With a sensational victory, the Japanese Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito brought the hosts the eighth gold medal of the current summer games at the Olympic mixed table tennis tournament and thus temporarily put Nippon in first place in the medal ranking.
The quarter-final conquerors of the German duo Patrick Franziska / Petrissa Solja ended in the final of the Olympic premiere of the mixed doubles with a 4: 3 over the world champions Xu Xin / Liu Shiwen China's 13-year series of victories in all table tennis competitions at the Olympics.
Bronze went to the Taiwanese Lin Yun Ju / Cheng I-Chin.
The Asians won 4-0 against the French duo Emmanuel Lebesson / Jian Nan Yuan.
Before the Rio third Mizutani, who used to play for the German record champions Borussia Düsseldorf, and the second in the world rankings Ito, the South Korean Ryu-Seung Min won the last table tennis gold for a country other than China 17 years ago in Athens in the men's singles.
Europe's only Olympic victory to date was in 1992 in Barcelona, thanks to the Swedish idol Jan-Ove Waldner.
The mixed was Olympic for the first time in Tokyo.
Due to the mixed doubles, five instead of the previous four table tennis competitions are also part of the Olympic program in Japan for the first time.
Further decisions will be made in the individual and team competitions until August 6th.