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Rio 2016: Day 13 review – Brownlee triathlon history as Jade Jones defends 2012 gold

Alistair Brownlee became the first athlete to secure successive Olympic triathlon titles as he and brother Jonny secured a fantastic one-two on Day 13 of Rio 2016.

After a comfortable swim the brothers worked together on the bike to head a ten-strong group that pulled away from the rest of the field.

And midway through the run it was Alistair who pulled away from younger brother Jonny, allowing him to celebrate up to the line with the Union Jack outstretched.

Another member of Team GB to defend their Olympic title from four years ago was Jade Jones – the taekwondo star seeing off Spain’s Eva Calvo Gomez to win the -57kg category.

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark’s wait to confirm their gold medal in the women’s 470 class finally came to an end as they safely finished the medal race.

The pair finished second to New Zealand’s Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie at London 2012 but reversed that result in Rio to get their hands on a debut Olympic gold.

Luke Patience and Chris Grube finished third in the medal race to secure a fifth-place finish in the men’s 470 class, while 49ers Alain Sign and Dylan Fletcher capsized chasing bronze and ended sixth overall. Charlotte Dobson in the female 49erFX were also last in the medal race and finished eighth overall. 

Another duo, like Mills and Clark, to upgrade their medal from London were canoe sprinters Jon Schofield and Liam Heath, who took silver in the men’s kayak double 200m.

With Spain clear winners there were three pairs – one of which was GB – who seemingly crossed the finish at the same time.

An anxious wait followed as a photo finish was required to sort the medals, but it was Schofield and Heath who pipped Lithuania by 0.014 seconds to take second place.

Elsewhere, Chris Langridge and Marcus Ellis won Team GB’s first-ever Olympic men’s doubles medal as they rounded off a fantastic Games by beating the Chinese pair Chai Biao and Hong Wei by two games to one in a thriller to secure bronze.

The British duo took the opening game 21-18 and after losing a close second 21-19 they rallied to take the decider 21-10 and pick up bronze.

It was less good news on the athletics track as Adam Gemili finished agonisingly in fourth in the men’s 200m – three thousandths of a second outside the bronze medal and Eilidh Doyle was last in the 400m hurdles final. 

Samantha Murray meanwhile got her quest for modern pentathlon gold underway with the fencing ranking round. 

Image courtesy of BBC via YouTube, with thanks.

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