Jessica Hull has become the first Australian female runner to win an Olympic 1500m medal, finishing a sensational second behind legendary Kenyan Faith Kipyegon at the Paris Games.

It comes after Australia’s Stingers claimed silver in the water polo after a 11-9 loss in gold medal winner Spain.

Hull, 27, was in third place with 100 metres to go but was able to overtake flagging Ethiopian Diribe Welteji in the final straight to pocket the silver in three minutes 52.56 seconds – her second-fastest time ever.

Kipyegon won a third successive Olympic 1500m title in 3:51.29 on Saturday, with Britain’s Georgia Bell flying home to take the bronze.

It was the first time an Australian woman had won an Olympic medal on the track at a distance further than 800m.

Since moving back to Australia fulltime a year ago, Hull has been coached by her father Simon, a former national level middle-distance runner.

Prior to that she was based in Oregon and coached by Pete Julian.

Hull made two huge breakthroughs last month, raising expectations that she was ready to medal on the biggest stage of all.

Hull reacts after winning silver n the Women’s 1500m Final.  Photo: AAP

It was Australia’s seventh track and field medal of the Paris Games – the second-biggest tally in Games history, behind only the 12 medals won on home soil in Melbourne in 1956.

Edwin Flack (1896) and Herb Elliott (1960) are the only Australians to win Olympic 1500m titles.

Wounding end for Stingers

The Stingers suffered Olympic heartbreak as their frustrating 24-year wait for the biggest title in water polo goes on.

Unbeaten throughout the tournament, history-making coach Bec Rippon’s team finally met their match in a brilliant Spanish side, inspired by four-goal Bea Ortiz and hat-trick star Maica Garcia Godoy at a throbbing La Defense Arena on Saturday.

Not even five goals from their own brilliant top scorer Alice Williams was enough for the Stingers, who had been attempting to emulate the famous class of Sydney 2000, who won the inaugural women’s tournament at home.

Since then, they have suffered so many near-misses in global tournaments and here was another, having to settle for silver after being largely outplayed by Spaniards, who upgraded their own second-place finish at the Tokyo Games.

“I’m so proud of this team but this was hard,” admitted Rippon, who had been a player in the bronze-medal winning team in Beijing in 2008 and is now the first female coach of an Olympic medal-winning women’s team.

“We had a lot of good looks at goal but didn’t finish well, didn’t take the most of our opportunities.

Williams ended up as the tournament’s leading scorer on 21 goals while, in goal, the outstanding Gabriella Palm had another big game.

Weightlifting heartbreak

Eileen Cikamatana was in tears and her coach Paul Coffa is reconsidering retirement after she fell short of their lofty Olympic weightlifting goals.

Coffa had confidently predicted the 24-year-old would win a medal, but the Fijian-born Cikamatana underperformed in the clean and jerk and finished fourth.

Norwegian Solfrid Koanda won gold on Sunday in the 81kg class with an Olympic record total of 275kg.

Koanda’s final clean and jerk lift of 154kg also broke the Olympic mark.

“It’s pretty disappointing not to be on the podium. But it happens – we have good days, we have bad days,” Cikamatana said of her Olympic debut

“It was just a bad day, especially in the clean and jerk. It was not my day.

“We’ve worked so hard to be where we are today. But it’s life, I can’t say much about it … I didn’t deliver.”

Cikamatana said Coffa, who coached Dean Lukin to Australia’s only Olympic weightlifting gold medal in 1984, is like a father to her.

“I’m pretty disappointed not giving him a medal, even though we’ve come a long, long way,” she said.

Green falls short of golf medal

Australia’s Hannah Green has fallen agonisingly short of a golf medal for the second time as New Zealand’s Lydia Ko completed her Olympic collection, adding gold.

Green ended her final round on Saturday in the bronze medal position, painfully missing a tough birdie putt on the 18th at Le Golf National.

She then had to wait for the rest of the field to finish, with the West Australian pushed down to a share of fourth by China’s Lin Xiyu, who nailed her own birdie on the final hole to move one stroke ahead.

Green also narrowly missed the medals in her Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago, finishing fifth, continuing Australia’s wait for a golf medal with Jason Day the leading male in Paris in ninth.

The victory completes the Olympic medal collection for 27-year-old Ko, who won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo.

Happy-go-lucky Rousseau pipped

Cassiel Rousseau’s Paris campaign has almost netted him a medal, the Australian pipped for bronze in a 10m platform final with its share of twists and turns.

The 23-year-old from Brisbane, a world champion in the event last year, hadn’t rated himself a medal chance even after finding his groove to qualify fourth for the Saturday final in Paris.

So overall fourth place was a pleasant surprise for the former child circus performer, even if his only blip – on a back, three-and-a-half somersaulting pike – denied him a spot on the podium.

Earlier, Adelaide 18-year-old Jaxon Bowshire (379.40) was on track for a remarkable finals appearance, snug inside the top 10 until battling with his final two efforts to finish 16th in the semi-final.

Tiernan ‘really happy’ with run

Australian Pat Tiernan says he finally has an Olympic performance that reflects his ability after overcoming hot weather and a brutally tough course to finish a creditable 24th in the men’s marathon in Paris.

Ethiopian Tamirat Tola claimed a remarkable solo victory in an Olympic record time of two hours six minutes and 26 seconds in a race that proved too tough for two of the greatest distance runners in history – legendary Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele and two-time defending champ Eliud Kipchoge.

Bekele finished 39th – almost six minutes behind Tola – and Kenyan Kipchoge fared even worse, failing to complete the course.

Little’s campaign crumble

Having eclipsed the javelin Olympic gold medal mark less than a month ago, a shattered Mackenzie Little was left to wonder what might have been after her Paris campaign fell flat.

Little, who juggles athletics with a full-time career as a doctor at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, was one of three throwers cut from Saturday night’s 12-strong final at Stade de France after three attempts.

The winner, Japan’s world champion Haruka Kitaguchi, took gold with 65.80m with South Africa’s Jo-Ane van Dyk (63.93) and Czech Nicola Ogrodniikova (63.68) taking the minor medals.

—with AAP