Tokyo Olympics were a showcase of resilience amid an attempt at normalcy
TOKYO — A tropical storm swept into the city before dawn, gusts of wind bringing heavy clouds and drenching rain, as if the Tokyo Olympics didn’t have enough problems.
The COVID-19 pandemic had forced a year’s postponement and, with much of Japan still in a state of emergency, cancellation remained possible to the last moment. Even as the massive sporting event lurched ahead, spectators were banned, leaving athletes to compete in eerily quiet stadiums and arenas.
“Some were already speaking of a ghost Games,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said.
On Sunday, with inclement weather threatening to ruin the closing ceremony, the sky lifted and brightened by late afternoon. After 17 rocky days, these Summer Games had once again found a way to get by.
Athletes from around the world gather at Olympic Stadium for the closing ceremony
Here’s a look at some of the festivities that took place during the Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony at Olympic Stadium:
Final medal count for the Tokyo Olympic Games
Here’s the final medal count for every country that competed in the Tokyo Olympic Games from July 23-Aug. 8, 2021.
With competition over, all that’s left is the closing ceremony
Competition at the Tokyo Games is over and that means just one event is left — the closing ceremony.
The closing ceremony will take place at 4 a.m. PDT on Sunday (8 p.m. in Tokyo). NBCOlympics.com, Peacock and the NBC Sports app will stream the ceremony live. NBC will broadcast it starting at 5 p.m. PDT Sunday.
Jennifer Valente comes back from fall to give U.S. first gold in omnium cycling
Jennifer Valente got up from a crash in the omnium-ending points race to hang on for the gold medal, capping what had been an otherwise frustrating and disappointing Olympics for American cycling.
Valente won the opening scratch race, picked up three sprints in the points race and performed well in the elimination race to take an eight-point lead into the points race, where points are awarded for sprints every 10 laps.
Valente won the first sprint to pad her lead, then got up from a crash with 30 laps left to keep from losing any ground on her pursuers. She wound up taking second in the final sprint to secure the gold medal.
Yumi Kajihara took silver for Japan. Kirsten Wild earned bronze for the Netherlands.
U.S. women’s basketball defeats Japan for seventh consecutive Olympic gold
SAITAMA, Japan — Fifty-five.
It started with a bounce back, a recovery from a loss to leave Barcelona in 1992 with a bronze. That one win turned into a streak for the United States women’s basketball team in Atlanta, with Dawn Staley becoming the heartbeat of a team of legends as its point guard.
By the end of those games, it was nine in a row, the U.S. reclaiming gold. In Australia they won eight more, the winning streak building as quickly as their sport’s emerging footprint in America. In Athens, with new blood like Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird on the roster, they won eight more.
Over the next 17 years, the stacked wins and gold medals, building an unstoppable dynasty at the Olympics. The two-game winning streak Staley built in 1996? It had grown to an absurd 54 games by the time of Sunday’s Olympic game.
And to celebrate win No. 55, they were given gold.
For the seventh consecutive Olympics, no one was better in the Tokyo women’s basketball tournament, the Americans unbeaten and mostly unchallenged as they routed host Japan 90-75 on Sunday.
Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya successfully defends Olympic men’s marathon title
SAPPORO, Japan — Eliud Kipchoge pulled away late and no one could come close to catching him as the 36-year-old from Kenya defended his Olympic marathon title.
Kipchoge finished in 2 hours 8 minutes 38 seconds on a breezy and humid Sunday along the streets of Sapporo. It was more than 80 seconds ahead of runner-up Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands. Bashir Abdi of Belgium earned bronze to close out the track and field portion of the Tokyo Games.
Kipchoge smiled along the way and even fist-bumped a fellow racer. Kipchoge becomes the third athlete to win multiple gold medals in the men’s marathon, joining Abebe Bikila (1960, ’64) and Waldemar Cierpinski (’76, ’80).
A day after winning bronze in the 400 meters, Allyson Felix wins gold with the 1,600-meter relay team at the Tokyo Olympics. It’s her 11th medal.
Kipchoge, wearing white-and-pink Nikes, took off around the 30-kilometer mark and never looked back.
On a day with plenty of cloud cover, Kipchoge cruised. The temperature was around 77 degrees at the start and climbing to 84. The men’s race stayed at the same time after the women’s race was moved up an hour the day before to avoid the heat.
It was humid, though, at 81%, as the runners wound their way through Sapporo, which is about 500 miles north of Tokyo. The race was moved to escape the extreme heat, but it was about the same temperature in Tokyo — and rainy.
Taking the starting line were 106 runners. More than two dozen did not finish. The top American was Galen Rupp in eighth place.
Allyson Felix breaks record for most U.S. track medals in 1,600-meter relay win
Allyson Felix became the all-time leading medal winner in U.S. track and field history on Saturday when she ran the second leg of the gold-medal-winning 1,600-meter relay at Olympic Stadium.
In her final race, the five-time Olympian helped the team that also included Sydney McLaughlin leading off, Dalilah Muhammad running third and Athing Mu running anchor to finish in 3 minutes, 16.85 seconds.
Felix, 35, has won 11 medals, eclipsing the record she shared with Carl Lewis. Felix tied the record on Friday by earning a bronze medal in the 400 meters, the final individual race of her Olympic career.
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Neeraj Chopra of India wins the men’s javelin
TOKYO — Neeraj Chopra of India won the men’s javelin throw gold medal Saturday night at Olympic Stadium.
Chopra won with a mark of 287 feet, 4 inches.
Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic finished second at 284-4. Vitezslav Vesely of the Czech Republic took bronze with a mark of 280-3.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins gold medal in 1,500 meters for Norway
TOKYO — Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won the gold medal in the men’s 1,500 meters Saturday at Olympic Stadium.
Ingebrigtsen finished in 3 minutes, 28.32 seconds to outpace Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya, who finished in 3:29.01, and Josh Kerr of Britain, who finished in 3:29.05.
Cole Hocker of the United States was sixth at 3:31.40.
Matt Centrowitz of the United States, the 2016 gold medalist, did not qualify for the final.
Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan wins gold in the women’s 10,000 meters
TOKYO — Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands won gold in the women’s 10,000 meters Saturday night at Olympic Stadium.
Hassan, who also won the gold medal in the 5,000 meters, finished in 29 minutes, 55.32 seconds.
Hassan outkicked Kalkidan Gezahegne of Bahrain for the victory. Gezahegne finished in 29:56.18.
Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia finished in 30:01.72 to earn bronze.
Molly Seidel’s aggressive strategy pays off with bronze in marathon
TOKYO — Molly Seidel had a unique strategy going into the women’s Olympic marathon on Saturday in Sapporo.
“Just trying to, like, stick my nose where it didn’t belong and just kind of get after it,” she said. “I mean, Olympics only happens once every four years, you might as well take your shot.”
Seidel’s moxie paid off.
Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the gold medal with a time of 2 hours 27 minutes and 20 seconds. Brigid Kosgei of Kenya was second in 2:27:36. Seidel earned the bronze medal by finishing in 2:27:46.
The U.S. women’s water polo team dominated Spain in the gold-medal final. After personal tragedies and a year’s delay, resilience got the players here.
