Kerri Walsh Jennings’ quest for a fourth straight gold medal in beach volleyball was derailed as she and her fellow American April Ross were beaten in straight sets by Brazil early Wednesday.

Walsh Jennings won three golds with her previous partner Misty May-Treanor, who retired after the London Games in 2012. Walsh Jennings, 38, then joined forces with Ross and the top-ranked Americans were cruising through the tournament until they ran into second-ranked Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas.

Before a raucous crowd on Copacabana Beach, the first set was marked by repeated ties and lead changes. But the Americans, who had overpowered several opponents, met their match in Brazil.

Bednarczuk and Seixas made repeated diving saves on spikes by the Americans, extending rallies that the Brazilians often won with touch shots. With the score tied 20-20, the Brazilians took the next two points for a 22-20 first set win.

In the second set, the Brazilians jumped to a 5-2 lead and the Americans could never even the score. The Brazilians won 21-18 in a match that ended around 1 a.m., and the mostly Brazilian crowd exploded with joy.

The Brazilians will play Germany for the gold.

Here are the other highlights from Tuesday:

Simone Biles finishes with fourth gold

Biles’ spectacular run at the games concluded just as they began — with a sterling performance, a dazzling smile, and a gold medal dangling from her neck.

Biles won the floor exercise, giving her a fourth gold to go with one bronze out of the six available medal events in women’s gymnastics (She didn’t compete in the sixth, the individual uneven bars).

The 19-year-old became the first women gymnast to win four gold medals since Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo did it in 1984.

“I’m a little bit relieved because it’s been a long journey,” Biles said after her victory.

Aly Raisman, who won gold in London four years ago in the floor, took the silver. Raisman was overshadowed by Biles in Rio, just as she was by Gabby Douglas in London. Yet Tuesday’s medal gave Raisman three medals in these games, to go with three in London, making her one of the most decorated gymnasts in U.S. history.

On the men’s side, American Danell Leyva took two silver medals Tuesday, one in the parallel bars, the other on the high bar. Combined, the U.S. men and women will return home with 12 medals, their best showing ever.

Our full gymnastics story is here.

Jamaicans rule the sprints, Kenyans dominate distance races

There’s a clear trend in track at the Rio Games: The Jamaicans have won three sprints in recent days and the Kenyans have done the same in the distances, with both countries poised to claim more.

Omar McLeod gave Jamaica its first gold in the 110-meter hurdles in 13:05, while the Americans got shut out from the medals for the first time ever. Devon Allen was the top U.S. finisher in fifth.

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, who won the 100 meters on Sunday night, easily won his heat in the 200 meters on Tuesday, coasting the last 50 meters or so, finishing in 20.29. The final for that event is Thursday.

Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson, who captured the women’s 100 meters on Saturday night, advanced Tuesday to the finals of the 200 meters, where’s she’s also expected to be a medal contender.

One of the perennial duels at the Olympics is between the Jamaican and American sprinters, consistently the two best teams in the world. So far, the Jamaicans have dominated.

A similar rivalry exists in the distances between the Kenyans and the Ethiopians, and so far the Kenyans have the upper hand.

In the women’s 1,500 meters, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon pulled away from the reigning world champion, Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia to win the Olympic women’s 1,500 meters in a time of 4:08:92. Jenny Simpson of the U.S. took the bronze, the first time an American woman has ever medaled in the event.

One night earlier, Kenya’s David Rudisha ran away from the field in the 800 meters, defending his title from London in a time of 1:42:15. And on Sunday, Kenya’s Jemima Sumgong won the women’s marathon in 2 hours, 24:04 minutes.

Ethiopia’s one moment of glory so far was Almaz Ayana’s win in the 10,000 meters, where she shattered the world record by 14 seconds.

Rio romance

American Christian Taylor successfully defended his triple jump crown on Tuesday, but most of the media attention was directed toward runner-up Will Claye, who repeated his second-place finish in London.

After Claye hopped, skipped and jumped his way to silver, he leaped into the stands and proposed to his girlfriend Queen Harrison, who said ‘yes.’

This is clearly a trend in Rio. On Sunday, Chinese diver He Zi won a silver medal, and immediately received a proposal from her boyfriend, Chinese diver Qin Kai, who had earlier won a bronze.

