After a horror crash at the Tokyo Games, when she was taken away on a stretcher, the 24-year-old Gold Coast rider completed her emotional comeback in Paris on Saturday morning (AEDT).

Watched by her family, including brother Kai who suffered a life-changing brain injury after his own crash in 2020, Sakakibara delivered the race of her life to become the first Australian BMX racer to win Olympic gold.

Also overnight in Paris, Australian rowers Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre won their second Olympic medals, following up Tokyo gold with a Paris bronze in the pairs (more below).

Sakakibara had spoken openly about the fear she had to overcome and silence in her head as she rode the bumps and jumps of the circuit.

“I visualised this moment like two years ago when I thought about giving it all up and this is the moment that got me going again,” she said after the race.

“I just knew everything just comes down to that split second and it is either you go for it or you don’t and I just went for it.”

Sakakibara had said she wanted to win for her brother Kai who was standing trackside and “shaking” with emotion.

“None of this would have happened without Kai, without him pushing me to be the best I can be,” she said.

“Without him introducing me into the sport, without him pushing me along, and just everything. I owe so much to him.

“I feel like I am so indebted to Kai and I just wanted something that I could dedicate a win to, and this is definitely for the both of us, one hundred per cent.”

Her victory followed a first women’s BMX freestyle medal for Australia, won by fellow Queenslander Natalya Diehm on Wednesday.

It is the second Australian cycling gold medal, following Grace Brown’s win on day one in the road time trial. The last time Australian cycling won multiple gold medals at an Olympics was Athens in 2004.

Sakakibara delivered an extraordinary performance of consistent brilliance, winning all three of her quarter-final heats on Thursday and all three of Friday’s semi-final races too, also producing the two fastest times in qualifying in the final.

But in the past, the double World Cup overall champion has occasionally buckled in the biggest one-off finals, as in the world championships in May when she was excellent in the preliminary rounds but bombed in the final.

She felt that loss was a timely “kick in the bum” for the biggest test of all, and this time she was ready, roaring away at the start to reach the first tight corner first for her seventh consecutive race.

From there, no-one was going to catch her as she blitzed away on the 400m course to win in 34.231 seconds, way clear of her seven rivals.

Fiften minutes earlier, though, another Australian hope Izaac Kennedy had suffered a dramatic fall on the first corner of the men’s final.

Knowing he needed a blistering start to give himself any chance of winning a medal, the 23-year-old Gold Coast rider tried to dip down wide and swiftly on the first of the U-bends to get into contention, only to clip the side of the track and go tumbling at high speed.

Slumped in misery on the track, the good news was that he was able to struggle to his feet, remount and slowly make his way back to the finish.

France swept the men’s medals, with Joris Daudet winning ahead of Sylvain Andre.

Rowing duo win bronze

Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre are celebrating becoming two-time Olympic medallists after winning Australia’s first rowing medal in Paris, clinching bronze in the women’s pair.

The Australians finished behind dominant Dutch duo Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester, with Romanians Ioana Vrinceanu and Roxana Anghel taking silver on Friday morning at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.

It’s the second Olympic medal for the Australian duo after they won gold racing in the four in Tokyo.

The pair were embraced by billionaire mining magnate and rowing benefactor Gina Rinehart after receiving their medal.

Morrison, 32, said Rinehart did more than just write cheques for the rowers.

“She was just saying how proud of us she was,” said Morrison, who despite completing an economics degree and MBA relies on Rinehart’s direct funding to the sport.

“She’s really a part of the experience. She doesn’t just provide support and watch from afar, she’s really in it with us.

“We get messages from her and she really stays up in the loop in her busy schedule so we really appreciate the amount of time she takes.”

Morrison and McIntyre join Kate Slatter, who won gold in the pair in 1996 and silver in 2000, and Kim Brennan, who earned two sculling medals in London and gold in Rio, as the only Australian women with multiple Olympic rowing medals.

The pair said they were satisfied they had given their all.

“We’re really proud of ourselves,” the 27-year-old West Australian McIntrye said.

“We went out there to execute our race plan and that was to be really aggressive out of the start and just race the race, really.

“It’s always hard to get pipped on the line but we’re really proud of our performance. We put everything out there today and couldn’t have done much better.”

Clevering and Meester, who were part of the Dutch four Australia relegated to silver in Tokyo, burst out from the start line and were never headed.

They finishing 4.3 seconds clear as the rest of the field battled for the minor medals.

Australia appeared destined for silver after sitting in that position for much of the final but were overtaken by Romania about 100m before the finish, missing second by 0.57 seconds.

The bronze medal offers some redemption for Morrison and McIntyre after they missed the pair final altogether in Tokyo.

They were attempting the rare feat in Olympic rowing of winning medals in two different boat classes at a Games and achieved their first goal with gold in the four.

But due to a tropical storm, Tokyo organisers rescheduled racing which meant the pair only had two hours between the final of the four and the semi-final of the pair, rather than the expected 24 hours.

It proved too tough, with the duo fading in the final metres to miss the medal race by 0.34 seconds.

“It was just finishing off the cycle. Coming away with not just the journey but I guess the hardware as well is always nice,” McIntyre said.

– with AAP