Seidel became the third American woman to earn a medal in the marathon, joining 1984 gold medalist Joan Benoit-Samuelson and 2004 bronze medalist Deena Kastor.
Seidel said she was inspired by Courtney Frerichs, who won the silver medal in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
In that final, Frerichs said she took a gamble. Rather than hanging back and waiting to react to other runners’ moves, she took advantage of her strength and pushed the pace in the middle of the race to open a big lead and put pressure on others.
“Seeing your peers do incredible things kind of gives you the courage to go after it,” Seidel said.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
Nelly Korda wins Olympic women’s golf tournament to give U.S. a gold-medal sweep
KAWAGOE, Japan — Nelly Korda gave the Americans a sweep of gold medals in golf on Saturday, holding on for a one-shot victory in a thrill-a-minute finish to the Olympic women’s golf competition.
Korda led by as many as three shots on the back nine. In the end, she needed two putts from just inside 30 feet on the 18th hole for par and a 2-under 69.
Mone Inami of Japan made bogey from a plugged lie in the bunker on the 18th hole and faced a playoff against Lydia Ko of New Zealand for the silver medal.
Kevin Durant leads U.S. to gold-medal win over France in men’s basketball
There was only one acceptable outcome.
It did not matter that the lingering physical and mental effects of the NBA bubble and the compressed season that followed kept several American stars from competing. It didn’t matter that the team was vulnerable, an embarrassing seventh-place finish in the 2019 world championships more than signaling that the world had caught up.
It did not matter that the American roster, compiled of some of the NBA’s best scorers, the faces of their franchise, multi-time All-Stars, was more of a group of mercenaries than an actual team. It did not matter that COVID-19 cost them one star and that the NBA Finals kept three key players in America until the eve of competition.
It did not matter. There was only one acceptable outcome.
Luis Grijalva makes his dream come true, representing Guatemala at the Olympics
TOKYO — Luis Grijalva finished 12th in the men’s 5,000-meter final Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
He could not have been happier.
“Finished 12th in the world,” he said. “It’s insane.”
Grijalva, 22, was running for Guatemala, where he was born. He said his parents brought him to the United States when he was 1, and he was raised in Northern California and attended college at Northern Arizona.
“It’s pretty special,” he said. “I feel like it’s a privilege and honor to represent Guatemala, just for a country that’s over 15 million people but also where my family started.”
Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya wins women’s marathon; American Molly Seidel is third
Peres Jepchirchir led a 1-2 Kenyan finish in the women’s marathon, withstanding the heat and humidity while running through the streets of Sapporo.
Jepchirchir finished in a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, 20 seconds in a race moved up an hour to avoid the heat. A smattering of fans lining the course applauded as the Tokyo Games moved north for the marathons and race walks. Her teammate Brigid Kosgei was second and American Molly Seidel, a relative newcomer to the marathon stage, took home the bronze.
A race that was moved to Sapporo to avoid the extreme heat in Tokyo found little relief on a winding course through the city. The starter’s gun went off a minute after 6 a.m. local time under sunny skies and with a temperature reading of 77 degrees Fahrenheit). It climbed to nearly 86 degrees near the finish, with a humidity of around 65%.
There were 88 runners entered in the field, with more than a dozen recording a did not finish. That included world champion Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya.
Canada clinches gold in women’s soccer after shootout win over Sweden
Julia Grosso converted her kick from the spot and Canada clinched the Olympic gold medal in women’s soccer by winning a penalty shootout 3-2 against Sweden after Friday’s final ended in a 1-1 draw.
It was the first major tournament title for the Canadians, who were the bronze medalists at London in 2012 and in Rio de Janeiro five years ago.
Canadian goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe stopped Jonna Andersson to make way for Grosso, a 20-year-old player for the University of Texas, who beat Sweden goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl.
It was the second straight silver medal for the Swedes, who were also aiming for their first title in a major tournament, after falling 2-1 to Germany at Rio in 2016.
Stina Blackstenius gave Sweden the lead in the 34th minute, but Jessie Fleming equalized with a penalty kick in the 67th to tie it for Canada and the game went to extra time.
Kara Winger selected as U.S. flag bearer for closing ceremony
TOKYO — Four-time Olympian Kara Winger will be the flag bearer for the U.S. delegation during the closing ceremony at Olympic Stadium on Sunday, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced.
Winger, who finished 17th in the women’s javelin competition, was chosen in a vote by U.S. athletes. One of two captains for the U.S. track and field team, Winger is the fourth track and field athlete to lead the U.S. delegation in the closing ceremony.
“It’s an incredible honor to be selected by my fellow Team USA athletes to be our flag bearer,” Winger said in a statement. “There’s no better way to conclude my career as an Olympic athlete than to lead the U.S. team into the Closing Ceremony. On behalf of Team USA, we want to thank the Tokyo Organizing Committee, the people of Tokyo and the country of Japan for hosting these Olympic Games and bringing the world back together again through sport.”
The closing ceremony will take place at 4 a.m. PDT Sunday (8 p.m. in Tokyo). NBCOlympics.com, Peacock and the NBC Sports app will stream the ceremony live. NBC will broadcast it starting at 5 p.m. PDT Sunday.
U.S. women’s 400-meter relay team takes silver behind Jamaica
TOKYO — Jamaica won the women’s 400-meter relay gold medal and the United States earned silver on Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
Jamaica won in 41.02 seconds. The U.S. team of Javianne Oliver, Teahna Daniels, Jenna Prandini and Gabrielle Thomas finished in 41.45 seconds.
Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica, the 100-meters and 200-meters gold medalist, won her third gold medal of the Tokyo Games.
Allyson Felix wins bronze in women’s 400 to tie U.S. record for most track medals
TOKYO — Allyson Felix, running the last individual race of her storied Olympic career, won the bronze medal in the 400 meters on Friday at Olympic Stadium.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas repeated as goal medalist in 48.36 seconds. Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic took silver in 49.20. Felix, a five-time Olympian, finished in 49.46.
Felix has now won 10 medals, tying her with Carl Lewis for most by an American track and field athlete. She also eclipsed Merlene Ottey as the most decorated track and field Olympian.
Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei wins gold in 5,000 meters
TOKYO — Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda won the gold medal in the men’s 5,000 meters on Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
Cheptegei finished in a world-record time of 12 minutes 58.15 seconds.
Mohammad Ahmed of Canada earned the silver medal with a time of 12:58.61. American Paul Chelimo, the silver medalist at the 2016 Rio Games, finished third in 12:59.05, but he fell across the finish line. His finish could be subject to official review.
U.S. men’s 1,600-meter relay team qualifies for final
TOKYO — The United States men’s 1,600-meter relay team has a chance for a big finish.
The U.S. team qualified for the final by winning its heat on Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
Trevor Stewart, Randolph Ross, Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood were timed in 2 minutes 57.77 seconds, putting them in Saturday’s final, the last event that will be held at the stadium in the Olympics.
The U.S. men have won only one gold medal in track and field. Ryan Crouser won the shot put for the second consecutive Olympics, but the men have not won a running event.
The U.S. 400-meter relay team finished sixth in its heat Thursday and did not qualify for the final, which will be run later Friday.
IOC removes two coaches involved in trying to send athlete to Belarus
TOKYO — The International Olympic Committee removed two Belarus team coaches from the Olympics, four days after they were involved in trying to send sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya back to Belarus.