And last week, Marjorie Enya, the girlfriend of Brazilian rugby player Isadora Cerullo, asked Cerullo to marry her after a match. And British racewalker Tom Bosworth proposed to his boyfriend on Copacabana Beach.

Mutual support in the woman’s 5,000

It was just one of the heats of the women’s 5,000 meters, but it produced a memorable act of sportsmanship.

Near the back of a tight pack of runners, New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin fell, and trailing right behind, U.S. runner Abbey D’Agostino tripped over her.

But rather than carry on, D’Agostino turned to Hamblin and encouraged her to get up. She did, and as they resumed running, far behind everyone else, D’Agostino’s right knee gave way and she collapsed to the track.

This time Hamblin stopped and turned to D’Agostino and urged her on. But D’Agostino couldn’t immediately carry on.

Hamblin then made her way to the finish, and D’Agostino limped along behind her to the line. She then collapsed again, and was then taken off in a wheelchair.

Because they both fell, they will be allowed to compete in the final, though it was not clear whether D’Agostino will be able to compete.

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Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas won the women’s 400-meter final at the Summer Olympics Monday, edging America’s star runner Allyson Felix in a time of 49.44 seconds on a damp night in Rio de Janeiro.

Felix closed in on Miller in the closing meters – but she couldn’t get ahead of her, finishing at 49.51. At the finish, Miller dove, or perhaps collapsed, across the line. It was a move that Felix later mirrored, as the toll of the race hit home.

Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson won bronze, in a time of 49.85.

Felix, 30, now has seven Olympic medals, making her the most decorated female athlete in U.S. track and field’s history. She passes Jackie Joyner-Kersee — who is also married to Felix’s coach, Bob Kersee. We’ll note that when the pending milestone was mentioned to her here in Rio last week, Felix noted that Joyner-Kersee had won her six medals in the long jump and heptathlon — individual events — while Felix has won three of her medals as part of a relay.

Another three of Felix’s medals have come in the 200m — a race that she missed qualifying for in Rio. At these games, she has one event left, the 4×400-meter women’s relay.

In a field of eight runners Monday night, Felix was in lane 4 – right next to her U.S. teammate Phyllis Francis, and two over from another teammate, Natasha Hastings.

At the start, Monday night’s race looked similar to Sunday’s semifinal — a race in which Felix pushed across the finish in front of Miller. But tonight, Miller’s pace was too fast for Felix.

Hastings took fourth, in 50.34 seconds, while Francis was fifth in 50.41.

Miller, 22, was an NCAA track and field champion at the University of Georgia. As the Olympics’ bio of Miller tells us, her race in the 400 meters comes 48 years after her grand-uncle Leslie Miller ran it for the Bahamas at the 1968 Olympic Games.

Felix had run the fastest qualifying time for this final, and had not lost either of her preliminary races. Coming into Rio, she also owned the lowest personal best in this event, at 49.26.

The women’s 400-meter race was one of several events that were briefly postponed Monday evening, after a heavy rainstorm drenched Rio. Miller managed to run a personal best in the damp conditions, and Felix pulled out a season-best time, in a year in which she bounced back from an ankle ligament injury.

Earlier in the night, Team USA’s Sydney McLaughlin, at 17 the youngest member of the track and field team, narrowly advanced to the 400-meter semifinals.

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Call it the Summer (Olympics) of love: He Zi of China was standing on the podium after receiving a silver medal for diving in Rio Sunday when her boyfriend, fellow diver Qin Kai, pulled out a ring and proposed marriage. It’s the second proposal of the Rio Games.

Moments before Sunday’s proposal, He had been dueling teammate and world champion Shi Tingmao for the gold medal in the 3m springboard final. It was shortly after the medal presentation that Qin – who owns gold medals from previous Olympics and has won bronze here in Rio – seized the moment.

“We are dating now for over 6 years and I didn’t know he would do this proposal,” He said, according to the Federation Internationale de Natation, which oversees diving.

With tears and a hug, He accepted Qin’s proposal.

We’ve seen another version of events from He, a 25-year-old who lives in Beijing, that’s a bit more lively. Here it is, from Reuters:

“I’ve forgotten most of what he’s said (during the proposal), but it’s largely what you can expect like promises, but what touched me the most is that he said he was willing to be bullied by me for life.”

