Rio 2016: What we learned on Day 10

•    The somewhat unsettled weather continues to make Rio resemble Rochdale on a wet November day. Last night in the Olympic stadium, a massive downpour temporarily suspended the evening athletics session. Another poor attendance at the track (in this weather - you can’t really blame them) which saw the stadium appearing to be less than half full, witnessed the track turning into an Amazon-esque stream, as athletes in vulnerable events such as the hurdles were ushered on and off the soggy arena like teams at an Old Trafford Test Match.

•    Years of frustration came to end for Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish as he pedalled his way to a silver medal in the omnium, in spite of a nasty looking crash with South Korean Sanghoon Park with 109 laps to go. The Manxman has won four world titles on the road and track, but before last night had managed to miss out on a medal in the previous two Olympic games, and this was something he was absolutely desperate for – even more so than a jar of Vaseline for the chafing, following a gruelling Tour de France.

•    Equestrian (horsey stuff) and Great Britain’s Charlotte Dujardin was celebrating a third Olympic gold after retaining her individual dressage title aboard Valegro (that’s the name of a horse by the way, not a hatchback). The Enfield-born Dujardin took Team GB’s 40th medal of the games, and can add that to the golds she won four years ago in the team and individual dressage.

•    The home crowd had something massive to celebrate last night as Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva reached for the sky and grabbed himself a shock gold in the pole vault. Reigning champion, Renaud Lavillenie, of France, was odds-on to retain his title until da Silva broke the Olympic record of 6.03m to send the partisan crowd (Lavillenie was booed) into a frenzy, as de Silva became only the fourth Brazilian to win gold in a track & field event. Afterwards Lavillenie compared the crowd jeering him to the reception given Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. Lavillenie wisely apologised for the comparison in a Tweet later on, putting it down to the heat of the moment.

•    No jokes about a good excuse to get absolutely hammered, just the facts as Burnley’s Sophie Hitchon created history by becoming the first British woman to win an Olympic hammer medal. This more than made up for the disappointment of last year’s World Championships in Beijing which saw her placed fourth. As with so many things, it’s all about timing as Hitchon left it to her final attempt, with a new British record of 74.54m, which saw her climb from fifth to that precious bronze medal place.