconds clear of silver medalists Belarus and Poland won the bronze.

Brazil’s Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos won the men’s 1,000 metres canoe sprint and Moldova’s Serghei Tarnovschi took the bronze medal five years after his similar result in Rio de Janeiro was stripped because of a performance-enhancing drug violation.

China’s Liu Hao, the 2019 world champion, won the silver medal.

China’s Mengya Sun and Shixiao Xu have won the country’s first medal in women’s canoe sprint by winning the gold in the canoe double 500 at the Sea Forest Waterway.

The 2019 world champions finished 2 seconds clear of Ukraine’s Anastasiia Chetverikova and Liudmyla Luzan. Canada’s Laurence Vincente Lapointe and Katie Vincent took the bronze medal in third.

Boxing

Busenaz Sürmeneli of Turkey has won the women’s welterweight gold medal, persevering through a difficult final against China’s Gu Hong to win Turkey’s first-ever boxing gold.

Sürmeneli won the final 3:0 with two even scorecards after a bout filled with holding and awkward exchanges.

Oshae Jones of the United States and Lovlina Borgohain of India won bronze.

Brazil’s Hebert Sousa won the men’s middleweight boxing gold medal in shocking fashion when his bout with Ukraine’s Oleksandr Khyzhniak was stopped by a third-round knockdown.

The top-seeded Khyzhniak thoroughly dominated Sousa for the first two rounds and appeared to be cruising to Ukraine’s fifth-ever boxing gold. But Sousa caught Khyzhniak with a counter left hook during an exchange in the third, and Khyzhniak went to the canvas hard.

Bakshi and Eumir Marcial of the Philippines won bronze medals in likely the most talent-stacked division in Tokyo.

Stoyka Krasteva of Bulgaria has capped her impressive run through the Tokyo Olympics with the women’s flyweight boxing gold medal. She beat top-seeded Buse Naz Cakiroglu of Turkey 5:0.

The 36-year-old Krasteva, a 2012 Olympian who returned to boxing in 2019 after a break, dominated her final four opponents to win Bulgaria’s fifth-ever boxing gold and its first since Daniel Petrov in 1996. Bulgaria had won just one bronze in boxing since 2004.

Huang Hsiao-wen of Taiwan, the 2019 world champion, and Tsukimi Namiki of Japan won bronze in the lightest women’s weight class.

Galal Yafai has won Britain’s first boxing gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, beating Carlo Paalam of the Philippines 4:1 in the flyweight final.

Yafai, the 28-year-old younger brother of two professional boxers from Birmingham, is a two-time Olympian who had an impressive run in Tokyo. He finished by knocking down Paalam in the first round of the gold medal bout and going on for a comfortable win.

Britain’s powerhouse team has won two silvers and two bronzes to go with Yafai’s gold in Tokyo. Middleweight Lauren Price fights Sunday for another gold.

Ryomei Tanaka of Japan and Saken Bibossinov of Kazakhstan won bronze medals. Yafai beat Bibossinov in a thrilling semifinal.

Baseball

A Japanese team of All-Stars fulfilled a determined national mission to win the Olympic baseball gold medal for the first time, beating the United States 2-0 behind Munetaka Murakami’s third-inning home run.

Masato Morishita and four relievers combined on a six-hitter, and the Japanese men (5-0) matched the accomplishment of the women’s softball team, which upended the Americans for their second straight gold medal.

Beach Volleyball

Christian Sorum and Anders Mol beat Russia in the men’s beach volleyball gold medal match, earning Norway’s first medal in the sport.

The top-seeded Norwegians beat the reigning world champions 21-17, 21-18 in intermittent rain at the Shiokaze Park venue overlooking Tokyo Bay.

With Qatar’s victory over Latvia for the bronze earlier Saturday, all three countries on the podium -- and all six players -- are first-time medalists.

Rhythmic gymnastics

Israel’s Linoy Ashram won the gold medal in the rhythmic gymnastics individual competition, ending Russia’s decades-long dominance in the sport.

Ashram, 22, edged out a pair of Russian identical twin sisters who were the favourites heading into Tokyo. Dina Averina, 22, placed second and her sister, Arina, fell to fourth place. Alina Harnasko of Belarus won the bronze medal.

Russia has swept the rhythmic gymnastics gold medals in every Olympics since 2000.

Track cycling

The Danish team of Lasse Norman Hansen and Michael Morkov won the return of the men’s Madison to the Olympics for the first time since 2008.