The proposal took place at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Rio. If you’re wondering how the dramatic moment struck the other athletes on the podium with He – her teammate Shi, along with bronze medalist Tania Cagnotto of Italy – it turns out they already knew.

Shi said, “They have passed through a lot of things over the last years, and this is the perfect moment to do this proposal. I am very happy for both of them.”

Cagnotto says, “Shi Tingmao knew about the surprise before the medal ceremony and told me, so I was informed. Anyway, it was a very nice moment.”

The proposal is the second that we’ve heard about at the Rio Summer Olympics. Last week, Marjorie Enya, the girlfriend of Brazilian rugby player Isadora Cerullo asked Cerullo to marry her after a match between New Zealand and Australia.

On that occasion, Enya, who’s part of the staff at the games, coordinated the moment with friends who held heart-shaped balloons as she and Cerullo embraced.

“As soon as I knew she was in the squad I thought I have to make this special,” Enya told BBC Sport afterwards. “I know rugby people are amazing and they would embrace it.”

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Michael Phelps went out on top, wrapping up the greatest Olympic career ever with one last gold — his 23rd — on Saturday night. It came on a day when Rio was filled with dramatic performances as swimming wrapped up and track kicked into high gear.

On the track, Jamaica maintained its stranglehold on the women’s 100-meter title, but this time it was Elaine Thompson taking gold in 10.71, while her teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the winner in 2008 and 2012, had to settle for bronze. American Tori Bowie took the silver.

In the men’s sprints, where Jamaican men are equally strong, Usain Bolt coasted to victory in his heat as he seeks to become the first man to win three 100-meter titles in a row. The final is set for Sunday at 9.25 p.m.

Also, Britain’s Mo Farah unleashed his trademark kick to pull away in the final straightway of the 10,000 meters, winning in a time of 27 minutes, 5:17 seconds, and defending the gold he captured in London four years ago.

His win was all the more impressive because 11 minutes into the race he got tangled up with American Galen Rupp and tumbled to the track. Farah popped up immediately, losing only a couple of seconds, and was soon back at full speed. Rupp, the silver medalist in London, hung with a small pack of frontrunners throughout the 6.2-mile race, but couldn’t match their final kicks and placed 5th.

In the pool, the focus was on Phelps’s final race, the 4×100-meter medley relay. Yet it was American Ryan Murphy who set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke as he swam the leadoff leg. That set the stage for Phelps, who handled the third leg, the butterfly, in a memorable and triumphant conclusion to his fifth — and he says final — Olympic Games. Phelps won five gold and a silver in Rio, raising his total to 23 gold and 28 overall medals.

Simone Manuel, who became the first African-American to win an individual gold on Thursday, in the 100-meter freestyle, got another gold Saturday as she swam the freestyle leg to anchor the 4×100 medley relay.

She also captured a second silver when she finished second in the bang-bang finish of the 50-meter freestyle. Manuel was just .02 seconds behind the winner, Denmark’s Pernille Blume, in a race where the top six finishers were all within .12 seconds of each other.

Overall, the Americans won 33 medals, including 16 golds, one of their best Olympic performances ever.

You can see our full swimming story here.

Here are the other highlights from Saturday:

U.S. Women Rowers Take Third Straight Gold

The American eight delivered as expected, winning their third straight Olympic gold and extending their perfect record at the Olympics and the world championships to 11 straight years.

The American rowers were trailing at 1,000 meters, the halfway point, but steadily powered their way into the lead and finished in 6 minutes, 1:49 seconds, more than two seconds ahead of runner-up Great Britain.

“We feel so fortunate to be part of this team,” said Eleanor Logan, who was also part of the gold medal teams in 2008 and 2012. “The hunger to be the best they can be every day has pushed us to a new level. We’re not really comparing, we just had to look every day to be better ourselves.”

The scenery for the rowing competition in Guanabara Bay is spectacular. The rowers are surrounded by mountains with a view of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

But the traditional victory celebration lacked one key element — the American women did not toss coxswain Katelin Snyder into the heavily polluted water out of concern it could make her ill.

Monica Puig gives Puerto Rico its first gold

Puerto Rico has had its own Olympic team since 1948 and has won eight medals, but never a gold until Saturday, when Monica Puig battled her way to a three-set victory over Germany’s Angelique Kerber.

