Elaine Thompson-Herah claimed an unprecedented sprint double-double at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday after successfully defending her 200m Olympic title with the second fastest time in history.
The Jamaican sprinter made it back-to-back Olympic golds in the 100m on Saturday and followed that up with a blistering run in the 200m to become the first woman to win the sprint double in successive Games. Her time of 21.53 seconds was a personal best and sits behind only the world record mark of 21.34secs set by Florence Griffith-Joyner at the 1988 Seoul Games.
Namibian teenager Christine Mboma earned the silver medal, with Gabrielle Thomas of the USA taking bronze. Thompson-Herah's Jamaica teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who was beaten into silver in the 100m, looked strong for a medal but faded in the final few metres to finish fourth.
"Honestly I just need to sleep, I have not slept since the 100 metres. My body is in shock mode, but I still had my composure to come out here," Thompson-Herah, 29, said.
"I thought my time wouldn't be fast because yesterday we ran two rounds ... so to come out to get a national record and two-time Olympian I am so happy.
"It feels good to be in the history book, to set a barrier for the other generation of athletes coming up because we have got a lot of athletes coming from Jamaica, it means a lot to me to set this barrier.
"Everyone who supports me and believes in me, a big thank you to them."
Runner-up Mboma created her own piece of history as the first woman from Namibia to win an Olympic medal, joining Frankie Fredericks, who won silvers in the 100m and 200m at both the 1992 and 1996 Games, as the only athletes from the southern African country to step on the podium.
"It feels great, I am really happy. This is a dream, I just came here for experience. I didn't expect to medal," Mboma, 18, said. "Namibia will be so happy and so proud of me to take the medal back to the land of the brave."
On a thrilling day inside the Olympic Stadium, American track and field saw a new star emerge after 19-year-old Athing Mu lived up to the hype by dominating the 800m. Athing set a new national record of 1:55.21 to take the gold ahead of Great Britain's Keely Hodgkinson, another exciting teenager.
Few track and field talents come more exciting or dominant than Sweden's pole vaulting champion Armand Duplantis, who blew away the competition to win gold. After comfortably taking the title, the 21-year-old fell just short in his attempts to break his own world record.
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Lowest Test scores
26 - New Zealand v England at Auckland, March 1955
30 - South Africa v England at Port Elizabeth, Feb 1896
30 - South Africa v England at Birmingham, June 1924
35 - South Africa v England at Cape Town, April 1899
36 - South Africa v Australia at Melbourne, Feb. 1932
36 - Australia v England at Birmingham, May 1902
36 - India v Australia at Adelaide, Dec. 2020
38 - Ireland v England at Lord's, July 2019
42 - New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, March 1946
42 - Australia v England in Sydney, Feb. 1888
Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
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Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
