By Nick Butler at the Main Media Centre in Nanjing

Noah Lyles won the 200m for the US ©TwitterNoah Lyles provided a much desired boost following a largely underwhelming few days for the United States here at the Summer Youth Olympic Games by bursting clear to win the 200 metres in a swift 20.80sec.


Having clocked 20.71 in the heats, the 17-year-old was the favourite going into the final but delivering on his promise was always going to be the challenge.

His main opposition expected to come from Botswana's Baboloki Thebe, winner of the African Youth Games gold in Gaborone on home turf early this year and the only other sub-21 second runner in the field.

But in the end it was all about Lyles, who took the lead coming off the bend and burst clear with every stride to win just the sixth US gold of the Games, with Thebe promoted to second after Jamaica's Chad Walker was disqualified for running out of his lane. 

While this race was ultimately a question of one-man-domination, the finale to the individual showjumping competition was about four evenly matched performers facing off in the most nerve-racking of jump-off deciders.

It was Emily Fraser of New Zealand, the first of the four riders to manage a second successive clear round earlier in the afternoon, who held her nerve to go clear again and win by virtue of completing the course 0.20 seconds quicker than Argentina's Martina Campi.

Emily Fraser won a nail-biting showjumping event ©Guo Cheng/Nanjing 2014Emily Fraser won a nail-biting showjumping event ©Guo Cheng/Nanjing 2014



On a day when all of the leading European contenders fell by the wayside, Jake Hunter of Australia took bronze after knocking a single fence down, while Sabrina Rivera Meza of El Salvador had two down and duly came fourth.

"I am overwhelmed, excited," said an emotional Fraser afterwards.

"It was nerve-racking, I am over the moon, I don't know what to say.

"My horse was jumping during the warm-up before the jump-off, and I was hoping everything would go right, I was holding my nerves."

In a modern pentathlon competition where showjumping was the only senior discipline lacking, Aleksandr Lifanov recovered from a lowly 16th place finish in the swim to win gold after placing third in the fencing and second in the combined-run shoot.

Aleksandr Lifanov crosses the line to win the boy's modern pentathlon title ©Nanjing 2014Aleksandr Lifanov crosses the line to win the boy's modern pentathlon title ©Nanjing 2014





There was more Russian success on the final day of gymnastics action when Nikita Nagornyy won the parallel bars for his third gold medal of the Games, a total matched by Giarnni Regini-Moran when the Briton added vault gold to his earlier all-around and floor triumphs.

China also secured gold courtesy of Wang Yan in the beam. as well as in athletics through hammer thrower Xu Xinyang and diving through Hao Yang in the 3m springboard, to take their overall tally to 31. 

Among other athletics winners was Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia in the boy's 3,000m and Japanese duo Minoru Onogawa and Nozomi Musembi Takamatsu in the boy's 10,000m walk and women's 3,000m events respectively.

There was another victory elsewhere for China courtesy of tennis player Shilin Xu, who won singles gold with a routine 6-3, 6-1 win over Belarus' Iryna Shymanovich, while Brazilians Orlando Moraes Luz and Marcelo Zormann Silva won the deciding tie breaker to take boy's doubles glory.

Heavy rain that fell in the early afternoon before lingering for much of the evening took its toll, however, with the mixed doubles final, featuring a politically poignant Japanese-Chinese collaboration between Jumpei Yamasaki and Ye Quiyu, being forced indoors and continuing long into the night.

Their Polish and Swiss opponents Jan Stanislaw Zielinski and Jil Teichmann eventually won in the third-set tie breaker to claim the gold medal.

But China did manage one mixed team title alongside a nation with whom they have fraught diplomatic relations as Jiaman Li teamed up with Luis Gabriel Moreno of The Philippines to win the mixed team archery competition.

Away from the medals, girl's individual champion Lee Soyoung teamed up with fellow South Korean Youm Eun Ho to hit an 11 under par 61 to take a one shot lead after day one of golf pairs action, while South Korea edged past Sweden to set up a girl's handball final with Russia.

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