The fans supporting Puig were so enthusiastic that the chair umpire requested silence several times, then simply shushed the audience.

Puig won the first set 6-4, then dropped the second 6-4. She then took the final set decisively, 6-1.

“I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would happen,” said Puig.

You can see our full story on Puig’s victory here.

Dutch equestrian cuts short competition to protect ailing horse

Dressage rider Adelinde Cornelissen came to Rio with her horse Parzival and high hopes — they won individual silver and team bronze in London.

But the horse fell ill earlier this week.

“I saw the right side of his head was swollen, he had been kicking the walls. I took his temperature: he had a fever of over 40 degrees Celcius (104 Fahrenheit),” she wrote on her Facebook page, adding that she thought he was bitten by a spider or a mosquito.

Parzival’s temperature returned to normal and veterinarians cleared him to compete. But “he didn’t feel very powerful,” she wrote.

“Being the fighter he is, he never gives up,” she added. “But in order to protect him, I gave up … My buddy, my friend, the horse that has given everything for me his whole life does not deserve this…. So I saluted and left the arena.”

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Alex Rodriguez returned to the infield, hugged a reception line of teammates and was handed the final ball from his final game with the New York Yankees. He walked to the area behind third base, leaned down and grabbed a handful of dirt.

Baseball’s most notorious star of the last two decades then headed back to the dugout after a Yankee Stadium finale Friday night that included a pregame ceremony punctuated by thunder cracks and cut short by a downpour, a first-inning RBI double and a surprising ninth-inning return to third base.

A sellout crowd of 46,459 gave him standing ovations and chanted his name, admiration and perhaps even affection coming out after more than a decade of trouble and tension.

“I’ve given these fans a lot of headaches over the years and I’ve disappointed a lot of people,” he said after the 6-3 victory over Tampa Bay, his voice sounding hoarse over the public-address system in one of baseball’s most unusual farewells. “But like I’ve always said, you don’t have to be defined by your mistakes. How you come back matters, too, and that’s what New York’s all about.”

He will be cut Saturday by a Yankees team pivoting to youth. The 41-year-old designated hitter isn’t sure whether he will play again.
A-Rod drove a 96 mph fastball from Chris Archer into the right-center field gap in the first inning, ending an 0-for-11 slide. Rodriguez then grounded out, struck out and bounced out again on the first pitch in his last at-bat. The 1-for-4 night left him with a .200 average, nine homers and 31 RBIs in his 12th and final Yankees season.

With the sellout crowd of 46,459 chanting “We want A-Rod!” Yankees manager Joe Girardi sent him to third base for the first time in 15 months at the start of the ninth inning as the organist played “Thanks for Memory.”
Rodriguez had criticized Girardi for benching him for most of the past month.
“If this is the last time he plays,” Girardi said softly, pausing for 10 seconds and sniffling as his voice cracked and his eyes teared, “I wanted it to be something he never forgot.”

Girardi offered to leave him in the field for two outs, but Rodriguez opted to leave after Mikie Mahtook’s leadoff strikeout. Fans applauded, many of whom never warmed to a player who in 2009 admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, then served a yearlong drug suspension in 2014.

Rodriguez raised his cap and an arm before walking into the dugout, sitting down and holding a white towel to his face as he tried to hold back tears.
‘With all that I’ve been through, and for them to show up on a night like tonight and show me that type love is something that I’ll never forget. It was overwhelming,” he said during a news conference, perfectly coifed in a gray suit and silver necktie.

Dark clouds rolled in from the northwest as his ceremony began. Rodriguez’s family was on the field and public address announcer Paul Olden said: “Alex, you spent 12 of your 22 seasons with the Yankees” when a loud thunder crack shook the ballpark, as if ordered by a film director.

Rain started to fall during a video message from Lou Piniella, Rodriguez’s first big league manager, and the festivities ended awkwardly after 10 minutes when a downpour began.

Ten minutes later, the clouds started to clear, symbolic of A-Rod’s time in New York, and a rainbow came out shortly before the first pitch.

“It was certainly like Biblical. Did you hear the thunder crackle?” he said. “You can’t make that up. I guess we went out with a bang.”

With the Bleacher Creatures chanting his name during the traditional roll call and the rest of the fans joining in, Rodriguez raised his cap toward them from the dugout.

