Mo Farah made history as the first British athlete to win three Olympic gold medals, as Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford also won medals on ‘Super Saturday’ mark two. Just as in London four years ago, Farah was first to go, defending his Olympic 10,000m title. Typically cautious through the first half of the race, Farah started to take closer order but was clipped and hit the deck. Thankfully he bounced back to his feet as quickly as he had fallen and from there normal order was resumed.

Taking the lead with two laps to go, Farah controlled the race from the front, looking round to check for danger on numerous occasions. Paul Tanui of Kenya did take the lead on the last lap, but Farah stayed calm before kicking away down the home straight to make history. After his 27.05.17 victory, the triple Olympic champion said: “It is never an easy thing when you know you have got a target on your back. When I fell down, for a moment I thought my race was over, my dream was over but then I managed to dig deep. I promised my daughter Rhianna I was going to get her a medal and I was thinking ‘I can’t let her down’. That is all I was thinking about – her. That is why I was quite emotional at the end because it almost went."

"As each lap went down, I was getting more and more confident. With the bell, I was thinking ‘just don’t waste too much energy’. “I didn’t know what some of the others could do so I just wanted to make sure I had something at the end. For me, one of the things that keeps me going is winning medals for my country and making my nation proud.”

Jessica Ennis-Hill put up a wonderful defence of her Olympic title, with strong performances across the board. Ultimately she was just beaten by a better athlete over the two days, and that was young Belgian Nafissatou Thiam, who smashed her national record to win gold.

With two events to go Ennis-Hill trailed by just five points, and would have probably thought a 46.06m javelin and 2.09.07 800m would have been enough for gold. As it was, Thiam produced an outstanding 53.13m personal best throw in the javelin, before running another PB in the 800m of 2.16.54.

In the end a total of 6810 points saw Thiam take gold, with Ennis-Hill’s 6775 good for silver. Afterwards she commented:

“Its congratulations not commiserations, I’m pretty emotional but these are happy tears and I’m really proud to be back on the podium it’s been so tough. But yes I’m really proud.

“I think it’s a mix of thinking back to last few years. I’m just so emotional and yeah I’ve just got to make a decision as to whether this is my last heptathlon or not.

“I knew I had to beat her (Thiam) by about 10 seconds. When I came off from the javelin I had to speak to Toni and I said ‘what have I got to do’ – he said ‘ten seconds’ and I was like ‘oh god that’s so much’ but I just thought I’m going to run hard like I always do at 800m and see what I can do.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson (Mike Holmes) also put in a strong performance to finish sixth with a season’s best 6523 points. In the mix the whole way, it was just her performances in the shot put and javelin, which saw her fall away from medal contention.

A British record in the high jump was the highlight for KJT, who will be peak age in Tokyo in four years’ time.