Hansen and Morkov won just three of the 20 sprints but were consistent enough through the 200-lap race to finish with 43 points. That was three more than Britain, which earned silver on a tiebreaker, and France, which took the bronze.

Diving

Cao Yuan became the first diver to win gold medals in three different Olympic events with a thrilling duel off the 10-metre platform at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

Cao completed another dominating performance by the mighty Chinese team, which was nearly perfect at these games. Yang Jian took the silver, just 1.95 points behind his teammate in a scintillating capper.

Britain’s Tom Daley was the only diver who gave the Chinese a real challenge before finishing with 548.25 for the bronze. He now had four Olympics medals in his career — one gold and three bronze.

Water polo

The U.S. has won its third consecutive gold medal in women’s water polo, pounding Spain 14-5.

Maddie Musselman scored three times and Ashleigh Johnson made 11 saves as the U.S. improved to 134-4 since it won gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

Hungary has earned the country’s first medal in women’s water polo, beating the Russian team 11-9 for bronze at the Tokyo Olympics.

Hungary beat the U.S. in group play, handing the Americans their first loss at the Olympics since the 2008 final. It outlasted the Netherlands in the quarterfinals before losing to Spain.

Golf

Nelly Korda has given the Americans a sweep of gold medals in golf, holding on for a one-shot victory in a thrill-a-minute finish to the Olympic women’s golf competition.

Korda led by as many as three shots on the back nine. In the end, she needed two putts from just inside 30 feet on the 18th hole for par and a 2-under 69.

Mone Inami of Japan made bogey from a plugged lie in the bunker on the 18th hole and faced a playoff against Lydia Ko of New Zealand for the silver medal.

Equestrian

Sweden has defeated Jessica Springsteen and the U.S. jumping team in a jump off for the gold medal.

Springsteen and teammates Laura Kraut and McLain Ward each moved cleanly through the shortened jump-off course and did so with a combined time of 124.2 seconds.

Peder Fredricson, the final Swedish rider, needed to circle the track in 40.30 seconds or better without error and cruised to a time of 39.01 for the country’s record fourth gold medal but first since 1924. The Americans also entered this week with three golds.

France had a clear line to a second straight gold when its final rider, Penelope Leprevost, took the course. Needing to finish with fewer than five points to win without a jump off, Leprevost’s horse refused twice, disqualifying her and the rest of the French team.

Karate

Feryal Abdelaziz of Egypt has won the first Olympic karate gold medal in women’s over-61kg kumite, beating Azerbaijan’s Iryna Zaretska.

The 22-year-old Abdelaziz went ahead on a yuko with 28 seconds left in a cagey final bout. She scored again three seconds later and hung on for a 2:0 victory celebrated with a primal scream.

Gong Li of China and Sofya Berultseva of Kazakhstan won bronze.

The men's over-75kg karate final was won by Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh. He defeated Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia who was given a disqualification penalty for kicking Ganjzadeh hard in the upper body or head.

Ganjzadeh left the Budokan tatami on a stretcher after falling motionless onto his back from the spectacular kick by Hamedi, who led the bout 4:1. Ganjzadeh moved his arms before he was carried away.

After the officials conferred, a hansoku penalty was issued to Hamedi and Ganjzadeh was declared the winner. Hamedi, who left the mat in tears, still won Saudi Arabia’s second-ever silver medal.

Japan's Ryutaro Araga’s and Uğur Aktaş of Turkey won the bronze medals.

Wrestling

Japan’s Takuto Otoguro defeated Azerbaijan’s Haji Aliyev 5-4 to win the men’s freestyle wrestling 65kg final.

Otoguro’s best result had been a world title in 2018.

Bronze medalists were the Russian Olympic Committee’s Gadzhimurad Rashidov and India’s Bajrang Punia.

The men's freestyle 97kg title was claimed by the Russian Olympic Committee’s Abdulrashid Sadulaev.

Sadulaev defeated the 2016 gold medallist and two-time world champion Kyle Snyder of Team USA 6-3.

Cuba’s Reineris Salas and Italy’s Abraham Canyedo Ruano won the bronze medals.

Japan’s Yui Susaki defeated China’s Yanan Sun by technical superiority, 10-0, to win the women’s freestyle wrestling 50kg final.

Susaki, 22, added Olympic gold to her two world titles. It was Japan’s fourth Olympic gold in women’s wrestling out of six weight classes.

Azerbaijan’s Mariya Stadnik and American Sarah Hildebrand secured the bronze medals.