Fans gave him a 30-second ovation when he walked up to the plate in the bottom half and stood and took photos and videos during his at-bats. Rodriguez clapped as he came out of the batter’s box and pumped both arms in triumph as he reached second base without a throw.

“Take it easy on the old man,” Rodriguez told the 27-year-old Archer before the game.

Starlin Castro had four RBIs for the Yankees, hitting a tiebreaking, two-run homer in the sixth off Archer (6-16) that gave CC Sabathia (7-9) his second win since mid-June.

Rodriguez had slept late, ate his egg whites, stretched and took one final trip to the ballpark as a New York player.

“The last time I drive up Broadway and through Harlem and through the neighborhoods that have brought so much comfort to me,” he said.

In a 4-for-47 funk, Rodriguez started for just the third time in 19 games, the 2,784th and perhaps final regular-season appearance in a career that started with Seattle in 1994, moved on to Texas in 2001 and then New York three years later. Admitting to plenty of errors in a life that has included the 2009 World Series title, a divorce, celebrity girlfriends, high-stakes poker games and what seemed to be as many photos on tabloid fronts as backs, he leaves without establishing his own era. Rodriguez was a supporting actor in the Derek Jeter-Mariano Rivera epoch, and when the stars left the cast he could not carry the show.

He has 696 home runs, fourth on the career list behind Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). But owner Hal Steinbrenner told him on Aug. 3 the end was at hand, and Rodriguez said last Sunday he had accepted an offer to play one final home game and then become a team adviser through 2017, tasked with mentoring young players.

“With all my screw-ups and how badly I acted, the fact that I’m walking out the door, Hal wants me as part of the family, that’s hitting 800 home runs for me,” Rodriguez said.

New York will owe him $7,103,825 for the rest of this year and $20 million for next, the final season of his $275 million, 10-year contract.

Having seen his lights go down on Broadway, is Miami 2017 in his future?
He has not said he is retiring.

“I’m going to need a long nap and recover and I want to see where life takes me,” he said, “but right now I think I value wearing this uniform, and for me the Yankees pinstripes is enough.”

A 14-time All-Star and three-time AL MVP, A-Rod has a .295 batting average, 3,115 hits and his 2,086 RBIs, second to Aaron’s 2,297 since RBIs became an official statistic. Earlier this week in Boston, as A-Rod watched the offensive exploits of 23-year-old teammate Gary Sanchez, a realization dawned.

“I can’t do that anymore,” Rodriguez remembered telling him. “And I was happy about it. I’m at peace.”

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Cyclist Kristin Armstrong has a regular job and a son. And as of today, she also has three Olympic gold medals. After becoming the only cyclist – male or female – to win three consecutive golds in the same discipline, Armstrong, who turns 43 Thursday, said she hopes to inspire other moms.

After calling this victory at Rio’s Summer Olympics “the most gratifying” of her three individual championships, Armstrong urged other female athletes not to let negative ideas seep into their minds about what they’re capable of.

She said:

“I think that for so long we’ve been told that we should be finished at a certain age. And I think that there’s a lot of athletes out there that are actually showing that that’s not true.

“For all the moms out there, I hope that this was a very inspiring day.”

She then discussed the importance of balance in her life as a world-beating athlete:

“Working at a great hospital in Boise, Idaho, and being a mom has been my secret weapon. It provides me balance and it keeps me on track and it keeps me super focused.”

Focus is always important in a time trial, but on Thursday, it was as much about survival as success: While yesterday’s sunny weather would have been ideal for a ride, conditions turned nasty overnight, with a soaking rain forcing Armstrong and the other riders – who start time trials at intervals and ride without any teammates – to deal with slippery road conditions on a hilly, technical course.

Armstrong said she relied on her experience today to average nearly 25 mph over the course. She was close to the lead throughout — but she said she found another burst of energy toward the end, when her coach radioed to tell her, “You’re in the medals. Now it’s up to you what color you want to bring home.”

As Armstrong recalled, “That hit me really hard. All of a sudden, I think my speed went from about 48k an hour (nearly 30 mph) to 53k an hour (nearly 33 mph).”

A two-time world champion in the time trial, Armstrong has real stature in the cycling world. But if you’re not familiar with her, it could be because she doesn’t have glitzy endorsement deals that make her a household name. Armstrong and her family live in Idaho, where she works at a hospital and trains when she finds time to ride her bike.

