Felix wins 11th medal to end Olympic career
TOKYO — Allyson Felix knows the way to the Olympic medals stand better than any runner alive.
She made her record-setting 11th trip there Saturday after starring as the headliner on a winning 4x400-meter relay team that featured a who’s who of American running.
With the gold medal dangling from her neck and “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing in the nearly empty stadium, “I took a moment just to close my eyes and take it in one last time,” Felix said.
After the final race of the final Olympics of the 35-yearold sprinter’s career, Felix leaves the stage having won the most medals of any track athlete in U.S. history, and it’s quite the list. She passed Carl Lewis, and now she only trails one person in the Olympics record book: Paavo Nurmi, the distance runner from Finland who won 12 from 1920-28.
Felix has no plans to go any further. In her mind, as a sprinter at least, she also has nothing left to prove.
“I feel at peace,” she said. “I went out, had all the confidence in these amazing women. I wanted to take it all in one last time around, and it was special.”
She still plans to sound an active voice for women, and especially for mothers who too often hear what she heard when she got pregnant with her daughter Cammy, now 2: That once women start having babies, their best athletic days are behind them. If she had any concerns about the future of her sport on the track, the 3-minute, 16.85-second jaunt she was part of in her last Olympic race — Poland was a distant 3.68 seconds behind for silver — certainly put those to rest.
It was a 19-year-old, Athing Mu, who ran the anchor leg to secure Felix’s medal, the seventh gold in her collection of 11. Sydney McLaughlin celebrated her 22nd birthday by running the opening lap, then handed the baton to Felix, who passed it to Dalilah Muhammad, who is 31. All won individual medals in Tokyo, but their relay victory was made more impressive by the fact that not one of them specializes in the 400.
Also Saturday, the first gold medal for U.S. men’s runners on the track at these Olympics came in their last chance as the 4x400 team of Michael Cherry, Michael Norman, Bryce Deadmon and hurdler Rai Benjamin combined for the win.
Japan tops in baseball
YOKOHAMA, Japan — The winning players sprinted onto the mound and hoisted their manager up and down as if on a trampoline.
The team of Japanese AllStars later beamed when hanging shiny gold medals around each other’s necks, fulfilling a national mission with their country’s first Olympic baseball title by beating the United States 2-0 in the final.
The Americans didn’t seem overly upset. The collection of released Major League Baseball veterans, prospects and career minor leaguers thought they had given their best.
“I really feel like we left it all out there,” U.S. pitcher Nick Martinez said.
Munetaka Murakami hit an opposite-field homer over the 16-foot wall in left-center on a 2-2 pitch from Martinez (1-1) in the third inning. Japan added an unearned run in the eighth when Tetsuto Yamada singled off reliever Scott McGough leading off, Hayato Sakamoto sacrificed, Masataka Yoshida singled and center fielder Jack López heaved the ball past the plate for a run-scoring error.
Masato Morishita (2-0) gave up three hits in five innings, struck out five batters and walked none. Four relievers finished a six-hitter as Japan beat the Americans for the second time in six days, having also rallied in the ninth before winning 7-6 in 10 innings on Monday.
Japan manager Atsunori Inaba was proud his country showed off its brand of baseball, which relies on defense, bunting and advancing runners, in defeating the American variety increasingly dominated by home runs, strikeouts and walks.
“They deserved to win,” said U.S. manager Mike Scioscia, whose country introduced baseball to Japan in 1872.
Dominant dynasty
TOKYO — Maddie Musselman held her phone out, and the U.S. women’s water polo team gathered for a picture on the top step of the Olympic medals stand.
It was a familiar scene. The dynasty is alive and well.
Musselman scored three times and Ashleigh Johnson made 11 saves as the Americans won their third consecutive gold medal, routing Spain 14-5 in the final and improving to 134-4 since winning gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. The United States broke its own records for most goals and biggest margin in the final.
After falling 10-9 to Hungary in group play in its first loss at the Olympics since the 2008 final, the Americans ripped off four straight wins by a combined score of 63-26 and joined the men’s teams from Britain (1908-1920) and Hungary (2000-2008) as the only countries to win at least three straight water polo titles at the Olympics.