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reuters
RIO DE JANEIRO
Thiago da Silva won Brazil's first athletics gold of their home Games on an extraordinary, unforgettable Monday night in Rio, producing an Olympic record of 6.03 metres in the pole vault to beat hot favourite Renaud Lavillenie and send the fans into raptures.
A roar to match anything from Sunday's 100 metres final - produced by a crowd a quarter of the size - accompanied the 22-year-old as he sailed over the bar, leaving the French world record holder and defending champion one more chance to beat him.
Lavillenie failed and Brazil had a new, and totally unexpected hero and their first male athletics gold medal winner since Joaquim Cruz won the 800 metres in 1984.
"The gold - incredible," said Da Silva, who came into the Games with a best of 5.93."My first time over six metres. My home town wanted me to win. The crowd were cheering me too much. I had to fix my mind on my technique, forget the people."
There had already been drama aplenty on a night dogged by heavy rain that caused a brief suspension of action.
After the drama of Usain Bolt on Sunday, it looked as if the combination of a poor crowd and heavy rain would produce a flat atmosphere just 24 hours later.
Focus of attention
The pole vault, so often the forgotten event of athletics as it chugs on relentlessly in the background with all the attention on the track, gradually became the prime focus when the crowd realised that the man in green kept clearing.
One by one Da Silva's rivals dropped off but the odds were still stacked heavily in favour of Lavillenie, whose world record of 6.16m meant his final attempt at 6.08 was well within range, despite two failures at 6.03.
Brazilians may have been criticised for not being the most sophisticated athletics fans in the world but they knew what was going on enough to take the roof off the Olympic Stadium when the Frenchman failed - though he was unimpressed by their booing as he made his preparations.
"There was no fair play from the public," Lavillenie said."It is for football, not track and field. For the Olympics it is not a good image. I did nothing to the Brazilians."
He even compared the boos to the treatment received by Jesse Owens at Hitler's 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
"In 1936 the crowd was against Jesse Owens. We've not seen this since. We have to deal with it," he said.
Lavillenie later apologised for his comments, saying he had made the comparison straight after the end of the competition when very upset.
