Day 7 of track and field at the Tokyo Olympics was Thursday in Japan, or Wednesday night into Thursday morning stateside.
There were finals in the men's shot put, men's 110m hurdles, men's triple jump, women's pole vault, men's 400m and men's 20km walk.
Other notable events included: first rounds of the women's 4x400m relay, and men's and women's 4x100m relays; and more.
Decathlon
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— Day 2 - Early Session —
Canada's Damian Warner entered Day 2 as the leader through five events with 4722 points, followed by Australia's Ash Moloney and compatriot Pierce LePage at 4641 and 4529.
VIDEO: Damian Warner wins decathlon hurdles, closes in on record
Tokyo Olympics
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110m Hurdles (8:00pET)
Warner, the 2016 Olympic and 2019 world bronze medalist, clocked a decathlon Olympic-best 13.46, breaking Frank Busemann's mark from 1996.
LEADER: CAN's Warner, 5767
Discus (8:50pET)
Czech Jiri Sykora was the top thrower in 49.90m, while Warner earned the No. 3 spot with a 48.67m.
LEADER: CAN's Warner, 6610
Pole Vault (11:45pET)
Estonia's Maicel Uibo cleared a personal-best 5.30m to take the event's top spot.
American Zachery Ziemek also made 5.30m for the next best mark, while Warner cleared a personal-best 4.90m to finish just outside the top 10 in 11th.
LEADER: CAN's Warner, 7490
— Day 2 - Late Session —
VIDEO: Canada's Damian Warner finishes Olympic record decathlon win
Canada's Warner leads through eight of 10 events with 7490 points. Australia's Ashley Moloney is second with 7269, and Warner's teammate Pierce LePage is third with 7175.
Javelin (6:15aET)
Warner threw 63.44m on his second attempt to take seventh. He needs a around a 4:33 1500m to break the 9000-point mark.
Kevin Mayer of France, the world record-holder, hurled a personal-best 73.09m to take second in the event.
LEADER: CAN's Warner, 8280
1500m (8:40aET)
Warner ran 4:31.08, a couple second faster than he needed, to break the decathlon Olympic record with 9018 points and take gold. He joins Mayer, two-time Olympic gold medalist Ashton Eaton and two-time Olympic medalist Roman Sebrle as the only men to score 9000 or more points.
Mayer repeated his finish in Rio with another silver at 8726, and Moloney took bronze with 8649.
Women's High Jump
Qualifying (8:10pET)
Fourteen women made the 1.95m qualifying height. World leader Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine, ROC athlete Mariya Lasitskeneb and American Vashti Cunningham all made the final.
—
Mahuchikh won silver at the 2019 World Championships in Doha. Her 2.04m from the meet is the second-best mark since the 2016 Rio Games.
The top mark in the leadup cycle to Tokyo is 2.06m, cleared by Lasitskene at the 2017 Lausanne Diamond League meet and 2019 Golden Spike in Ostrava. The 2015 world champion and 2014 world indoor champion has additionally cleared 2.05m once and 2.04m five times during that same period since Rio.
Cunningham, whose coach and father happens to be NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, cleared a personal-best 2.02m in late May.
VIDEO: Cunningham, McCoy and Butts-Townsend fight for the finals
Heptathlon
— Day 2 - Early Session —
Netherlands' Anouk Vetter entered Day 2 as the leader through four events with 3968 points, followed by Belgium's Noor Vidts and Nafissatou Thiam at 3941 and 3921.
VIDEO: Thiam wins heptathlon long jump to close gap to Vetter
Long Jump (8:40pET)
Thiam was the top jumper with 6.60m. American Kendall Williams was next with 6.57m.
LEADER: NED's Vetter, 4965
Javelin (11:30pET)
Thiam hurled a season-best 54.69m to catapult to first overall. Netherlands' Emma Oosterwegel and German Carolin Schafer were next with personal-bests 54.60m and 54.10m.
LEADER: BEL's Thiam, 5912
— Day 2 - Late Session —
Entering the final event with a 64-point lead, Thiam just needs to beat Vetter in the 800m by about 3.5 seconds. And she has the better personal best of the two.
Williams was third headed into the 800m with 5642 points.
VIDEO: Nafissatou Thiam repeats as heptathlon champion
800m (8:20aET)
With a seventh-place finish in 2:15.98, Thiam successfully defended her title with 6791 points.
She's only the second woman to go back-to-back in an Olympic combined event after world record-holder Jackie Joyner-Kersee's 1988 and 1992 Olympic titles.
