Wrestler Jordan Burroughs had his eyes on a gold medal for months, and he let everyone know about his plans.

Then he delivered.

The 24-year-old American backed up all that talk, beating Iran’s Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi 1-0, 1-0 in the men’s 74-kilogram freestyle division to give the U.S. its first wrestling gold in London.

“A lot of people call it cocky, people call it overconfident,” said Burroughs, who selected @alliseeisgold for his Twitter handle. “But I knew I was going to win.”

Burroughs, who grew up in New Jersey, has won 38 straight international freestyle matches and is the first Olympian to claim the $250,000 prize from the Living the Dream Medal Fund, a program designed to support U.S. wrestling.

An hour after beating Goudarzi, the tweet-happy Burroughs posted a shot of himself beaming beside his gold.

SWIMMING

Ous Mellouli of Tunisia won the grueling 10-kilometer race to become the first swimmer to win medals in the pool and open water at the same Olympics.

Mellouli pulled away from a small group of leaders in the fifth of six laps and finished in 1 hour, 49 minutes, 55.1 seconds in the murky waters of the Serpentine in Hyde Park. He also won bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle last week.

It was the second gold of Mellouli’s Olympic career. He also took the 1,500 at the 2008 Beijing Games. Thomas Lurz of Germany was second, 3.4 seconds behind.

SAILING

Australia’s Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page, and New Zealand’s Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie won the 470 class gold medals by overwhelming their British rivals on Weymouth Bay.

The U.S. failed to win an Olympic sailing medal for the first time since 1936.

With a lack of wind at the sailing venue in Weymouth & Portland on Thursday, all racing was abandoned for the day. Americans Anna Tunnicliffe, Molly O’Bryan Vandemoer of UH, and Debbie Capozzi, who were eliminated from the women’s match racing quarterfinal round on Wednesday by Finland, were scheduled to compete against The Netherlands for fifth and sixth place. With the abandonment of racing, their overall scores from the earlier rounds stood, leaving the U.S. in fifth place.

SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING

There’s no question which country is the best at synchronized swimming.

Russia grabbed the team gold medal for its fourth consecutive team win and sixth straight overall gold.

The Russians totaled 197.030 points with a free routine featuring swimmers doing acrobatic flips and pirouetting like ballerinas above the water.

BOXING

Lightweight Vasyl Lomachenko and two Ukrainian teammates advanced to gold-medal bouts.

Lomachenko, Chinese light flyweight Zou Shiming and Italian super heavyweight Roberto Cammarelle all won their semifinals, earning the right to fight during the final weekend for their second straight Olympic gold medals.

Britain will have three fighters in gold-medal bouts. Bantamweight Luke Campbell, welterweight Freddie Evans and super heavyweight Anthony Joshua also scored semifinal wins.

TAE KWON DO

South Korea’s Hwang Kyung-seon defended her Olympic title in the women’s 67-kilogram division, and Sebastian Crismanich of Argentina won the gold medal in the men’s 80-kg category.

Hwang defeated Turkey’s Nur Tatar 12-5 in a final in which both fighters attacked from the start.

Five-time world champion American Steven Lopez lost his opening bout in the men’s competition. Family members said later that he had a broken leg.

FIELD HOCKEY

The Netherlands retained the women’s Olympic title with a 2-0 win over world champion Argentina at Riverbank Arena.

Carlien Dirkse van den Heuvel and captain Maartje Paumen scored for the Netherlands, which will try for the first-ever Olympic double when its men’s team takes on Germany today.