After today’s race, Armstrong told reporters that she has repeatedly faced questions about why she’s come out of retirement and still wants to compete at an elite level despite her age and the several hip surgeries she underwent back in 2013.

A clever answer would be nice to have, Armstrong said, but she adds that she has only one reply: “Because I can.”

As for her job, Armstrong works at St. Luke’s hospital in Boise, where she’s the director of community health. She was allowed to cut her hours down to 16 hours a week last fall, she said, so her family’s health insurance would remain in effect while she trained for the Rio Summer Games. Her son, Lucas, was born in 2010.

Armstrong said she spends her says working with non-profit groups, bridging a gap between physicians and disease prevention programs.

“It’s a dream job,” she said. “I love it.”

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The meeting was highly anticipated, and it didn’t disappoint — particularly from Lilly King’s point of view. One day after King spoke bluntly about rival Yuliya Efimova’s doping offenses, she beat Efimova to win a gold medal in the women’s 100m breaststroke at Rio’s Summer Olympics.

“I’m proud to be competing clean and doing what is right,” King said after the race. “But I need to respect the IOC’s decision” — referring to the announcement over the weekend that Efimova would be allowed to compete.

King’s time of 1:04.93 set an Olympic record, as she gave the U.S. its first gold medal in the past 16 years in women’s breaststroke. She won just after teammate Ryan Murphy had netted his own gold medal and Olympic record in the men’s backstroke.

Efimova, the Russian who has been sanctioned for cheating, trailed just behind King at the finishing line and narrowly edged King’s teammate, Katie Meili, who won bronze.

The win set off a new round of questions for King concerning her feelings about athletes who’ve been caught doping. When asked if she felt track star Justin Gatlin should be on Team USA in Rio, King didn’t mince words, saying “Do I think somebody who has been caught for doping should be on the team? No, I don’t.”

When it was time for Efimove to address the media, she said she had paid a price for her actions.

“I made mistakes and I was banned for six months,” she said. “The second time was not my mistake.”

For King and Meilli, the result set off a celebration that King would later cite as part of the reason she didn’t make a point to congratulate Efimova.

“If I’d been in Yulia’s position, I’d not want to be congratulated by someone not speaking highly of me,” ,” King said, adding, “If she was wishing to be congratulated, I apologize. She had a fantastic swim and I always look forward to racing her. I was just in the moment with Katie.”

Efimova was asked whether she regrets competing in the Olympics, given the boos that greeted her name in Rio.

“I am just happy to be here. For me it was very hard to swim today and this is three weeks it’s been like crazy,” she said. “Now I feel really happy as after everything it is a good time and it’s the best I can do right now.”

King’s win came moments after the U.S. had just earned another gold medal, this one courtesy of Ryan Murphy’s win in the backstroke at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio’s Barra da Tijuca district. And like King, Murphy also shared his moment with a teammate: bronze winner David Plummer.

For all of the American swimmer’s we’ve mentioned above, this is their first Olympics – just as it was for Kathleen Baker, who won the silver medal Monday in the women’s 100-meter backstroke.

Murphy won in 51.97 seconds, setting a new Olympic standard and updating a mark that had last been set by Matt Grevers at the 2012 London 2012 Summer Olympics. He also continued a streak of U.S. dominance in the backstroke, which Americans have won in the past six summer Olympics.

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An emotional and invigorating Hall of Fame weekend came to a grinding halt Sunday night when the Green Bay Packers-Indianapolis Colts game was canceled because of poor field conditions.

One day after Brett Favre led the eight-member class of 2016 into the hall, its president, David Baker announced the cancellation after discussing problems with the turf with both teams. He said it was a safety issue and that all fans would be fully refunded for ticket purchases, which will cost the hall several million dollars.

“This is a hard decision, but we know it is the right decision,” Baker said. “In some respects a hard decision because of the impact it has. This is an important game to the people in Canton.”

The NFL and NFL Players Association said in a statement: “We are very disappointed for our fans, but player safety is our primary concern, and as a result, we could not play an NFL game on this field tonight.”

