JOIN US Britain's Helen Glover and Heather Stanning extended their five-year unbeaten run and claimed their second consecutive gold medal in the women's pair in the Olympic rowing regatta on Thursday.
As is their style, the Britons led from the start in one of the most highly anticipated finals of the rowing event and a win had by no means been guaranteed.
The world and Olympic record holders led their nearest challengers by more than three-and-a-half seconds at the half way stage and by roughly four seconds at the 1,500-metre mark.
Cousins bag gold
Slovakian cousins Ladislav Skantar and Peter Skantar took gold in the men's C-2 on Thursday, capturing the top spot on the podium that had previously eluded their country.
The Skantars gracefully negotiated the rapids under a blinding sun in Deodoro's Whitewater Arena in a time of 101.58, finishing less than half a second faster than silver medallists Richard Hounslow and David Florence of Britain, who clocked 102.01 seconds.
Top-ranked Gauthier Klauss and Matthieu Peche of France took bronze in 103.24 seconds.
Romania triumph
Romania took their first medal of the Rio Olympics on Thursday, as their women's epee team soundly beat China's defending champions to win the country's first-ever team fencing gold.
Estonia just missed its first Olympic fencing medal as Russia won the bronze bout, racking up five medals in the sport over as many days, its best at the Games since at least 2000.
With two of the world's ten best epee fencers coming into Rio, the Romanian women held a lead at the end of every bout and lost just three of 18 match-ups in the semifinal and final.
The champions' biggest scare came against the US team that took bronze in London and fought the Romanians to within a touch in the final bouts of their opening match.
Spain win, finally
Spain tipped off in an eerily empty arena due to a security scare but the 2012 silver medallists finally showed up on the court for an all-important first Olympic basketball win on Thursday.
After last-second losses in their first two games, Spain claimed a 96-87 win over Nigeria in a match-up of winless teams desperate for a "W", led by 16 points from veteran centre Pau Gasol.
In other Group B action, Argentina and Lithuania showed why they will both be tough to beat in the knockout phase, with Lithuania emerging 81-73 victors in one of the better-played contests so far.
Forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas led Lithuania with 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting. In the day's early game, Bojan Bogdanovic poured in 33 points as Croatia beat hosts Brazil 80-76, who were hoping to build on their thrilling upset of Spain two days earlier.