Wayne Lumbasi
The United States won three gold medals on the penultimate day of the world track and field championships, breaking the previous mark for most medals at a worlds championship. Athing Mu’s victory in the 800m by eight hundredths of a second was the highlight of the day.
A year after becoming the second American woman to win an Olympic 800m gold, Mu became the first American woman to win a 800m title.
Over the final 100 meters, she just managed to hold off Keely Hodgkinson, a storming Brit who won the silver medal at the Olympics. Since 2019, Mu has never lost an outdoor 800 meter event. At age 20, Mu became the first woman in history to win both an individual track and field event Olympic and world titles.
In the 400m in 2011 and 2012, Kirani James of Grenada was the only younger man to do it.
Overall, the U.S won five medals on Sunday to end with 33, breaking East Germany’s 1987 record of 31 medals won. Its 13 gold medals fall short of the record held by the United States during 2005, 2007 and 2019 by one.
For the first time since the inaugural world championships in 1983, Kenya did not take home a gold medal in any of the men’s or women’s 5000, 10,000, marathon.
