The China Mail - Tebogo denies Covid-hit Lyles, McLaughlin-Levrone smashes 400m hurdles record

On a star-studded night of Olympic action, NBA legend LeBron James led out the US basketball dream team in a crunch semi-final against Serbia.

Fresh from winning the closest 100m final in modern Olympic history, the brash Lyles was keen to showcase his speed and endurance in his preferred 200m.

But Tebogo stunned the fancied Americans with a storming run down the straight, relegating Lyles to bronze and his US teammate Kenneth Bednarek to silver.

The first African to win 200m gold, Tebogo clocked a continent-wide record time of 19.46sec, leaving a distraught Lyles prone on the track before being taken away in a wheelchair.

"It was really a beautiful race for me," Tebogo said.

"When we made it to the final, my coach just told me, 'Now my job is done, it's up to you to see what you can do'," he added.

Lyles later said he had tested positive for Covid two days before the race.

The 400m women's hurdles had been billed as perhaps the race of the Games, pitting McLaughlin-Levrone against Femke Bol of the Netherlands -- the two fastest women ever over the distance.

In the end, the race was hardly a contest, McLaughlin-Levrone taking the field apart and smashing her own world record to register a staggering 50.37sec.

Perhaps fatigued by an extraordinary anchor leg to win 4x400m mixed relay gold for her country, Bol trailed in third with 52.15sec.

Another record disappeared in the men's javelin, Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem throwing an Olympic best of 92.97m with his first effort for the country's first gold since 1984.

In the morning session, the American men and women had both powered through their 4x100m relay heats to warn off any rivals aiming to challenge their dominance.

Stung by having to settle for 100m silver, Sha'Carri Richardson ran her anchor leg in an eye-popping 9.99sec to see the women home.

Rounding off Thursday's packed schedule, three-time world champion Grant Holloway from the US won gold in the men's 110m hurdles in a time of 12.99sec.

- 'Lulled to sleep' -

As the Paris Games builds to a crescendo this weekend, LeBron James led his dream team of US superstars into a semi-final against a Serbia powered by Nikola Jokic, the NBA's three-time most valuable player.

The US have won both previous meetings by 26 points but coach Steve Kerr was taking nothing for granted, saying: "We can't get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice."

Hosts France, led by towering San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, lie in their path to gold, after edging Germany 73-69 in the first semi-final.

Earlier Thursday, 24 women dived into the River Seine, which was deemed clean enough for competition, for the 10-kilometre swim through the heart of the city.

Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands won a gruelling battle against her competitors and a strong current in 2hr 3min 34sec, devoting her gold to the memory of her pet dog, Rio, who died in May.

"Swimming is my everything but so was he. My father said 'Swim one more time and do it for him' and that's what I did," she said.

Water quality in the Seine has been in the spotlight during the Olympics despite a 1.4-billion-euro ($1.5-billion) effort to improve sewerage and water treatment.

Organisers have been forced to scrap several training sessions and postpone the men's individual triathlon after assessing the water to be too dirty to swim in.

- Penalty shoot-out -

On the golf course, unheralded Swiss player Morgane Metraux took the halfway lead at Le Golf National after a spectacular front-nine of 28 in a six-under-par 66, taking her to eight-under for the tournament.

In men's hockey, world number one Netherlands secured their first gold in the event since 2000, beating Germany in a penalty shoot-out.

The Dutch are hoping to make it a double as the women face China for gold on Friday.

Former hockey powerhouse India clinched bronze with a nail-biting 2-1 win over Spain.

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N.Lo--ThChM