The IOC said it canceled and removed the credentials of Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich.
It added that the men “were requested to leave the Olympic Village immediately and have done so … in the interest of the wellbeing of the athletes.”
Shimak and Maisevich continued to have contact with Belarus athletes since Sunday after the IOC linked them to taking Tsimanouskaya in a car to the airport to put her on a plane to Belarus.
Tsimanouskaya had criticized team coaches on social media and is now in Poland with a humanitarian visa.
The IOC said Shimak and Maisevich “will be offered an opportunity to be heard” by its disciplinary commission investigating the case.
U.S. women’s basketball dominates Serbia to advance to gold-medal game
SAITAMA, Japan — The U.S. women’s basketball team, one of the Olympic Games’ most dominant forces, easily got past Serbia to earn a spot in Sunday’s gold-medal game.
The American defense smothered Serbia in a 79-59 win Friday, making any talk about its supposed vulnerabilities heading into these Olympics seem foolish.
While they weren’t particularly sharp offensively, they were more than comfortable matching Serbia’s physicality, limiting their opponents to under 30% shooting while five different American players scored at least eight points, led by Brittney Griner’s 15.
U.S. women’s volleyball defeats Serbia to advance to gold-medal match
The United States’ quest for its first gold medal in women’s volleyball might be about to end.
The Americans are one more victory away from their first championship in the sport after routing Serbia, 25-19, 25-15, 25-23, in a semifinal of these Tokyo Olympics on Friday at Ariake Arena.
Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” played during a timeout with U.S. up 17-12 in the second set, a fitting soundtrack to the good vibes surrounding the team.
April Ross and Alix Klineman win gold for U.S. in women’s beach volleyball
TOKYO — Some 1,300 days ago, the veteran and the newcomer cemented their fledgling partnership by touching sloshing waterbottles together in a toast on a beach.
April Ross and Alix Klineman were an unlikely duo.
Though both had been raised in Southern California, Ross established herself as one of the world’s top beach volleyball players and captured two Olympic medals while the long-armed Klineman pursued the indoor game.
The beach brought them together and, on a steaming afternoon at Shiokaze Park on Friday, the American duo won a gold medal at the Summer Games.
Michael Norman and Michael Cherry miss podium in men’s 400 meters
TOKYO — The United States men’s track team suffered another disappointment Thursday night at Olympic Stadium, where Michael Norman and Michael Cherry finished out of the medals in the men’s 400 meters.
Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas won the gold medal, finishing in 43.85 seconds.
Anthony Jose Zambrano finished in 44.08 to earn the silver medal, and Kirani James of Grenada finished in 44.19 for bronze.
Cherry was fourth in 44.21, Norman fifth in 44.31.
American Katie Nageotte wins the gold medal in women’s pole vault
TOKYO — Katie Nageotte missed on her first two attempts in the women’s Olympic pole vault final, putting her in a precarious spot.
One more and she would be out of the competition.
“Started a little messy,” she said. “Made my coach a little nervous.”
But Nageotte rallied and came back not only to clear the bar and move on, but to win the gold medal.
Women’s soccer gold-medal match rescheduled for Friday night
TOKYO — The Olympic women’s soccer gold-medal match between Canada and Sweden has been moved from Friday morning in Tokyo to the evening in Yokohama.
There were concerns about playing in the heat with an 11 a.m. local time kickoff in the National Stadium, and the final couldn’t be played there later in the day because the venue is being used for track and field.
So the match has been moved about an hour outside Tokyo to Yokohama, which is also staging the men’s final Saturday night.
The announcement was made Thursday at Sweden’s pre-match news conference. The game as scheduled would have occurred during prime time in the United States, which lost in the semifinals.
Women’s 1,600-meter relay team qualifies for final
TOKYO--The U.S. women’s 1,600-meter relay team qualified for the final by winning a heat Thursday at Olympic Stadium.
Kailyn Whitney, Wadeline Jonathas, Kendall Ellis and Lynna Irby finished in 3 minutes, 20.86 seconds.
The final will be held Saturday.
U.S. women’s soccer defeats Australia to win bronze medal at Tokyo Olympics
KASHIMA, Japan — If it’s possible to put a positive exclamation point at the end of an otherwise dismal tournament, the women’s national team did just that Thursday, bowing out of the Tokyo Olympics with a dominant 4-3 win over Australia behind two goals each from Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd.
The victory earned the women a bronze keepsake of a tournament they’d just as soon forget. But if it was the last competitive game for some on the U.S. roster, they gave a final performance that was a worthy coda to a remarkable era.
With an average age of 30.8 years, the Tokyo roster was the oldest ever for a U.S. Olympic team. And in the oppressive heat and humidity of the Japanese summer, the players at times looked every bit as old as their passports say they are.
U.S. women’s water polo rallies against ROC to make gold-medal match
The self-proclaimed “badass” United States women’s water polo team appeared on the verge of an epic letdown.
Having gone unbeaten while winning the last two Olympics competitions, the Americans faced a three-goal deficit late in the first half Thursday against the Russian Olympic Committee.
A loss would send the U.S. to the bronze-medal game, an unlikely destination for the heavy favorites.
But after scoring twice in the final 39 seconds of the first half, the U.S. rallied for a 15-11 victory Thursday at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre.
U.S. men’s basketball defeats Australia, will play for gold medal
The U.S. men’s basketball team faced disaster, down double-digits to an Australian team that had already beaten them once this summer, their every move being exploited.
Blow it all up? Blame Gregg Popovich? Maybe the team’s architect, Jerry Colangelo? Find the right excuses — the elongated 2019-20, 2020-21 NBA seasons, the injuries to the stars that didn’t compete in these Olympics, the lack of practice time.
All of it was on the table until American’s ultimate problem solver, Kevin Durant, said all of that will need to wait.
Australia’s Keegan Palmer wins gold in skateboard park; Cory Juneau of U.S. third
TOKYO — Australia’s Keegan Palmer has won the last skateboarding gold of the Tokyo Games.
He won in men’s park, breaking what had been Japanese domination in all three previous events.
The silver went to Pedro Barros of Brazil. Cory Juneau took bronze, the second skateboarding medal for the United States.
The first for the U.S., also a bronze, was won by Jagger Eaton in men’s street. Keegan, who is 18 and was born in the United States, was untouchable with two runs of tricks and stunts in the eight-man final.
His gold was the first medal in skateboarding for Australia. All the golds in the other three events went to Japanese skaters.
Ryan Crouser wins first U.S. men’s track and field gold at Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Ryan Crouser sent a couple of messages on Thursday.
The 2016 Olympic gold medalist and world-record holder in the shot put defended his title, winning with an Olympic record throw of 76 feet 5 ½ inches at Olympic Stadium.
Afterward, Crouser took out a piece of paper. It had a note penned to his late grandfather, Larry, who died just before Crouser left for Tokyo to compete in the Olympics.
“GRANDPA, WE DID IT. 2020 OLYMPIC CHAMPION!”
Hansle Parchment wins men’s 110-meter hurdles; Grant Holloway of U.S. second
TOKYO — Grant Holloway of the United States, who had run the fastest time in the world this year in the 110-meter hurdles, finished second in the Olympic final on Thursday at Olympic Stadium.
