Day 1 of Track and Field at the ongoing Olympic Games in Rio took off with a bang, with Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana handing defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba the second defeat of her career over the 10,000m, storming to victory with a World Record (WR) of 29:17.45, much to the amazement of the fans at the Olympic Stadium.
The Ethiopian wasn’t the only athlete who had a record breaking performance though. USA’s Michelle Carter handed her country its first Athletics GOLD medal in the women’s Shot put, causing an upset to take her first Olympic title in a National Record (NR) of 20.63m, handing a shock defeat to two-time champion Valerie Adams.
Another upset occurred in the men’s 800m where London 2012 Silver medallist Nijel Amos finished a distant 7th in the heats, thus ending his Rio 2016 outing in the very first round.
The men’s 400m heats also took off on Day 1 of the competition, with defending champion Kirani James clocking the fastest time overall in the heats with his mark of 44.93s, winning Heat 6 in the process.
Defending Champion in the women’s 100m, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was very impressive in the heats of her event, qualifying for the semis with the overall fastest time of 10.96s, putting her on course to retain her GOLD medals from Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
