Neymar sent Brazil into ecstasy as he clinched Olympic football gold and Mo Farah sealed a rare distance double-double in a pulsating final evening of track action in Rio on Saturday.

Neymar swept home a brilliant free-kick and scored a trademark stutter-run penalty to win a shoot-out against Germany as the hosts headed towards Sunday's closing ceremony on a high.

Usain Bolt, defying his own "ageing" body, aims for an unprecedented "triple triple" of Olympic athletics gold medals Friday after another stunning win in the 200m final.

Bolt secured his second Rio gold and a third straight 200m late Thursday. He will complete a third straight sweep of the Olympic sprint medals if Jamaica win the 4x100m relay on Friday.

U.S. Olympic authorities apologized to Brazil on Thursday as two U.S. swimmers were allowed to go home having retracted a fabricated story about being mugged in Rio.

A third American swimmer who is still in Brazil can leave the country after he paid a donation to an "institution" of nearly $11,000, U.S. broadcaster NBC reported his lawyer as saying early Friday.

Kerron Clement won men's 400m hurdle gold at the Olympics on Thursday as Britain's Brownlee brothers made the triathlon a family affair and the clock ticked towards Usain Bolt's 200m final.

At the Olympic Stadium a dropped baton hiatus in the women's 4x100m relay heats left the United States facing a nerve-jangling time-trial to force their way into Friday's final.

With the 2018 World Cup less than two years away, Russia is scrambling to resume construction at one of the tournament's flagship stadiums where labor disputes have threatened to derail efforts to meet deadlines.

Jamaica unleashed a new sprint sensation as Omar McLeod took the Rio Olympics 110m hurdles while Chinese sports fans lamented the team's perceived lack of gold medal success in Rio.

Frustration bubbled over in China where sports fans branded their athletes Olympic failures while Britain cemented its position in second place ahead of China in the medals table with more gold medals in cycling.

The International Weightlifting Federation website was hacked on Wednesday and its Instagram page flooded with over 285,000 comments after Iran's star lifter Behdad Salimikordasiabi controversially crashed out of the Rio Games.

Brazilian police on Wednesday arrested top International Olympic Committee member Patrick Hickey over illegal sales of Rio Olympics tickets.

Police said in a statement that Hickey, the 71-year-old head of the European Olympic Committees as well as the Irish national committee, was detained at a luxury Rio hotel.

Top seed Serena Williams gave up a wild card entry into the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters tournament on Monday after complaining of a shoulder injury.

The world number one, who is being chased in the rankings by German Angelique Kerber, took a free entry only last week and was seeded atop the draw.

Kenyan David Rudisha sealed a historic Olympic 800m double as Usain Bolt prepared for the next round Tuesday in his quest for sporting immortality.

Rudisha eased to an 800m victory which made him the first man since New Zealand's Peter Snell in 1964 to win the event at consecutive Olympics.