Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya wins men’s marathon; USA’s Galen Rupp takes bronze

GASOL’S GOODBYE?: Pau Gasol scored 31 points in what might have been his final Olympic game and Spain added a bronze to its collection on Sunday with an 89-88 win over Australia, again denied its first medal inside the rings. The race began and ended in the Sambrodomo, the parade ground for the city’s iconic Carnival.

Kipchoge who won the London marathon this year posted 2:08.44 to become the second Kenyan after Samuel Wanjiru in 2008 to win gold in the 42 kilometer race. The Kenyan upped the pace around the 30km mark, starting with a group of a dozen runners about him who slowly dropped away one by one until he ran the final kilometres alone.

Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia took second in 2:09:54, while Galen Rupp of the United States won the bronze medal in 2:10:05, his personal best.

Rupp’s medal is the first in the men’s marathon for the U.S. since Meb Keflezighi won the silver medal in Athens in 2004. Rupp also finished fifth in the Olympic 10,000 meters in Rio and won a silver medal in that event in London four years ago. He was unable to rekindle the magic he had in Athens, finishing 33rd with a time of 2:16:46.

Hawkins’ brother, Derek, finished 114th with a time of 2:29.24, while fellow Briton Tsegai Tewelde failed to finish. Keflezighi had stomach trouble and had to stop seven times but refused to quit. Rather than immediately getting up, he did three pushups and then crossed the line at Sambodromo.

Galen Rupp competes in the men’s marathon at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at Sambodromo on August 21, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Germany was 8-5 down midway through the first half, but a 10-minute scoring frenzy turned that into a 14-10 lead and Germany never looked back on its way to a first Olympic medal since silver in 2004.

Mo Farah of Great Britain completed a historic double-double.

Battling calf cramps the last few miles on a humid morning that had him peering over his shoulder repeatedly to make sure he wasn’t about to get knocked out of the medals, Rupp finished in two hours, 10 minutes, 5 seconds. He joins medalist Frank Shorter, who took gold in 1972 and silver in 1976.

The sunny skies that had lit up Rio in the previous days had been replaced by wind and rain on Sunday as the marathon got started, making for hard running conditions.

Shields beat Nouchka Fontijn, whose silver medal was the first by a Dutch boxer since heavyweight Arnold Vanderlyde won bronze in 1992, by a unanimous points decision. This is the last event in the Olympic track and field program in Rio, and the Kenyans are expecting to wrap it up with gold.

Kazakhstan’s Dariga Shakimova and China’s Li Qian took the bronze medals as losing semi-finalists.

But Kipchoge stole the show on Sunday.

Kipchoge went into the trace hot favourite, having won the London Marathon in April in 2:03:05, missing the world record of 2:02:57. “She’s sacrificed for this dream every bit as much as I have”.