Vetter took silver with 6689, while Thiam's teammate Emma Oosterwegel earned bronze with 6590.
Women's 4x100m Relay
1st Round (9:00pET)
The United States, Jamaica and Great Britain all made it through to the final. The nations have taken all the medals at the last three global championships.
It was USA-JAM-GBR at the 2016 Rio Games, USA-GBR-JAM at the 2017 World Championships in London and JAM-GBR-USA at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.
Great Britain clocked a national-record 41.55 to take heat one, followed by the American team in second at 41.90 and Jamaicans in third at 42.15.
—
Jamaica fields one of the best teams in history, led by seven-time Olympic medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and four-time Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah, who completed a historic sprint double-double at these Games. Respectively, the pair is No. 3 and No. 2 on the all-time 100m list behind world record-holder Florence Griffith-Joyner.
Presumptive third member, Shericka Jackson, is tied for 11th on that list at 10.76, having clocked the time in the Tokyo 100m final for bronze.
The U.S., without its top sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, will likely contend for silver with Great Britain.
"A" teams will be kept on the bench for the first round.
VIDEO: U.S. women take 2nd to Great Britain in 4x100m heat, advance
VIDEO: Germany wins first-round women's 4x100m relay heat
Men's Triple Jump
Final (10:00pET)
Two-time world silver medalist Pedro Pichardo of Portugal won with an Olympic No. 2 best 17.98m. He scratched in Rio with an injury.
In a stunner, Zhu Yaming of China jumped a personal-best 17.57m to take silver, just shy of his nation's record.
Hugues Fabrice Zango repeated his finish from the most recent world championships with bronze, winning Burkina Faso its first Olympic medal.
American Will Claye was fourth with a season-best 17.44m.
—
Absent of two-time defending Olympic and three-time reigning world champion Christian Taylor, who ruptured his Achilles in May, the podium is wide open. Or at least silver and bronze.
Taylor's compatriot Claye, runner-up at both of those Olympics and two most recent world championships, looks to ascend to the top. He, too, ruptured his Achilles but did so in 2020.
Pichardo and Zango will challenge. Pichardo topped qualifying in 17.71m.
Men's Shot Put
Final (10:05pET)
World record-holder Ryan Crouser repeated as shot put gold medalist, projecting a mammoth 23.30m final throw to break his previous Games record a third time.
His teammate Joe Kovacs and New Zealander Tom Walsh were silver and bronze, matching the exact podium finish from Rio – an Olympic first for individual events across all sports.
—
Crouser took down Randy Barnes' 31-year-old all-time mark in June at U.S. Olympic Trials. The defending Olympic champion has three of the year's top throws.
Kovacs, the reigning world champion, threw 22.72m in May. His 22.91 career best is from his title-winning performance in Doha, dubbed the greatest shot put competition in history.
The bronze medalist in Rio, Walsh is likely to repeat that result in Tokyo. He won the world championship in 2017.
VIDEO: Crouser defends shot put gold with historic series of throws
SEE MORE: Crouser defends shot put gold with historic series of throws
Men's 4x100m Relay
1st Round (10:30pET)
The United States finished sixth in its heat, failing to make it into the final.
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The U.S. team won its first global championship since 2007 at the post-Usain Bolt era 2019 World Championships. It'll be without three of the four final legs — Christian Coleman, suspended until 2022, and non-qualifiers Justin Gatlin and Mike Rodgers — but retains Noah Lyles and adds world-leader Trayvon Bromell, who missed the individual event's Tokyo final.
Due to Bolt dominance and botched handoffs, Team USA hasn't won gold in the event since the 2000 Sydney Games, anchored by that year's individual 100m champion Maurice Greene.
The team had a first-round baton drop at the 2008 Olympics, a first-round illegal handoff at 2009 worlds, a fall in the final at 2011 worlds, a retroactive anti-doping medal strip at the 2012 Olympics, sloppy pass in final at 2013 worlds, illegal handoff in final at 2015 worlds and an illegal handoff in final at 2016 Olympics.
VIDEO: U.S. men bounced from 4x100 relay with 6th place heat finish
SEE MORE: U.S. men bounced from 4x100 relay with 6th place heat finish
Men's 110m Hurdles
Final (10:55pET)
Perhaps among the biggest upsets of the Olympics, Jamaica's Hansle Parchment beat reigning world champion Grant Holloway of the U.S. to win 110m hurdles gold.
