Paris Olympics Day 10: Hannes Daube stars as U.S. men beat Croatia 14-11 in water polo

PARIS — The U.S. men’s water polo team has been overshadowed by the country’s dominant women’s program for more than a decade.

The men are looking to make their own noise at the Paris Olympics.

Hannes Daube and Max Irving each scored three times to lead the United States to a surprising 14-11 victory over Croatia on Monday on the final day of group play.

The Americans improved to 3-2 at the Games with their second straight win. They finished third in Group A, setting up a quarterfinal matchup with Australia on Wednesday.

“We need to be focused. The job’s not done,” U.S. attacker Luca Cupido said. “We are where we want to be, in the quarterfinal. It doesn’t matter who is in the other team. We’re going to come ready for the next game.”

The U.S. men finished sixth at the Tokyo Games. While the American women are going for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Olympic title, the men are trying for the program’s first medal since a silver in 2008.

“Every team is different. This team had the luxury of being together through one Olympics and retaining the majority of the players,” Cupido said, “so we have built some camaraderie that we are showing now on the defensive end.”

Surfing gold for Carline Marks of U.S.

French Polynesian Kauli Vaast won the gold medal in men’s surfing while Caroline Marks from the United States won the women’s surfing gold medal on Monday at the Paris Olympics in Tahiti.

Cheers and tears erupted from boats floating near the wave and crowds of spectators along the shore as the men’s final match ended in the afternoon as Vaast pumped his arms into the air in victory after beating Jack Robinson from Australia, who received the silver medal.

The women’s gold medal match ended about thirty minutes later, with Marks beating Tatiana Weston-Webb from Brazil, who was awarded the silver medal.

For the bronze medals, Gabriel Medina from Brazil and Johanne Defay from France won after beating Alonso Correa from Peru and Brisa Hennessy from Costa Rica, respectively.

All winners of the Paris Olympics surfing competition are first-time Olympic medalists, after defending Olympic women’s champion Carissa Moore of the United States — who won at the Tokyo Games, where Olympic surfing debuted — was beaten in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

U.S. has mixed results in beach volleyball

Two U.S. teams fell on the sand at Eiffel Tower Stadium, with Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss losing to Canada in the women’s quarterfinals a few hours after Chase Budinger and Miles Evans lost to Norway in the men’s.

Only Miles Evans and Andy Benesh advanced on the day, joining Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes in the elite eight.

Kloth and Nuss are ranked No. 2 in the world, and Nuss said she was “definitely a little heartbroken.”

Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes beat Nuss and Kloth 21-19, 21-18, leaving the country that has won four of the last five women’s gold medals with just one team in the bracket.

Budinger, a former NBA player, and Evans lost in straight sets to Norway, the defending Olympic champions. Already at Paris, five-time Olympian and Rio de Janeiro gold medalist Laura Ludwig of Germany has been eliminated, and the 42-year-old Herrera has said he will retire.

Swimming in the Seine

The Seine River was determined safe enough to swim in and Olympic triathletes plunged into the murky water for the mixed relay event after organizers said bacteria levels in the long-polluted Paris waterway were at acceptable levels.

The plan to hold the swimming portion of the triathlons and the marathon swimming events in the Seine was an ambitious one as swimming in the river has, with some exceptions, been off-limits since 1923 because it has been too toxic.

Water quality tests were reviewed Sunday night and the results indicated the water quality at the triathlon site had improved over the preceding hours and was within the limits mandated by World Triathlon by Monday morning.

In a very close sprint finish, the team from Germany won the gold medal in the team relay. The United States took silver and Britain clinched bronze.

The decision to allow the event to go forward with swims in the Seine came after Belgium’s Olympic committee announced Sunday that it would withdraw its team from the mixed relay triathlon after one of its competitors who swam in the river last week fell ill. Another three triathletes — of the more than 100 who competed in the men’s and women’s races last Wednesday — became sick in the following days, though it’s unclear whether the water was to blame.

Spain reaches second straight Olympic soccer final

Juanlu Sanchez came off the bench to lift Spain into a record-equaling fifth Olympic men’s soccer final. Sanchez scored in the 85th minute at Stade de Marseille to seal a 2-1 win over Morocco.

Spain will face host France in the final on Friday. France advanced with a 3-1 victory over Egypt in the second semifinal.

Morocco led 1-0 at halftime after the tournament’s leading scorer Soufiane Rahimi converted a penalty in the 37th.

Spain evened the score in the 65th after Fermin Lopez showed quick feet in the box and fired a left-footed shot low in the bottom corner. It was the Barcelona midfielder’s fourth goal of the tournament and over-exuberant celebrations earned him a yellow card after kicking the corner flag and breaking it in two.

It was Lopez’s assist that set up Sanchez to sweep his winning goal low into the far corner.

Spain, which won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, lost in the final at the Tokyo Games three years ago to Brazil.

British cyclists set world record in women’s team sprint

The British trio of Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane shattered the world record in the women’s team sprint while beating New Zealand in a head-to-head showdown for the gold medal to open the track cycling program.

