Kevin Durant: two-time NBA Finals MVP, three-time Olympic Games gold medalist.
Durant scored a game-high 29 points while Jayson Tatum added 19 off the bench as Team USA beat Rudy Gobert and France 87-82 for its fourth straight gold medal.
The U.S. exacted revenge on France, which defeated the Americans in group play. Team USA went on a 9-2 run, capped by a Tatum 3-pointer, that pushed the lead back to double figures.
KD’s 3 gives @TeamUSA an 11-point lead over France.@TeamUSA x #TokyoOlympics
📺 NBC
💻 https://t.co/KUtVmoSGW5
📱 NBC Sports App pic.twitter.com/1nLYuTzv5v— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 7, 2021
There is still much more hardware to be given out. Allyson Felix and Vashti Cunningham, the daughter of former NFL star Randall Cunningham, are among the track stars with chances for gold medals as well.
Here’s the best of all the action in Tokyo:
USA basketball stays atop the podium
Kevin Durant showed out in a gold-medal game again.
Durant led Team USA with 29 points while Jayson Tatum scored 19 as the Americans hung on to beat France 87-82 to win Olympic gold for the fourth straight Games.
CONGRATULATIONS MEN!!! @usabasketball 🥇
— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 7, 2021
The U.S. led by as many as 14 but saw its lead cut to three with 10 seconds remaining. That’s when Durant iced the game with two free throws.
Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard both scored 11 points for the Americans, who got revenge after losing to France in pool play.
Korda wins gold in wild final round
Not even a tropical storm could stop Nelly Korda from winning gold at the Olympics. Not even Japan’s Mone Inami, New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and India’s Aditi Ashok.
The American Korda, who remained calm, cool and collected during all four rounds of the women’s golf tournament, finished at 17 under. She flashed a smile and waved after her gold-medal-clinching putt — no huge celebration, but rather an acknowledgement that she deserved to be there.
But she wasn’t the only one at Kasumigaseki Country Club making that case. After Korda double-bogeyed the seventh hole, putting her in a three-way tie with Ko and Ashok, she hit the reset — the three-birdies-in-a-row reset — to take a three-stroke lead.
An American sweep! 🇺🇸🇺🇸@NellyKorda wins 🥇 and joins @XSchauffele atop the podium in #Olympics #Golf @USAGolf | @TeamUSA pic.twitter.com/HBVo6zZPl7
— Olympic Golf (@OlympicGolf) August 7, 2021
Korda held the lead at 17 under, but with two holes to play, tournament officials blew the horn, suspending play due to thunderstorms. Inami was one stroke back in a solo second, while Ashok and Ko, the silver medalist in 2016, were tied for third at 15 under.
The delay lasted 45 minutes, and when play resumed, Inami drained her birdie putt on 17 to share the lead with Korda. But that didn’t last long, as she bogeyed the final hole while Korda finished with a par.
Inami claimed the silver medal in a playoff, while Ko took the bronze. — Charlotte Gibson
Surprise medal for Team USA
Team USA’s Molly Seidel ran her first marathon ever in February 2020 — at the U.S. Olympic trials. A year and a half later, she is the Olympic bronze medalist at Tokyo, finishing at 2:27:46. Kenya went 1-2 — Peres Jepchirchir won gold with a 2:27:20 finish, followed by Brigid Kosgei. The women’s marathon race was moved to earlier in the morning on Saturday in Sapporo, Japan, due to heat and humidity.
“It takes 10 years to become an overnight success.” – marathoners
“Hold my beer.” – Molly Seidel #TeamUSA
— des_linden (@des_linden) August 6, 2021
Seidel is the third American woman to win a medal in Olympic marathon, joining Deena Kastor (bronze, 2004) and Joan Benoit Samuelson (gold, 1984).
Relay redemption?
The U.S. men have not had a great run in Tokyo, but the men’s 4×400-meter relay final (8:50 a.m. ET) will give Team USA a chance at redemption. In the heats, the U.S. preliminary squad of Trevor Stewart, Randolph Ross, Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood finished at 2:57.77 to win their heat and automatically advance to the final. They will face Jamaica, Netherlands and Italy, who will all look to make the podium.
Repeat relay?
For the women’s 4×400, defending champion USA heads into the relay final (8:30 a.m. ET) as a clear favorite, winning its heat in 3:20.86, the fastest time of the entire prelim heats. Ten-time Olympic medalist Allyson Felix is expected to join the team for a chance to win her 11th Olympic medal.
Gold on the pitch
Defending champion Brazil will take on Spain for a shot at the gold medal at 7:30 a.m. ET Saturday. Spain is coming off a 1-0 semifinal victory over Japan, while Brazil beat Mexico 4-1. In 2016, Brazil won the gold medal in a penalty shootout against Germany.
USA nears three-peat
Team USA has the chance to win three straight Olympic gold medals in women’s water polo when it takes on Spain at 3:30 a.m. ET. The U.S. topped Group B, then beat Canada in the quarterfinals and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the semifinals. Spain boasts of a similar path, finishing at the top of Group A and beating China and Hungary en route to the final.
Does gold run in the family?
USA high jump star Vashti Cunningham, the 23-year-old daughter of former Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings star Randall Cunningham, is positioned to be a medal contender when the women’s high jump final begins (6:35 a.m. ET). Her 1.95-meter jump in the prelim round automatically qualified her for the finals. She finished first at U.S. Olympic trials in June, and the month before that, she set a personal record with a jump of 6 feet, 7½ inches.
