Team USA took home two silver medals in a pair of thrilling track-and-field finals on Monday.
Rai Benjamin finished second behind a record-breaking performance from Norway’s Karsten Warholm, while Brittney Reese earned her third career medal in the women’s long jump final.
Here’s a recap of both events:
Men’s 400-meter hurdles
Warholm blazed to the finish line with a world-record time of 45:94, well above the second-place Benjamin’s 46:17. Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos took bronze with a 46:72. The silver is the first Olympic medal for Benjamin, who is 23. Warholm broke his own world record en route to winning gold.
While Warholm ended up winning, Benjamin stuck with him for a majority of the final. You can see Warholm pull away down the stretch in what was a thrilling finish:
Warholm had the perfect reaction to seeing he broke his own record:
Women’s long jump
The four-time Olympian Reese and Nigeria’s Ese Brume battled each other for first place through the first five rounds of the women’s long jump final. But it was Germany’s Malaika Mihambo who stunned them both with a season-best 7.00 final round to earn gold.
Mihambo came through in the clutch, as she jumped to the top of the leaderboard to win gold on her final attempt:
American Tara Davis finished sixth in the event.
While Team USA would have loved to earn a gold medal on the night, it’s tough to overcome the type of dominant performances Warholm and Mihambo both had. The U.S. will have four additional shots at track-and-field gold on Tuesday.
