Canada's Warner impresses with 5th place in decathlon

London, Ont.’s Damian Warner had an impressive showing in his first Olympic Games.

The 22-year-old Canadian finished fifth in the decathlon on Thursday, ending with a combined score of 8,442.

In all, Warner set six personal bests efforts during the last two days, including the final 1,500-metre race to conclude the competition.

American Ashton Eaton won the decathlon gold medal by 198 points.

Eaton set the decathlon world record at the U.S. trials in June and backed it up with an Olympic victory with 8,869 points.    Two-time world champion Trey Hardee settled for silver with 8,671 points and Leonel Suarez of Cuba took the bronze, 346 points behind Eaton, at 8,523.

The American had a 151-point lead going into the final event, the 1,500, and is a better middle-distance runner than Hardee. But there were still some nerves in the field, with a rare false start in the 1,500.

Eaton needed to slash six seconds off his fastest ever time in the 1,500 to break his world record, but ran a cautious race and finished well outside his personal best in 4 minutes, 33.59 seconds.

Rudisha wins Olympic 800 in world record time

David Rudisha won his first Olympic gold medal with the kind of world-record performance that has made him almost unbeatable the last three years.

The 23-year-old Kenyan won Thursday's final in one minute, 40.91 seconds, shaving one-tenth of a second off the mark he set in 2010, and setting the first world record on the track at the London Olympics.

After crossing the line, he flung up both arms to celebrate, then draped himself in a national flag and posed for photographs near the timing clock with "NEW WR" on it.

Nigel Amos of Botswana, the world junior champion, took silver in a national record 1:41.73 and Timothy Kitum of Kenya got the bronze in 1:42.53.

Americans Duane Solomon and Nick Symmonds finished fourth and fifth, just ahead of 18-year-old Mohamed Aman of Ethiopia, the world indoor champion who handed Rudisha his only loss since 2009 last September.

Spotakova defends Olympic javelin title

Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic successfully defended her Olympic javelin title. 

The 31-year-old Spotakova, who holds the world record, secured the gold medal with a best mark of 69.55 metres.

Germany collected silver and bronze, with Christina Obergfoell finishing second at 65.16 and Linda Stahl third at 64.91.

Obergfoell improved one spot on her finish four years ago, when her bronze was Germany's only track and field medal in Beijing.

American Taylor wins Olympic triple jump gold

Christian Taylor won the Olympic triple jump gold medal, overtaking U.S. teammate Will Claye with his fourth jump in the final.

Taylor, the world champion, earned the Olympic title with a best jump of 17.81 metres.

Claye, the world indoor champion, who had already won a bronze medal in the long jump at the London Games, earned silver in 17.62.

European champion Fabrizio Donato of Italy took bronze at 17.48.

Canadian results

• Vancouver’s Elizabeth Gleadle finished12th in the women’s javelin final.
• Jessica Smith, of North Vancouver, placed 22nd overall in the semifinals of the women’s 800 and failed to advance.