PARIS: One of the two boxers who have sparked a gender eligibility row won again at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday to ensure she has a shot at a gold medal.

Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting called it “a tough journey” after claiming a unanimous points decision victory over Esra Yildiz Kahraman of Turkiye at 57kg in her semifinal.

That win came 24 hours after Algeria’s Imane Khelif reached her final.

After the decision came through, the Turk made an X sign with her fingers, just as another of Lin’s beaten opponents had done in a previous bout.

Kahraman refused to say afterwards what it meant. In most cases, males have both an X and Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes.

Lin and Khelif are competing in Paris despite being disqualified from the world championships last year by the International Boxing Association (IBA) after reportedly failing gender eligibility tests.

On the track, American sprinter Quincy Hall lunged at the line to win a gripping men’s 400 meters.

Hall became the fourth fastest one-lap runner in history when he denied Britain’s Matthew Hudson-Smith gold in a time of 43.40sec.

It ended a 16-year drought for the USA in the event. Zambia’s Muzala Samukonga took bronze.

“I don’t give up,” said Hall. “I just got grit. I grind. I got determination.

“Anything that I can think of, that’s what gets me to that line. I think of all the hurt, all the pain.”

Noah Lyles put himself in a position to go for an Olympic sprint double on Thursday, looking comfortable in finishing second in his semifinal behind Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo.

Lyles, who won the closest 100m final in modern Olympic history by just five thousandths of a second on Sunday, will be hot favorite to become the first man since Usain Bolt at the 2016 Rio Olympics to achieve the 100m-200m double.

In other athletics action in the Stade de France Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali joined an elite group of Arab double gold winners by taking his second consecutive 3,000m steeplechase title.

Only his Moroccan compatriot Hicham El Guerrouj, who won 1500m and 5,000m gold at Athens 2004, and Tunisian swimmer Oussama Mellouli (1500m freestyle in Beijing 2008 and 10km marathon in London 2012) have achieved the feat.

Jamaica’s Roje Stona achieved an upset men’s discus win and Nina Kennedy took Australia’s first ever pole vault Olympic title.

Keegan Palmer of Australia won his second consecutive Olympic men’s park skateboard title with some spectacular moves.

American rapper Snoop Dogg was among the fans at the Place de la Concorde venue to see if Palmer could retain the title he won when skateboarding made its Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago.

The US-born 21-year-old did not disappoint, leading from start to finish. American Tom Schaar won silver and Brazil’s Augusto Akio bronze.

Keegan said his goal was to skate on to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics — providing he can keep his younger rivals at bay. “Definitely the goal is to do Brisbane because it’s where I grew up, it’s where I learned to skate,” he said.

“But you’ve just got to keep up with these kids coming through because skateboarding is a young generation sport.”

At Golf National, home favorite Celine Boutier delighted the crowds as she cruised into a three-shot lead after the opening round of the women’s golf event.

Boutier poured in eight birdies in a brilliant seven-under-par round of 65.

South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai is second, while reigning champion Nelly Korda battled back from a poor opening stretch of holes to finish on even par, seven strokes behind Boutier.

The first gold of the weightlifting program went to Li Fabin, who retained his Olympic 61-kilogramtitle.

In track cycling, Australia ended a 20-year wait to claim the Olympic men’s team pursuit gold medal while the road race champion from these Games, Kristen Faulkner, helped power the United States to the women’s title.

On another lightning quick day at the velodrome, Dutch star Harrie Lavreysen shattered the men’s sprint world record, stopping the clock at 9.088sec.

Host nation France were eliminated in men’s handball, an event they had hoped would produce a gold medal, when the reigning champions lost 35-34 to Germany.

In other developments, Australian Olympic field hockey player Tom Craig was arrested on suspicion of buying cocaine from a dealer in Paris. His team said he was later released with a warning from a French judge.

In the medals table, the USA moved onto 27 golds, two ahead of China while Australia moved into third place with 18 golds.

PARIS: Women’s beach volleyball favorites Brazil resolutely ended the Olympic hopes of their Latvian opponents in the women’s quarter-finals Wednesday, continuing their unbeaten streak in a defiant Paris Games.
Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa fought Latvian pair Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova in a game which showcased their deserved reputation as world-class players.
The pair took a while to find their footing, however, making clunky errors in the opening minutes that saw the Latvians claim an easy first six points — before the fightback began.
The top-seeded Brazilians quickly regained and overtook lost ground to secure the first set, and by the second set there was no doubt who was in charge.
The duo made it look easy as they romped to victory in just 32 minutes, winning the second set 21/10 to the delight of an army of Brazilian fans filling the stands of the stadium in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Supporters in green and yellow T-shirts, hats and wigs waved flags, whooping and whistling every point as though it was a gold medal.
The Brazilian victors ran around the stadium after the game, posing for photos and high-fiving fans who lingered despite the best efforts of security to usher them out.
Silva Ramos and Santos Lisboa first teamed up in 2014 to win the gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games, but competed with different partners in Tokyo 2020 — with less successful results — and decided to reunite again for Paris.
They will now face Tokyo 2020 silver medallists Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar from Australia in the semifinals on Thursday at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT).
In the day’s earlier quarter-final, Spain’s Daniela Alvarez Mendoza and Tania Moreno Matveeva took on a dominant Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson from Canada.
Every point hard was fought-for as the score sheet crawled up matching point by point, with fans on their feet as an ecstatic Canadian pair snatched victory to secure the final point.
Wearing distinctive one-shoulder white bikinis and colorful reflective sunglasses, Humana-Paredes and Swiss-born Wilkerson bettered their Tokyo record, where they made it as far as the quarter-finals.
They will now play Switzerland’s Tanja Hueberli and Nina Brunner in the earlier semifinal on Thursday evening.
The first two women’s quarter-finals were played Tuesday in a tense session where Hueberli and Brunner ended the campaign of the women’s world champions, US duo Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng.
The second round of the men’s quarter finals will be played later Wednesday.