Olympic medal winners begin returning to Brazil

(6 Aug 2021) Brazilian athletes began returning home on Thursday after successes in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Bronze medallist Alison dos Santos, gold medallists Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze all arrived with a feeling of a fulfilled mission.
Dos Santos, who ran the 400m hurdles, came third, ending a 33-year medalless streak in Brazil's Olympic track running events.
"I broke the Olympic record; this makes me really happy. I thought, "oh my God". So we can have an idea of how the technical level of the race was, where I broke the Olympic record and finished third," dos Santos said.
Gold medallist and world-record holder Karsten Warholm, American runner-up Rai Benjamin, and dos Santos, who came in third, all broke the former Olympic record of 46.78 seconds with their finishing times in what is being described as one of the best races ever run.
Dos Santos took bronze with his 46.72 second run. It would've been a world record five weeks earlier.
Warholm smashed his own world record in a time of 45.94 seconds. Benjamin came in at 46.17 seconds.
Sailing duo Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze arrived with their gold medals in the women's 49er FX sailing event.
The 49er FX class debuted in Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, where Grael and Kunze also won gold medals, becoming back-to-back champions in Tokyo 2020.
"It was not an easy championship, we began with lots of difficulties... but we never gave up, we knew that all of them would make mistakes and our chance would arrive", said Kunze.
Martine Grael's family now collects nine total Olympic medals.
Her father, Torben Grael, won two gold medals, a silver, and a bronze in past games.
Her uncle, Lars Grael, has won two bronze medals.
Until Friday, Brazil had 16 Olympic medals in Tokyo 2020. 4 gold, 4 silver and 8 bronze medals.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/aecb8bd903ee49b99fd5f3494636e6e4