Hansle Parchment of Jamaica won the gold medal in 13.04 seconds. Holloway, the reigning world champion in the event, finished in 13.09 seconds.
Holloway’s race came minutes after the U.S. 400-meter relay team of Trayvon Bromell, Fred Kerley, Ronnie Baker and Cravon Gillespie — finished sixth in their heat and failed to qualify for the final.
While members of the U.S. women’s team have won gold medals — including Athing Mu in the 800- meters, Sydney McLaughlin in the 400-meter hurdles and Valarie Allman in the discus — the men had been shut out, despite a noteworthy performance from Rai Benjamin in the 400-meter hurdles.
April Ross and Alix Klineman advance to gold-medal match in beach volleyball
TOKYO — In a scrap of shade at Shiokaze Park, April Ross and Alix Klineman rested amid screeching cicadas and shirt-soaking humidity that pushed the heat index to 99 degrees.
Like everything else the American beach volleyball duo has faced at the Summer Games, the sweltering morning didn’t faze them.
“I feel like I’m getting used to it,” said Klineman, the first-time Olympian from Manhattan Beach.
The same could be said for their romp through the bracket, where they have won six times and dropped only one set on the way to the gold-medal game.
Andre De Grasse of Canada wins men’s 200; U.S. runners finish 2-3-4
TOKYO — Andre De Grasse of Canada won the gold medal in the men’s 200-meter Wednesday night at Olympic Stadium.
De Grasse, who competed for USC in 2015, finished in 19.62 seconds.
Kenneth Bednarek of the United States finished in 19.68 seconds to earn the silver medal. Noah Lyles of the United States finished in 19.74 and earned bronze.
American Erriyon Knighton was fourth in 19.93.
Courtney Frerichs wins silver in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase
TOKYO — Courtney Frerichs of the United States won the silver medal in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase at Olympic Stadium.
Peruth Chemutai of Uganda won the gold medal, finishing in 9 minutes 1.45 seconds. Frerichs finished in 9:04.79 seconds.
“I’m over the moon,” said Frerichs, who opened a big lead for much of the race.
Emma Coburn of the United States was disqualified.
“My body just shut down,” she said. “I don’t even know what my last 600 meters were. It took everything I had just to stay on the track and not pull off to the side. I was just shutting down.”
American Allyson Felix advances to the 400-meter final
TOKYO — Five-time Olympian Allyson Felix finished second in a women’s 400-meters semifinal on Wednesday night at Olympic Stadium to qualify for Friday’s final.
Felix ran in the third semifinal and finished in 49.89 seconds.
Felix has won nine Olympic medals, one shy of the U.S. record held by Carl Lewis.
Quanera Hayes of the United States qualified for the final in 49.81 seconds. Wadeline Jonathas of the U.S. did not.
Belarusian Olympic runner flies to Europe amid fear of reprisal at home
MOSCOW — A Belarusian sprinter left Tokyo for Europe on Wednesday after resisting an attempt by her Olympic team’s officials to send her home to Belarus, where she said she could be in danger from authorities who have relentlessly cracked down on dissent.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya boarded a plane at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport that was bound for Vienna, but she was expected to travel on to Poland. Before leaving Japan, Tsimanouskaya said that she hoped she could continue her career but that safety was her immediate priority.
Several countries offered to help after the 24-year-old runner sought refuge in the European Union, and Poland, an EU member nation, has granted her a humanitarian visa.
Single-day record of COVID-19 cases reported by Olympic organizers
TOKYO — Summer Games organizers reported a single-day record 29 cases of COVID-19 related to the Olympics on Wednesday, including four athletes.
Thirty-one athletes are among the 327 Olympic-linked cases announced since July 1.
The new cases include three members of the Greek artistic swimming team, coming a day after another team member tested positive for the illness.
U.S. baseball remains in gold-medal hunt with win over the Dominican Republic
YOKOHAMA, Japan — The United States topped the Dominican Republic 3-1 at Yokohama Stadium on Wednesday to remain in contention for an Olympic gold medal in baseball.
The Americans will next face the loser of Wednesday night’s game between Japan and South Korea on Thursday for a chance to play in Saturday’s gold medal game. The Dominicans will play for bronze Saturday against Thursday’s loser.
Former Dodger Scott Kazmir, who returned to the majors this season to pitch in three games for the San Francisco Giants, held the Dominican Republic to two hits over five scoreless innings. The 37-year-old left-hander struck out five and walked one. The Dominicans generated their best scoring chance against him in the first inning, loading the bases with one out, but Kazmir escaped unscathed.
U.S. women’s basketball dominates in quarterfinal win over Australia
SAITAMA, Japan — In its final game before heading to Japan, the U.S. women’s basketball team squandered a double-digit lead against the Australian national team before ultimately losing. The game came on the heels of a defeat to the WNBA All-Stars, the first time the U.S. women had lost back-to-back exhibitions since 2011.
After that loss, a frustrated Breanna Stewart said the team had fallen short of the high standard women have set in their program for generations. And the losses, combined with the unknown aftereffects of a physically and mentally draining 2020 WNBA season, made it seem like the Americans were vulnerable for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Well, after Wednesday’s 79-55 win, it might be time to recalibrate all that.
U.S. women’s volleyball defeats the Dominican Republic to stay in medal chase
TOKYO — Relying heavily on its superiority at the net — and everywhere, really — the U.S. women’s volleyball team was never seriously challenged by the Dominican Republic on Wednesday in a quarterfinal match at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Americans opened a big early lead and rarely sputtered during a 25-11, 25-20, 25-19 victory at Ariake Arena that sustained their hopes of winning the country’s first gold medal in the sport.
The U.S. will play the winner of the Italy vs. Serbia match in a semifinal on Friday.
Sydney McLaughlin breaks world record in women’s 400-meter hurdles to win gold
TOKYO — Sydney McLaughlin keeps getting faster.
McLaughlin, who set a world record in the women’s 400 meters hurdles during the U.S. Olympic trials, broke her own record and won an Olympic gold medal Wednesday at Olympic Stadium.
McLaughlin was timed in 51.46 seconds, eclipsing her record of 51.90.
U.S. teammate Dalilah Muhammad, the 2016 gold medalist and previous world record holder, finished second with a personal-best of 51.58.
Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah wins 200 meters; Gabrielle Thomas of U.S. is third
TOKYO — Elaine Thompson-Herah won the gold medal in the women’s 200 meters at Olympic Stadium.
Thompson-Herah, who also won the 100-meters gold medal, completed her second consecutive sweep of the events.
Thompson-Herah finished in 21.53 seconds. Christine Mboma of Namibia won the silver medal and Gabrielle Thomas of the U.S. took bronze.
Athing Mu wins gold for U.S. in 800 meters; Raevyn Rogers is third
TOKYO — Athing Mu of the United States won the gold medal in the women’s 800-meters on Tuesday night at Olympic Stadium.
Mu, 19, became the first American woman to win the event since Madeline Manning in 1968 at Mexico City.
Mu had breezed to victory in a preliminary heat and the semifinals, and she made it look easy again in the final, finishing in 1 minute 55.21 seconds
Keely Hodgkinson of Britain won the silver medal and Raevyn Rogers of the U.S. took bronze.
