Rio Olympics 2016, day 15 highlights: Aditi Ashok finishes strong, Neymar leads Brazil to gold

Day fifteen of the Rio Olympics 2016 saw only one Indian in action, with teen golfer Aditi Ashok rounding off the second week of the Games with a card of five-over 76 to end her campaign at 41st spot in the women’s golf event on Saturday.

Aditi held her own on the first two days of the event, with her cards of 68-68 keeping her in the top-eight of the field. Her achievements are by no means a small feat for India and was indeed a big step for Indian golf at world stage.

Aditi was blown away by the wind on the third when she shot 79. On the final day, the Indian admitted to hitting a couple of bad drives and missing some putts during her 76 and for the first time in four days, she had no birdies and just three bogeys and one double bogey. The 18-year-old, who turned professional only six months ago, finished the week at seven-over 291.

In football, Neymar struck the winning penalty as Brazil claimed a first ever Olympic football gold medal with a victory over Germany on penalties at Rio’s Maracana Stadium on Saturday. The 5-4 shoot-out win exacted revenge for a humiliating 7-1 World Cup semi-final defeat to Germany two years ago.

The Olympic gold was the only major title to have escaped five-time world champions Brazil in their history. But Barcelona star Neymar righted that, as he fired the winning penalty into the top corner before breaking into tears.

In front of the biggest crowd of the Rio’s Games, including nine-time Jamaican gold medallist Usain Bolt , Neymar’s brilliant free-kick handed Brazil a first-half lead. In honour of the retiring sprinting great, Neymar even adopted the “lightning bolt” celebration, whilst chants of “ole, ole, ole, Neymar” rang around Rio’s most iconic arena.

The Barcelona star said that he will step down as Brazil captain after leading the Olympic Games’ hosts to their first ever football gold medal. “Today I have been proclaimed a champion and I hand over the armband as captain,” Neymar told SporTV.

His legs were tired, but Britain’s Mo Farah produced blistering pace in the final straight to become the first man in 40 years to retain two Olympic distance titles . The 33-year-old, who fought back from a stumble to claim the 10,000m last week, said his victory in the 5,000m on Saturday night had been the most satisfying of the four golds.

“Oh my God I can’t believe it,” said Farah. “It’s every athlete’s dream but I can’t believe it. My legs were tired after the 10,000m and people had to bring me food in my room. This is the most satisfying win of the four, it is incredible, " Farah said.

Lochtegate

Star American swimmer Ryan Lochte on Saturday said that he took “full responsibility” for vandalising a gas station bathroom and then inventing a story about it to the police during the Olympics.

The episode, which has embarrassed the US sporting superpower, saw Lochte and three other gold medal winning US swimmers embroiled in a controversy after he gave a shocking — and false — account of how they had been robbed at gunpoint.

“That’s why I’m taking full responsibility for it, is because I over-exaggerated that story and if I had never done that, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Lochte said in an interview broadcast in part late Saturday. The full interview will be aired later by NBC television.

Lochte had already apologised on Friday for setting off a storm of controversy after he said the swimmers were mugged by robbers pretending to be police while on their way back from an all-night party.

It was only after police declared the story bogus — saying that the four had only been detained by security and made to pay compensation for drunken vandalisation of a gas station bathroom — that Lochte finally came clean.

In athletics, Matthew Centrowitz produced a stunning gun-to-tape 1,500m run on Saturday to claim the United States’ first gold in the event since 1908. Centrowitz, fourth in the London Games four years ago and twice a world championship medallist, timed 3min 50.00sec.

Algerian defending champion Taoufik Makhloufi added silver to second place in the 800m, in 3:50.11, while New Zealand’s Nicholas Willis claimed bronze (3:50.24). The last American to win the 1500m in the Olympics was Mel Sheppard in the 1908 London Games.

“Russian Tank” Abdulrashid Sadulaev said on Saturday that he defied his own family to become an Olympic champion after steamrolling Turkey’s Selim Yasar in the men’s 86kg freestyle wrestling at Rio.

Sadulaev’s gold came before Turkish heavyweight grappler Taha Akgul grabbed his country’s first gold medal of the Rio Games by topping the podium in the men’s 125kg class.

The 20-year-old two-time world champion Sadulaev won 5-0, clinching his maiden Olympic title, admitting afterwards that his parents had desperately tried to stop him becoming a wrestler in the first place.

“All of my relatives were against it but as soon as I started to do well they realised it was my destiny,” Sadulaev boldly told reporters after his convincing victory.

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee on Saturday stripped Russia’s Yevgeniya Kolodko of her London 2012 Games shot put silver medal — the second medallist from the contest to be disqualified for doping.

Kolodko adds to a growing list of medal winners caught out in new tests on samples taken in London and at the 2008 Beijing Games. The IOC said a new test on Kolodko’s doping sample had found two banned substances — the turinabol and the growth hormone ipamorelin.

With inputs from AFP and PTI