Baker noted that the field was new and had been approved when inspected after its first installation. But paint congealed at midfield and in the end zone, hardening those areas. Workers used a variety of equipment to smooth the artificial surface. Rubber pellets used in the turf came loose and were scattered in several spots and needed to be removed, as well.

“We know a lot of you came a long way,” Baker told the crowd, which booed when his name was announced. “Here at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we have the greatest respect for players and for player safety. As a result of some painting on the field today, some questions arose.”

Team physicians also were consulted.

“We thought we would be able to remediate it by delaying the game for as much as an hour,” Baker added. “But in the end, if it’s remotely close to unsafe, we conferred with the league, we think the best thing to do is respect the safety of the players. It’s the only thing to do.

“I can tell you, I had a son who played in this league. If it happened with him on the field, I would have wanted someone to make the same decision.”

This was not the first cancellation of an NFL exhibition game – the Hall of Game contest was not played in 2011 because of the lockout – but it was the most high-profile preseason match to be called off.

In 2001, a new artificial surface at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium was deemed too dangerous for the Eagles to play the Ravens.

Both teams walked onto the field at 8 p.m., moments before the game would have kicked off, and the players saluted the crowd. When the hall’s class of 2016 was introduced the stands remained relatively full for that. But then many fans departed the stadium even though the halftime show featuring Lee Greenwood was held.

Colts coach Chuck Pagano said he was disappointed but understood the cancellation. He was looking to “find out about a lot of these young players.”

Packers coach Mike McCarthy saluted the many Packers fans who came to Canton to see Favre inducted into the hall.

“We really were looking forward to performing tonight,” McCarthy said. “You get tired of practicing against yourself and you get to play a real game.”

Many of the thousands of Packers fans in Canton returned Sunday to Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. They sat watching highlights of Favre’s speech and of Friday night’s concert featuring Tim McGraw before they were told about the game’s cancellation.

Also inducted were Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, Orlando Pace, Kevin Greene, Ken Stabler, Dick Stanfel and Ed DeBartolo Jr.

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It was a match that lived up to its billing: the U.S., the world’s top-ranked women’s soccer team, taking on No. 3 France in a close contest that saw stellar play from both goalkeepers and ended with a 1-0 American victory.

The tense tone was set in the first minutes, with both offenses putting the ball into the penalty area for scoring chances – and both defenses quickly defusing those threats. That pattern held for all of the first half, and for part of the second.

The U.S. broke the 0-0 tie nearly 20 minutes into the second half, with Carli Lloyd putting away a ricochet that had eluded French goalie Sarah Bouhaddi’s grasp after a hard shot on the near post by Tobin Heath.

Shortly after that score, U.S. coach Jill Ellis moved to preserve the lead, inserting defender Ali Krieger into the game in place of Crystal Dunn — who had just been given a yellow card for a sliding tackle.

The U.S. was playing without another stalwart of its back line, as defender Julie Johnston wasn’t in the starting lineup. France repeatedly sought to exploit this by lofting corners and free kicks to the 6-foot-2 Wendie Renard.

France used a flurry of substitutions to try to equalize late in the second half, but the French side was unable to convert several scoring chances.

As in the U.S. victory over New Zealand on Wednesday, many spectators in Belo Horizonte seized every opportunity to jeer U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo. In what’s now become a familiar pattern, whistles rained down on the field as Solo handled the ball. When she kicked it away, fans yelled in unison, “Zika!”

That jeering is how many Brazilian fans have chosen to respond to Solo’s posting of a selfie last month that showed her wearing a protective hat and holding a can of bug spray.

Solo faced at least three dangerous shots in the first half, and she negated them all, getting her gloves on a header off a free kick; a close-range shot on a breakaway, and on another point-blank blast from a French attacker who had eluded the Americans’ defense. More threats came in the second, but Solo turned them away, and in some cases the shots dinged off the goal’s pipes.

France used an organized defense and a solid midfield to dominate possession in the game’s first 20 minutes, owning the ball for nearly 60 percent of the time. But the U.S. team leveled that statistic as the game wore on, and controlled possession in the second half.

With the win, the United States is 2-0 in Group G ahead of Tuesday’s match against Colombia at Amazonia Arena. The Americans are assured of advancing to the tournament’s knockout stage, which begins Friday.

The Americans are going for their fourth straight Olympic gold and their fifth in the last six Summer Games.

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