Mexico’s gold-medal quest ends in penalty shootout loss to Brazil
KASHIMA, Japan — Brazil and Mexico have arguably the best U-23 soccer teams in the world, having shared the last two Olympic gold medals after meeting in the final of the 2012 Games.
And for more than 120 minutes Tuesday, they traded blows in a heavyweight battle worthy of another final. But only Brazil will play for the gold after winning a penalty shootout following a Tokyo Olympics semifinal that ended in a scoreless draw.
Brazil will play the winner of the second semifinal between Japan and Spain in Saturday’s final. Mexico will play the winner Friday in the bronze-medal game.
Simone Biles comes back to win bronze in the balance beam final
TOKYO — Superstar gymnast Simone Biles, who withdrew from most of the events on her Olympic schedule after experiencing a lack of awareness in the air that jeopardized her safety, made a remarkable return to the gym floor Tuesday and won a bronze medal in the balance beam final on the last day of competition at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre.
Biles joined teammate Suni Lee in the balance beam final and performed a routine that scored 14.000 points. Before that, Biles had last competed in the women’s team final July 27. In that event she performed one unsteady vault and then scratched from her other events that evening, later explaining her problem as a bout with “the twisties,” which afflicts gymnasts and throws off their timing and spatial awareness. The other U.S. women stepped up to win a silver medal.
Lee, who later won gold in the all-around event and bronze on the uneven bars, had a major wobble on the beam and scored 13.866 to finish fifth in Tuesday’s event. Guan Chenchen of China (14.633) won gold, followed by Tang Xijing of China (14.233) and Biles.
IOC looking into Chinese athletes wearing Mao pins on the podium
TOKYO — The image of Communist China’s founding leader, Mao Zedong, made an unscheduled appearance at the Tokyo Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee said Tuesday it is “looking into the matter.”
The gesture — Mao pin badges worn by two Chinese gold medalists at their medal ceremony — risks being judged a breach of Olympic Charter Rule 50, which prohibits political statements on the podium at the Tokyo Games — and at the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
After winning the women’s sprint in track cycling Monday, Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi wore pin badges of Mao. The communist leader who proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 remains an iconic figure in China 45 years after his death in 1976.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a wide range of problems for wrestlers, who had to come up with creative ways to train for the Tokyo Olympics.
The incident came one day after American shot-put silver medalist Raven Saunders crossed the wrists of her raised arms on the podium. She was standing next to the gold medalist from China.
It was unclear Tuesday if the Mao pins were a response to the shot-put medal ceremony.
“We have contacted the Chinese Olympic Committee, asked them for a report about the situation,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said at the daily news conference at the Tokyo Games.
Badges showing Mao’s profile were worn by hundreds of millions of people in the 1960s to show their loyalty to the Communist Party chairman and the ultra-radical Cultural Revolution he launched in 1966. China’s current party chief, Xi Jinping, has invoked Mao’s image as he tries to promote his own status as a history-making Chinese leader.
U.S. men’s basketball overcomes slow start vs. Spain to advance to semifinals
They were down, then they were up and then it was close again, the U.S. men’s basketball team violently swinging between dominance and docility.
For the last month, it’s defined their play, the product of a less-than-ideal roster and little time together. With low stakes, the losses here and there could be justified as part of a process.
But facing Spain on Tuesday in their first elimination game, the Americans and their unshakable traits made it clear that the next week is going to be a wild ride.
Shot putter tests positive for steroids at the Games
A shot putter from the country of Georgia has tested positive for steroids and been pulled from his event.
The International Testing Agency says Benik Abramyan tested positive for two steroids and a banned hormone in a sample taken in Tokyo on Saturday.
Abramyan was due to take part in the shot put qualifying round later Tuesday.
The agency says the athlete can appeal against his provisional suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Abramyan competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and did not reach the final.
Rai Benjamin ran a stunning race in world-record time. He still can’t believe he lost
TOKYO — Rai Benjamin posted the fastest time of his career, faster than the world record. And he did it on his sport’s biggest stage, the Olympic Games.
That, stunningly, was not enough to win a gold medal in Tuesday’s men’s 400-meter hurdles final.
In perhaps one of the greatest races in Olympic history, Karsten Warholm of Norway held off Benjamin and a blazing field to win in a world-record time of 45.94 seconds at Olympic Stadium.
Warholm broke his own record of 46.70.
U.S. veteran Brittney Reese takes silver in women’s long jump
TOKYO — Many times during her historic career, four-time Olympian Brittney Reese won long jump competitions on her final attempt.
Her ability to come up big had helped her collect 10 Olympic and world championship medals, including a gold medal at the 2012 London Games.
Reese was in position to win an Olympic gold again Tuesday. She led for much of the competition before Malaika Mihambo of Germany took the lead by leaping 22 feet 11¾ inches on her final jump.
Allyson Felix begins her quest for gold in the 400 meters
TOKYO — Five-time Olympian Allyson Felix began her quest for a seventh gold medal Tuesday, finishing first in her heat in the women’s 400-meters event.
Felix, 35, finished in a time of 50.84 seconds.
“It was nice to get going again,” Felix said. “Feels like I’ve been waiting forever. It felt good to get out there, and ready to bump it up.”
Canada beats the USWNT for the first time since 2001 to advance to the gold medal game. The U.S. will play for bronze, but what happens after that?
Felix has won nine Olympic medals — six gold, three silver — one shy of the American record held by Carl Lewis. She has said this will be her final Olympics.
“I love this sport — it’s been so much of my life, and so I think that’s why knowing this is my last time around, it means a lot to me,” she said.
Americans Quanera Hayes (51.07) and Wadeline Jonathas (50.93) also advanced.
How a spaghetti dinner eventually led to Valarie Allman winning gold in discus
TOKYO — The road to an Olympic gold medal began with a spaghetti dinner 11 years ago.
At Valarie Allman’s high school in Colorado, throwers on the track team held an annual spaghetti dinner. Anyone could come if they tried throwing.
Allman went, ate and discovered the discus.
“I went and tried it and just had a knack for it,” Allman said this week. “I kind of fell in love with the event.”
On Monday, Allman reached the top of her sport. With a throw of 226 feet 3 inches at Olympic Stadium, she won the Olympic gold medal.
Kristin Pudenz of Germany won the silver medal, Yaime Perez of Cuba won bronze.
Allman, 26, became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the discus since Stephanie Brown Trafton in 2008 at the Beijing Games.
After her victory, Allman said the mental exercises she did with her coach before every workout — and before the Olympic final — helped her win the gold medal.
Allman was told to repeat three phrases:
I’m capable of winning.
I deserve to win.
I will win.
“At first, it was really hard to say those things, and I didn’t really feel like I embodied them,” Allman said. “But, you know, as I thought about the questions and thought about the words, they started to resonate with me.”
On Monday, they went through the same routine.
“I really believed in my heart that it was possible,” she said. “But the fact that it happened, that’s a dream come true.”
Sifan Hassan wins gold in the women’s 5,000 meters for the Netherlands
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands started Monday by coming back from a fall during the final lap to win a heat in the women’s 1,500-meters race. She ended the evening by winning a gold medal in the 5,000 meters at Olympic Stadium.
Hassan finished in 14 minutes 36.79 seconds to win and remain on track for making history.
