Rio 2016: Five of Thursday’s biggest events to watch at the Olympics

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 12 (AP) Michael Phelps waggled four fingers, recognizing another historic achievement.

American Jeff Henderson won the men’s long jump gold with 8.38 meters, but his celebrations were delayed as countryman Jarrion Lawson’s final jump was reviewed for a trailing hand.

Kevin Durant grabbed the rebound to keep the Americans unbeaten 48 hours after they barely escaped against Australia. We’re so accustomed to hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner” over and over during the first week of the Olympics. The performance in Rio is proving to be exceptional.

Michael Phelps blew away Ryan Lochte and gymnast Simone Biles won her second gold as the United States took control of the Rio Olympics medals table yesterday. It was the 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay. Barbara Engleder won the 50m rifle three position contest for Germany’s first gold in Olympic women’s shooting.

“It’s kind of special, and a decent way to finish my last individual race”.

Phelps said an encouraging message from former University of Miami and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis gave him a second wind.

And he was right.

Solo, the USA goalkeeper, was angered by Sweden’s defensive style and branded the team a “bunch of cowards”. No explanation was given for why the swimmers were allowed to compete, but the decision sparked heated criticism from several athletes, most notably American Lilly King. The most any other country has is seven.

The bronze medal round sees American Madison Keys play two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.

Le Clos’ London 2012 win in the 200m butterfly left silver medallist Phelps with unfinished business and he returned after an 18-month hiatus. Or Leah Smith, who took the bronze in the 400 meter freestyle. He’s also discussed coaching alongside Bowman at Arizona State.

The GB women pursuit team will be matched against the Canadians in the next stage of the battle for gold and the U.S. will meet Australia.

“It’s the whole team”, Bowman said.

“He doesn’t cry very often and I don’t cry very often”, Ledecky said. [Ryan] Murphy last night? Hernandez pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the Olympics’ first three days on Monday night with a unanimous decision over Russia’s Vasilii Egorov, the European champion and runner-up at last year’s world championships.

Track and field starts Friday and includes preliminaries for the women in the 100 meter. “It just goes on and on and on”.

The first picture is of Phelps and Katie Ledecky. 31-year-old Phelps in particular is serving a dual role – assassin in the pool and inspiration to his teammates. Phelps gets a shot at his 23rd gold in the men’s 100m butterfly, while Nadal is in the final of the men’s doubles alongside Marc Lopez in the tennis.

“The fundamendals really showed today, he came out half a body ahead of everyone else and the moment he came out after the turn, I knew the guy’s gonna win”, he told Yahoo Singapore. “It was just awesome to watch that”.

“I merely went from one meet to the next, one medal to the next, one record to the next”, he said.

“It’s certainly not helpful, but now we are looking forward and concentrating on those players who are here”, International Golf Federation President Peter Dawson said.

But there’s more to the US success. In the longer of the two, the man to beat is David Rudisha, though he did struggle in the Kenyan trials. It’s a potential grudge match following the 2014 World Cup quarters between the two in which Colombia’s Juan Camillo Zuniga kneed Neymar, fracturing his back.

Then, he’ll close out these Olympics in the 4×100 medley relay. I am NOT going four more years.

India, a nation of a billion people, has competed at every Olympics since 1920 and only ever won nine golds, with not even a medal in swimming.

Kuster believes the proper lane assignment will help her put up a much better time than she would have swimming against much-slower swimmers, even though she’s got little chance of advancing out of the preliminaries either way.

The record US medal haul was 33 at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.