The 2012 London Games bronze medalist, who was third at Jamaica Trials and runner-up in both of the initial rounds in Tokyo, surged after the final hurdle to finish in 13.04
Parchment's compatriot Ronald Levy took bronze in 13.10.
—
Holloway enters the final as the world leader and top qualifier in both initial rounds.
In June at U.S. Olympic Trials, he clocked 12.81 during the semifinals to finish one-hundredth of a second of Aries Merritt's 2012 world record.
Notably missing in Tokyo is defending Olympic champion Omar McLeod, who while dealing with cramps at Jamaica's Olympic trials hit the first hurdle and finished last.
Rio marked the first non-boycotted Olympics the U.S. failed to win at least one medal in the event.
Devon Allen, fifth in Rio, was second to Holloway among those who advanced to the final.
VIDEO: Jamaica's Parchment defeats Holloway, wins 110m hurdles gold
SEE MORE: Jamaica's Parchment defeats Holloway, wins 110m hurdles gold
Men's 20km Walk
Final (3:30aET)
Massimo Stano took the lead and closed well in the last five kilometers to give Italy its first gold in the event since 2004, clocking 1:21:05.
China's Wang Kaihua led about half the race before dropping back.
VIDEO: Italy's Stano wins 20km walk gold, Japan gets silver, bronze
Women's Pole Vault
Final (6:00aET)
With wind a factor, only five of the 15 athletes made the opening height of 4.50m without misses. And later, nine of 13 didn't make it past the next height of 4.70m, leaving just four vaulters: reigning world champion Anzhelika Sidorova of the ROC, U.S. champion Katie Nageotte, British record-holder Holly Bradshaw and defending Olympic champion Katerina Stefanidi of Greece.
After missing at 4.85m, Stefanidi passed to attempt 4.90m with the others but missed twice and pulled out. Bradshaw also couldn't clear the height, but had made 4.85m, securing the bronze.
Both Sidorova and Nageotte missed on their first attempts at 4.90m — up until that point, Sidorova had been perfect, going four-for-four on the first four heights, while Nageotte had missed her very first two attempts of the competition, plus another at the second height.
But sometimes in vaulting it comes down to who can make the clutch clearance, and Nageotte did just that, clearing 4.90m on her second attempt to takeover the lead. Sidorova elected to pass the height after two misses, and was unable to clear 4.95.
Per World Athletics, Nageotte became the first man or woman vaulter to miss twice at their opening height and then go on to win gold at the Olympics.
VIDEO: American Nageotte bests ROC's Sidorova for pole vault gold
SEE MORE: American Nageotte bests ROC's Sidorova for pole vault gold
Women's 4x400m Relay
1st Round (6:25aET)
The United States team of Kaylin Whitney, Wadeline Jonathas, Kendall Ellis and Lynna Irby won heat two in 3:20.86 for the fastest overall time headed into the final.
Jamaica, also in heat two, was second in 3:21.95, with Great Britain following in third in 3:23.99. Poland won the other first-round heat in 3:23.10.
Men's 1500m
Semifinals (7:00aET)
Kenya's Abel Kipsang, third at his nation's trials, won the second semifinal in 3:31.65 to break fellow countryman Noah Ngeny's Olympic record of 3:32.07, set at the 2000 Sydney Games.
You read that right — an Olympic record in a semifinal.
The top seven of the section all went sub-3:33, among them the qualifiers Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Great Britain's Josh Kerr, Spain's Adel Mechaal and Australia's Stewart McSweyn.
Back in ninth place: defending Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz of the U.S., whose season-best 3:33.69 wasn't enough to match a historically fast pace.
The first semifinal, albeit slower, also produced interesting results. Great Britain's Jake Wightman won in 3:33.48, while American Cole Hocker beat out reigning world champion Timothy Cheruiyot for second in a personal-best 3:33.87.
VIDEO: Kipsang breaks 1500m OR in semi, Centrowitz misses final
SEE MORE: Kipsang breaks 1500m OR in semi, Centrowitz misses final
Men's 400m
Final (8:00aET)
Reigning world champion Steven Gardiner kept his patience after a blistering start from American Michael Norman and surged through the homestretch to finish in 43.85, winning the Bahamas its first individual men's Olympic medal on the track. Colombia's Anthony Zambrano earned silver like he did behind Gardiner at the world championships.
Norman and U.S. teammate Michael Cherry placed a respective fifth and fourth.