Hassan is attempting to become the first athlete to win the 1,500-, 5,000- and 10,000-meter events in an Olympic Games.
Simone Biles set to compete in balance beam final at Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Simone Biles will return to compete in the balance beam event final Tuesday, a week after she withdrew from the women’s team gymnastics competition to protect her physical and mental well-being. USA Gymnastics made the announcement late Monday afternoon.
Biles, 24, won five medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and was expected to dominate the competition in Tokyo. She had a few mistakes in the qualifying phase and then performed an alarmingly crooked vault in the first rotation of the team event. She scratched from the event after that, saying she did not feel physically and mentally able to continue because she didn’t know where she was in the air. Without her, the U.S. won a silver medal behind the Russian Olympic Committee.
U.S. women’s soccer loses to Canada in Tokyo Olympics, will play for bronze
KASHIMA, Japan — The U.S. lost their goalkeeper Monday, then they lost their shot at a gold medal, with Jessie Fleming beating backup keeper Adrianna Franch on a penalty kick in the 76th minute to give Canada a 1-0 win in a Tokyo Olympics semifinal.
The game turned in large part on a video replay, with Ukrainian referee Kateryna Monzul overruling her own call that U.S. defender Tierna Davidson had not fouled Canada’s Deanne Rose, who ran up the American’s back at the right edge of the penalty area. But after a long pause, the replay official convinced Monzul to take a look at the video, and the referee awarded the penalty.
Canadian captain Christine Sinclair, who has a record 187 international goals, walked the ball to the spot. But rather than shooting against Franch, her club teammate with the Portland Thorns, she handed the ball to Fleming, a former UCLA standout, who calmly slotted it inside the right post.
Jade Carey wins gold in floor exercise for the U.S. at the Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — The energy inside the nearly empty arena intensified with each move. As Jade Carey twisted and backflipped her way across the floor inside Ariake Gymnastics Centre, the small contingent of U.S. athletes and staff sitting in one corner roared.
By the time Carey completed her floor routine Monday evening, she had earned a standing ovation. She thrust an arm triumphantly into the air and waited for what seemed likely to come next.
A gold medal.
Belarusian Olympic athlete seeks asylum, believes life is in danger back home
TOKYO — A Belarus track sprinter alleged her Olympic team tried to remove her from Japan in a dispute that led to a standoff Sunday evening at Tokyo’s main airport.
An activist group supporting Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she believed her life was in danger in Belarus and she would seek asylum with the Austrian Embassy in Tokyo.
Tsimanouskaya said in a filmed message distributed on social media that she was pressured by Belarus team officials and asked the International Olympic Committee for help.
“I was put under pressure and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent,” the 24-year-old runner said.
The unkind temperatures and high humidity in Tokyo have made for a difficult Olympic Games for athletes not used to the brutal conditions.
Tsimanouskaya criticized Belarus team officials on her Instagram account. She said she’d been put in the 4x400 relay despite never racing the event.
The Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation said government supporters targeted the athlete, and Tsimanouskaya contacted the group for help to avoid what she feared was a forced deportation to Minsk.
Tsimanouskaya summoned Japanese police at Haneda Airport and did not board a flight departing for Istanbul, Turkey.
“The IOC … is looking into the situation and has asked the NOC for clarification,” the Olympics said in a statement.
U.S. women’s basketball holds back France to finish pool play undefeated
A’ja Wilson and Tina Charles pushed the U.S. women’s basketball team into the next stage of the Olympic tournament undefeated.
The Americans fought off a feisty French team 93-82 behind 22 points from Wilson and 15 from Charles, 11 coming in the second half. Breanna Stewart also scored 17 in the win. It’s the third consecutive win in the tournament for the U.S. It will now wait to see who it draws in the quarterfinals, which begin Wednesday.
The draw will happen after a final game at Saitama Super Arena on Monday night in Japan.
The U.S. team is trying to win gold for the seventh straight time.
Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece wins gold in men’s high jump; U.S. finishes fifth
TOKYO — Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece won the Olympic gold medal in the men’s high jump on Monday at Olympic Stadium.
Tentoglou and Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba each had a jump of 27 feet 7 ¼ inches. Tentoglou won the competition because his next longest jump was 26 feet 9 inches, Echevarria’s 26-6 ½.
Cuba’s Maykel Masso won bronze with a mark of 26-11 ¼ inches.
Juvaughn Harrison of the United States was fifth with a mark of 26-9.
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn wins gold for Puerto Rico in 100-meter hurdles
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico has won gold in the women’s 100-meter hurdles, powering ahead of American Kendra Harrison.
That kept the United States out of the win column at the Olympic track meet for yet another session.
Camacho-Quinn finished in 12.37 seconds for a 0.15 second win over the world-record holder, Harrison. Jamaica’s Megan Tapper finished third.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that competes under its own flag at the Olympics, has one more track gold medal than the deepest team at the Games, as the meet approaches its halfway point.
Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas breaks world record in women’s triple jump, wins gold
TOKYO — A world record fell Sunday night in the women’s triple jump when Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas went 51 feet 5 inches to win the gold medal at Olympic Stadium.
Rojas sprinted from the sand pit in celebration before unfurling the flag of her homeland. She broke the previous mark of 50 feet 10¼ inches that Ukraine’s Inessa Kravets had set in 1995.
Keturah Orji of the United States finished seventh with a jump of 47 feet 10½ inches.
U.S. runner Isaiah Jewett devastated after falling during 800-meter semifinals
Isaiah Jewett’s bid for a spot in the men’s 800-meter final took an uncertain turn Sunday night at Olympic Stadium when the runner fell to the track after apparently being hit on the leg from behind.
Jewett, from USC, was running in third place in the final heat of the 800-meter semifinals as the runner approached the final turn. Nijel Amos of Botswana was running behind Jewett when both runners fell to the ground.
“I was getting ready to go and I just felt like when I was starting to lift, something hit the back of my heel and that caused me to fall,” Jewett said. “It was devastating, I’m not going to lie…. It was just devastating falling.”
U.S. gymnast Suni Lee, all-around champion, earns bronze on uneven bars
Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee of St. Paul, Minn., added a bronze medal to her collection from the Tokyo Games when she finished third in the uneven bars event final on Sunday at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre. In addition to her all-around gold medal, Lee also won a silver medal in the team competition.
Lee, 18, will have another chance at a medal Tuesday, in the balance beam event final on the final day of the Tokyo gymnastics competition.
Lee led off the uneven bars competition Sunday and scored a 14.500, which was below the 15.200 she had scored in the qualifying phase a week ago. This time, she missed some connections between moves, resulting in a lower score. She likely didn’t have much practice time after winning the all-around title Thursday, because she was in great demand for post-victory interviews.
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Raven Saunders shows a face of power and pure joy in capturing Olympic silver
The mask came off, the gnashed teeth of the Hulk gone, a face of these Tokyo Olympics revealed.
Raven Saunders wore a nose ring and a sweat-drenched smile above the facial covering she had pulled into a scrunch below her chin. She had just draped herself in an American flag and shimmied around the track inside Olympic Stadium, commencing a celebration of redemption, of perseverance, of duality.
The television cameras that followed Saunders around like paparazzi, capturing her purple and green hair and visually striking masks — the Joker for the preliminary round, the Hulk for the finals — could add another hue to the kaleidoscope.
