SAINT-DENIS, France — American Masai Russell won the women’s 100-meter hurdles in a photo finish on Saturday, with the biggest cheers going to Cyrena Samba-Mayela, whose silver medal was the first ever of any color for France in the Olympic track and field meetings.

In a close race on the straight, Russell finished in 12.33 seconds, but had to wait another 15 seconds to learn that she had beaten the Frenchwoman by 0.01 seconds.

Defending champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who competes for Puerto Rico, was another 0.02 seconds behind and took the bronze medal.

The cheers for Samba-Mayela on the last match day at the Stade de France were greater than those for the host country.

The stadium was packed all nine nights, cheering on sports stars from the United States, Kenya, Norway and all parts of the world.

However, the biggest cheer for a French athlete up to that point was for swimmer Léon Marchand, who won a gold medal in the pool on the opening night of the athletics meeting, prompting the competition organizers to call for calm while the crowd, watching on tablets and smartphones, went crazy.

Now Samba-Mayela gave them the chance to celebrate in person. It’s a nice change for a country with a long athletics tradition that has produced Olympic champions such as Marie-José Pérec and Renaud Lavillenie. Despite that medal, France has yet to win an Olympic gold in athletics since Lavillenie won the pole vault in 2012.

In the men’s race, Kenyan Emmanuel Wanyonyi won gold in the men’s 800-meter race.

Canadian Marco Arop took silver and Algerian Djamel Sedjati took bronze.

This report uses information from Associated Press and Reuters.