In the three-lap race, the British trio trailed Rebecca Petch, Shaane Fulton and Ellesse Andrews after the first 250 meters. But they quickly pulled ahead after the second lap, then blitzed the last to finish in 45.196 seconds, earning their nation’s first medal inside the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

Despite its proud sprinting tradition, the British had repeatedly missed the podium since the event’s debut in 2008.

MONDAY’S MEDALISTS

ATHLETICS

Men’s Pole Vault

GOLD: Armand Duplantis, Sweden

SILVER: Sam Kendricks, United States

BRONZE: Emmanouil Karalis, Greece

Women’s 5000m

GOLD: Beatrice Chebet, Kenya

SILVER: Sifan Hassan, Netherlands

BRONZE: Nadia Battocletti, Italy

Women’s 800m

GOLD: Keely Hodgkinson, Britain

SILVER: Tsige Duguma, Ethiopia

BRONZE: Mary Moraa, Kenya

Women’s Discus Throw

GOLD: Valarie Allman, United States

SILVER: Bin Feng, China

BRONZE: Sandra Elkasevic, Croatia

BADMINTON

Men’s Singles

GOLD: Viktor Axelsen, Denmark

SILVER: Kunlavut Vitidsarn, Thailand

BRONZE: Zii Jia Lee, Malaysia

Women’s Singles

GOLD: Se Young An, South Korea

SILVER: Bing Jiao He, China

BRONZE: Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, Indonesia

3X3 BASKETBALL

Men

GOLD: Netherlands (Jan Driessen, Dimeo van der Horst, Arvin Slagter, Worthy de Jong)

SILVER: France (Lucas Dussoulier, Timothe Vergiat, Jules Rambaut, Franck Seguela)

BRONZE: Lithuania (Sarunas Vingelis, Gintautas Matulis, Aurelijus Pukelis, Evaldas Dziaugys)

Women

GOLD: Germany (Marie Reichert, Elisa Mevius, Sonja Greinacher, Svenja Brunckhorst)

SILVER: Spain (Vega Gimeno, Sandra Ygueravide, Juana Camilion, Gracia Alonso)

BRONZE: United States (Dearica Hamby, Cierra Burdick, Hailey van Lith, Rhyne Howard)

CANOE SLALOM

Men’s Kayak Cross

GOLD: Finn Butcher, New Zealand

SILVER: Joseph Clarke, Britain

BRONZE: Noah Hegge, Germany

Women’s Kayak Cross

GOLD: Noemie Fox, Australia

SILVER: Angele Hug, France

BRONZE: Kimberley Woods, Britain

CYCLING TRACK

Women’s Team Sprint

GOLD: Britain (Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane, Katy Marchant)

SILVER: New Zealand (Ellesse Andrews, Shaane Fulton, Rebecca Petch)

BRONZE: Germany (Lea Friedrich, Pauline Grabosch, Emma Hinze)

ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS

Men’s Floor Exercise

GOLD: Carlos Edriel Yulo, Philippines

SILVER: Artem Dolgopyat, Israel

BRONZE: Jake Jarman, Britain

Men’s Horizontal Bar

GOLD: Shinnosuke Oka, Japan

SILVER: Angel Barajas, Colombia

BRONZE: Boheng Zhang, China

BRONZE: Chia-Hung Tang, Taiwan

Men’s Parallel Bars

GOLD: Jingyuan Zou, China

SILVER: Illia Kovtun, Ukraine

BRONZE: Shinnosuke Oka, Japan

Men’s Pommel Horse

GOLD: Rhys Mc Clenaghan, Ireland

SILVER: Nariman Kurbanov, Kazakhstan

BRONZE: Stephen Nedoroscik, United States

Women’s Balance Beam

GOLD: Alice D’Amato, Italy

SILVER: Yaqin Zhou, China

BRONZE: Manila Esposito, Italy

Women’s Floor Exercise

GOLD: Rebeca Andrade, Brazil

SILVER: Simone Biles, United States

BRONZE: Jordan Chiles, United States

SHOOTING

25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men

GOLD: Yuehong Li, China

SILVER: Yeongjae Cho, South Korea

BRONZE: Xinjie Wang, China

Skeet Mixed Team

GOLD: Italy (Diana Bacosi, Gabriele Rossetti)

SILVER: United States (Austen Jewell Smith, Vincent Hancock)

BRONZE: China (Yiting Jiang, Jianlin Lyu)

SURFING

Men

GOLD: Kauli Vaast, France

SILVER: Jack Robinson, Australia

BRONZE: Gabriel Medina, Brazil

Women

GOLD: Caroline Marks, United States

SILVER: Tatiana Weston-Webb, Brazil

BRONZE: Johanne Defay, France

TRIATHLON

Mixed Relay

GOLD: Germany (Tim Hellwig, Lisa Tertsch, Lasse Luehrs, Laura Lindemann)

SILVER: United States (Seth Rider, Taylor Spivey, Morgan Pearson, Taylor Knibb)

BRONZE: Britain (Alex Yee, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Samuel Dickinson, Beth Potter)