U.S. gymnast MyKayla Skinner wins vault silver at Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — MyKayla Skinner of Gilbert, Ariz., who replaced Simone Biles in the women’s vault event final when Biles withdrew for mental health reasons, won a silver medal Sunday that was years in coming.
Skinner, 25, was an alternate to the 2016 U.S. team at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and retired from elite gymnastics to compete at the University of Utah. However, she decided to make a comeback to the tougher Olympic track, an effort that was sidetracked when she contracted COVID-19 and pneumonia last winter.
She had the fourth-highest vault score in the qualifying phase but didn’t automatically advance to the final because fellow Americans Biles and Jade Carey ranked ahead of her and there’s a two-competitor-per-country rule in event finals. However, when Biles withdrew to take care of her mental and physical health, Skinner got her chance to compete — and she made the most of it.
Two U.S. beach volleyball squads eliminated in first round of knockout play
Another American team is out at the Olympic beach volleyball tournament.
A Qatari pair that is ranked No. 1 in the world beat Nick Lucena and 2008 gold medalist Phil Dalhausser 14-21, 21-19, 15-11 on Sunday in the first round of knockout play.
The Americans reached the quarterfinals in Rio de Janeiro before losing to the eventual champions, Brazilians Alison and Bruno Oscar Schmidt.
Dalhausser and Lucena went 2-1 in round-robin play, losing only to a Dutch team that won the world championships in 2013. That left them with a tough matchup against Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan, who cruised through the preliminaries without losing a set.
Americans Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes are also out of the beach volleyball tournament after a three-set loss to Canada in the knockout round opener.
Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson beat the U.S. 22-24, 21-18, 15-13 at the Shiokaze Park venue.
Claes and Sponcil entered the Games as the hottest team in the world, winning the last two events of the pandemic-extended qualifying period to grab the second U.S. spot in Tokyo. In the process, they knocked out five-time Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings.
Tokyo Olympics organizers send six people home for breaking COVID rules
TOKYO — Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics have banished six people, including two silver medalists from the country of Georgia, for breaking rules designed to protect against coronavirus cases.
Toshiro Muto, the Tokyo Olympics chief executive, said it was a “clear and serious violation” of the so-called playbooks of health and safety rules for two Georgian judokas to go sightseeing.
Vazha Margvelashvili and Lasha Shavdatuashvili were seen near Tokyo Tower on Tuesday, after their events were finished.
Muto says the Georgian embassy in Tokyo has apologized for the incident.
The other four were accredited contractors from Britain and the United States arrested on suspicion of using cocaine before the Olympics opened.
Muto said there had been eight cases of Games credentials being temporarily suspended.
In four cases, organizers collected a “signed pledge” from people suspected of breaking rules. Ten strict warnings were issued, Muto says.
Xander Schauffele overcomes potential disaster to win men’s golf gold
KAWAGOE, Japan — Driver in hand, Xander Schauffele stuck his upper body through the curtain of leaves and branches, as if he was hunting for an unwelcome rodent behind his couch.
Schauffele had to do more than recover his errant tee shot on the 14th hole at Kasumigaseki Country Club. He had to find his stomach.
He eventually did, regaining the lead he lost on that hole with a birdie on 17.
In an Olympics in which the historically monoethnic host country has preached inclusivity, the men’s golf champion is a United States citizen, who could just as easily be considered a citizen of the world.
On the final day of swimming, Caeleb Dressel wins golds in the 50-meter freestyle and the 4x100 medley relay to cap off an impressive Olympic performance.
Schauffele is the son of a father who is German and French, and a mother who was born in Taiwan but raised in Japan.
After he tapped in a short putt on the final hole, he added another descriptor: Olympic gold medalist.
With a four-under 67, Schauffele finished the tournament 18-under, one shot ahead of Rory Sabbatini, who surged into title contention with a 10-under 61 on the final round.
Schauffele started the day in first place, one stroke in front of Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, who finished in a seven-way tie for third place. Collin Morikawa of La Cañada is also part of the seven-player group who will compete in a playoff to determine the bronze medal.
If you’re waiting for Gwen Berry’s Olympic podium protest, she has other goals
TOKYO — If she makes it to the medal podium in the women’s hammer throw, Gwen Berry intends to stand firm in her convictions.
In 2019, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee put Berry and fencer Race Imboden on probation for a year after she raised a fist and he kneeled to protest against social injustice during the medal ceremony at the Pan American Games in Peru. At the Olympic trials in June, Berry turned away from the flag during the national anthem.
On Sunday, after she advanced to Tuesday’s finals, Berry was asked how much thought she had given to what she might do on the podium if she wins a medal.
Simone Biles withdraws from floor exercise final at the Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Simone Biles has withdrawn from the floor exercise event final, which is scheduled to take place Monday, leaving the balance beam final Tuesday as her final chance to compete again in these Summer Games.
Biles, who was expected to dominate the gymnastics competition here, cited a need to protect her physical and mental health when she scratched from the team competition Tuesday after becoming unable to sense where she was in the air when she twisted. She previously withdrew from the all-around event, which was won by her U.S. teammate, Suni Lee of St. Paul, Minn., and from the vault and uneven bars finals.
Caeleb Dressel wins fifth Tokyo gold medal in men’s 4x100 medley relay
TOKYO — In a blazing finish to the swimming competition at the Summer Games, the U.S. men’s 4x100 medley relay set a world record Sunday to win gold at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Ryan Murphy and Michael Andrew joined Caeleb Dressel on the relay with Zach Apple anchoring the quartet.
The victory in 3 minutes, 26.78 seconds bettered the previous record set by the U.S. in 2009 by a half-second. Britain finished second in 3:27.51.
The relay also gave Dressel, who won the 50 freestyle earlier in the day, his fifth gold medal of these Games.
Bobby Finke wins second gold medal of Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Bobby Finke did it again. Finke split 25.78 seconds on his final 50 meters Sunday, about two and a half seconds better than his splits on any other lap.
The American distance swimmer who has become a star at the Summer Games used a blistering final lap to pull ahead and win the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Sunday.
The fast-closing finish was similar to Finke’s come-from-behind victory in the 800 freestyle a few days earlier, where he took the lead in the final 50 meters.
Finke finished the 1,500 freestyle in 14 minutes, 39.65 seconds, about a second in front of second-place Mykhailo Romanchuk.
Caeleb Dressel wins 50-meter freestyle for third individual gold medal
TOKYO — Caeleb Dressel zipped to victory in the 50-meter freestyle during the final day of competition at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Sunday, adding to his medal haul at the Summer Games.
He entered the 50 freestyle as the top seed and finished in an Olympic-record 21.07 seconds, 0.48 second ahead of second-place Flornet Manaudou of France.
Dressel is the first man to win gold medals in the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly, where he broke his world record a day earlier, in the same Olympics.
U.S. improves to 2-0 in baseball with 4-2 win over South Korea
YOKOHAMA, Japan — The U.S. Olympic baseball team defeated South Korea 4-2 on Saturday at Yokohama Stadium to improve to 2-0 in the tournament.
With the win, the Americans took the top spot in Group B and clinched a berth in the medal round. They will play Group A winner Japan, the only other undefeated team in the six-team field, Monday. The winner will advance to the semifinals.
