Peralta struck after just 30 seconds and the Mexican striker sealed one of the all-time great Olympic upsets when he scored again late in the second half.
Hulk got one back in stoppage-time but Mexico, playing in their first Olympic final, were deserved winners as Brazil once again failed to end their long wait for a first football gold.
While Brazil have graced the World Cup with some of the best players and most dazzling performances ever seen on football’s grandest stage, the Selecao have never managed to replicate those golden moments at the Games and this was another miserable chapter in their Olympic history.
Brazil, bronze medallists in Beijing in 2008, lost in the Olympic final in 1984 and 1988 and their failure to win gold has rankled with such a proud football nation for decades.
Meanwhile, India’s men’s hockey team lost their sixth game out of six at the Olympics on Saturday when a 3-2 defeat to South Africa condemned them to 12th and last place in the tournament.It was the first time that the eight-time champions had gone through an Olympics without winning a match.
“We keep making the same mistakes all the time. We have to be aggressive. It was emotionally tough conceding the second goal. We have to be tough in the circle in future,” said Sardar Singh, one of the team’s star players.
“We have to improve a lot. It’s very disappointing. The whole team has been mentally affected.”
Australia’s men beat Britain 3-1 to win hockey bronze on Saturday, their sixth consecutive Olympic medal, having dominated the second half against the hosts.
Australia took the lead in the 17th minute when Jamie Dwyer,five-time world player of the year, set up Simon Orchard at the top of the D and he slammed the ball home. Britain keeper James Fair got his hand to the ball but could not stop it.
Britain equalised from their only penalty corner of the half, Ashley Jackson slipping the ball to Iain Lewers who put it past the keeper.
But the Australians dominated much of the second half and a penalty corner goal by Dwyer and one from free play by Kieran Govers — also set up by Dwyer — sealed victory.
With a display of stunning elegance and control, Russia’s Evgeniya Kanaeva retained her Olympic rhythmic gymnastics title on Saturday to confirm her status as the sport’s outstanding performer.
The three-time world champion scored a total of 116.900 points to finish 2.400 points above compatriot Daria Dmitrieva at Wembley Arena in west London, while Liubou Charkashnya of Belarus took the bronze medal.Kanaeva becomes the first person to have won two individual rhythmic gymnastics titles at the Olympics, following her success in Beijing four years ago.
Russia’s Sergey Kirdyapkin won the 50km race walk Saturday in record time after one of the London Olympics’ most punishing events which left several athletes collapsed in exhaustion at the finish.
Under hot sun in the British capital, the two-time world champion, 32, timed an Olympic record of 3hrs 35min 59sec to beat Australia’s Jared Tallent, who took a second successive silver, by 54sec.
Si Tianfeng gave China their first Olympic medal in the 50km walk as he took the bronze, 1min 17sec adrift.
The fast pace told as Japan’s Koichiro Morioka, finishing 10th, was one of a number of competitors who had to be helped off and treated for overheating and dehydration at the finish near Buckingham Palace.
A crash in training two days ago could have ruined everything, yet Julie Bresset led from the start to earn France their first cycling gold medal at the London Olympics with a solo victory in the mountain bike on Saturday.
The 2011 World Cup winner, 23, smoothly pulled away and never looked back to beat German Sabine Spitz, who came into the race as the defending champion, by 62 seconds.
American Georgia Gould took bronze, 68 seconds off the pace.
Bresset grabbed a French flag just before the line, waved it in celebration before lifting her bike over her head in delight, a broad smile on her face.
“Two days ago, I was practising my start and my front wheel slipped,” Bresset told reporters.
“I cut my arm and my knee, so two days before the start, I was not good at all. I needed seven stitches. I though ‘it’s not possible’.”
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