As American Quincy Hall timed his run to perfection in the Stade de Paris, Great Britain's Matthew Hudson-Smith, despite beating his own European record, missed out on Olympic 400m gold by four-hundredths of a second.
The 29-year-old (pic) finished in 43.44 seconds but was pipped on the line by American Quincy Hall, who surged from third to first in a thrilling conclusion. It was another painful near miss on the global stage for Wolverhampton sprinter, but he did become the first Briton to make the Olympic men's 400m podium in 28 years.
European silver medallist Mills - son of former Leeds United and England footballer Danny - bumped shoulders with French runner Hugo Hay, then collided with Eritrea's Aron Kifle, causing both to fall into Mohammed Ahmed of Canada while also collecting Dutch runner Mike Foppen. He finished 18th, but tournament organisers ruled that he was impeded and sent him through along with Hay and the other fallers - meaning 20 men will compete in the 5,000m final on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi went to the aid of Mutaz Essa Barshim, with whom he shared the event's gold medal in Tokyo, after the Qatari athlete appeared to pull his calf during a run-up. Barshim was able to resume and qualify for Saturday's final alongside Tamberi, an eccentric character who wears odd socks and half a beard, who was hospitalised with kidney stones four days ago.
Marit Bouwmeester (36) became the most decorated female Olympic sailor by claiming dinghy gold, having overtaken Britain's Hannah Mills, who won three Olympic medals between 2012 and 2020, and now has two golds, one silver and one bronze. In the velodrome, Ethan Hayter, Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon were also pipped to gold by Australia, who triumphed for the first time since the 2004 Games, whilst Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts beat Italy in the women's bronze medal race to continue GB's run of reaching the event's podium at every Olympics since it was introduced in 2012.
In the National Velodrome Australia won a thrilling men's team pursuit final against Britain to claim their first Olympic gold medal in the event since 2004. The teams were neck-and-neck throughout the 16-lap duel with Australians Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O'Brien always fractionally ahead.
It was still in the balance as the bell rang for the final lap, but calamity struck as Britain's Ethan Hayter appeared to slip and lost momentum, sending them out of formation to allow Australia to gain sweet revenge for past defeats. The United States won the women's team pursuit gold for the first time when they beat New Zealand in the final with Britain taking the bronze medal by beating Italy.
World records continued to tumble earlier on day three of track action with Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen again showing why he is regarded as the best track sprinter of his generation with an incredible 200 metres flying lap to top the time sheets in qualification for the track cycling sprint.
Australian Matthew Richardson initially broke the world record set by Trinidad & Tobago's Paul Nicholas in 2019. Richardson clocked 9.091 seconds to beat Nicholas's mark of 9.100 set at high altitude in Bolivia, but he could not celebrate for long as the 27-year-old Lavreysen, fresh from his team sprint gold on Tuesday, clocked 9.088, averaging 79kph.
Lavreysen, nicknamed The Beast, is going for three golds at the Paris Games and is favourite for the sprint and keirin. Extremely warm conditions inside the velodrome, together with wider banking on the curves allowing riders to generate more speed, have made for fast sprinting times.
Both the men's and women's team sprints were won in world record times while Australia's men also set a team pursuit world record in the first round on Tuesday. The start of the women's keirin rounds saw New Zealand's world champion Ellesse Andrews make it safely through to the quarter-finals, as did Britain's Emma Finucane and Canada's Olympic sprint champion Kelsey Mitchell.
Colombia's world silver medallist Martha Bayona was surprisingly knocked out.