South Korea (1-1) will face the Dominican Republic (1-1) on Sunday.
U.S. pitchers, led by starter Nick Martinez, tied a U.S. Olympic record with 14 strikeouts, matching the mark set against Italy at the 1992 Games. Martinez finished with nine strikeouts and gave up a run across five innings.
Four relievers, including former major leaguers Edwin Jackson and David Robertson, combined to surrender one run in four innings. Robertson got the save.
First baseman Triston Casas, the Boston Red Sox’s top-ranked prospect, slugged a two-run homer in the fourth inning to put the United States ahead. The Americans scored another two runs in the fifth inning on shortstop Nick Allen’s home run and Tyler Austin’s RBI single.
Belinda Bencic defeats Marketa Vondrousova to win tennis gold in women’s singles
Belinda Bencic’s promising tennis career was nearly derailed a few years ago by a series of injuries and wrist surgery. The 24-year-old from Switzerland has fought her way back to the top, and on Saturday she achieved a career milestone by winning an Olympic singles tennis gold medal.
Bencic, seeded ninth in the Tokyo women’s tournament, held off former doubles partner Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic to pull off a 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 victory that took 2½ hours to complete at Ariake Tennis Park. Bencic needed medical treatment after she took a 4-3 lead in the third set, and the trainer put tape around Bencic’s right big toe. She was able to continue, and she clinched the gold medal on her second chance, when Vondrousova hit a return into the net. It was Bencic’s first tournament title since 2019.
Katie Ledecky, the only woman to win six individual swimming golds, plans to swim at the Paris Games and isn’t closing the door on the L.A. Olympics.
Vondrousova, a 22-year-old lefthander, was unseeded here but earned attention when she defeated four-time Grand Slam singles champion and Olympic cauldron lighter Naomi Osaka in the third round.
Bencic will have a chance to win another gold medal when she teams with Swiss compatriot Viktorija Golubic to face Katerina Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic in the women’s doubles final on Sunday.
In the bronze medal match, fourth-seeded Elina Svitolina became the first tennis player from Ukraine to win an Olympic medal when she overcame a tough first set and a 1-4 deficit in the third set to defeat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 7-6, 6-4. Svitolina married men’s tour player Gael Monfils of France on July 16 and the couple traveled to Japan three days later for the Olympic tournament. Monfils lost in the first round of the men’s competition.
U.S. men wrap up basketball pool play with commanding win over the Czech Republic
SAITAMA, Japan — The teams of two, dressed identically down to the Asics sneakers, push yellow dust mops up and down the court, mirroring one another. After finishing their trips around the floor, they pause under the basket and, in totally synchronicity, bow.
Every timeout, every halftime of the tournament looks exactly the same.
Now this is the kind of consistency the American men’s basketball team would love to have.
Instead, they’ll have to settle for the highs — the stretches where the best players in the world play like the best team in the world. Led by Kevin Durant, they had enough of those moments Saturday to beat the Czech Republic 119-84 and assure themselves a spot in the quarterfinals.
Elaine Thompson-Herah sets Olympic record in 1-2-3 finish for Jamaica in 100 meters
TOKYO — Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica set a new Olympic record in the women’s 100 meters and won her second straight gold medal in the event Saturday night at Olympic Stadium.
Thompson-Herah finished in 10.61 second and held off teammates Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson. Fraser-Pryce was seeking her third gold medal in the 100.
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Poland was a surprise winner in the Olympic debut of the 1,600-meter mixed relay event, holding off a late charge from an American team that didn’t have Allyson Felix in the lineup.
The Dominican Republic finished with the silver medal and the Americans took bronze. There was some thought Felix might be on the track for the relay with a chance to win her record 10th Olympic medal. It will have to wait.
The American squad was made up of Trevor Stewart, Kendall Ellis, Kaylin Whitney and Vernon Norwood. They were .01 second behind the Dominicans. — Associated Press
Novak Djokovic leaves frustrated after loss in bronze-medal match
TOKYO — Novak Djokovic came to the Tokyo Olympics aiming for a Golden Slam. He’ll leave without a medal and will need some time to recover from a draining performance in extreme conditions that didn’t meet expectations.
The top-ranked Djokovic lost his cool and abused his racket several times during a 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3 loss to Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain in the bronze-medal match of the tennis tournament Saturday.
It was Djokovic’s third defeat in two days and it came less than 24 hours after he was beaten by Alexander Zverev of Germany in the singles semifinals. That ended his bid for a Golden Slam, which is winning all four Grand Slam titles and Olympic gold in the same year.
Having saved a match point in the second-set tiebreaker, Djokovic threw his racket into the stands — up and over five rows of seats — after he couldn’t get to a stop-volley winner from Carreño Busta to conclude a long rally in the opening game of the third.
A couple of games later, when Carreño Busta had broken his serve to take control of the decisive set, Djokovic again lost his cool and slammed his racket into the net post during a change of ends. He then picked up the mangled racket and tossed it into the photographers’ pit.
“It’s part of, I guess, who I am,” Djokovic said. “I don’t like doing these things. I’m sorry for sending this kind of message but we’re all human beings and sometimes it’s difficult to control your emotions.”
Give them something shiny? IOC oblivious to Japan’s attitude about Olympics
TOKYO — Dangle some shiny objects in front of them and maybe they’ll forget about the coronavirus.
That’s basically how International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams described the process of winning over the locals, who wanted these Games to be canceled or postponed again, according to recent polling.
Asked Friday whether he sensed a shift in Japanese attitudes toward the Olympics, Adams mentioned the host country’s gold medal count, which several hours later reached a national record: 17.
“I think that will have a big effect,” Adams said at a news briefing at the Olympic Main Press Centre.
To his point: The broadcasts of some events won by Japanese athletes earned market shares of more than 20%.
Olympics TV schedule for Saturday and Sunday
SATURDAY
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Friday)-1:30 a.m., USA
- Diving — Women’s springboard semifinal (live)
- Women’s handball — Russian Olympic Committee vs. France
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Friday)-1 a.m., CNBC
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final (live)
- Shooting — Mixed trap final
- Archery — Men’s individual final (live)
Tennis
11 p.m. (Friday)-Saturday 4 a.m., Olympic Channel
- Women’s singles gold medal match
- Women’s singles bronze medal match
- Men’s singles bronze medal match
- Women’s doubles bronze medal match
- Mixed doubles bronze medal match
8-11 p.m., Olympic Channel
- Men’s singles final
- Women’s doubles final
- Mixed doubles final
Men’s volleyball
- U.S. vs. Brazil, 11 p.m. (Friday), NBCSN
Rugby
- Women’s final and bronze medal matches, 1:30 a.m., USA (live)
Soccer
- Men’s quarterfinals (TBD), 1 a.m., NBCSN (live)
- Men’s quarterfinals (TBD), 1:30 a.m., USA (live)
- Men’s quarterfinals (TBD), 4 a.m., USA (live)
Track and field
Multiple events — 3-8 a.m., Peacock (live)
- Men’s long jump qualifying round
- Women’s 100 semifinals
- Men’s 100 round 1
- Men’s discus throw final
- Women’s 800 semifinals
- Mixed 400 relay final
- Women’s 100 final
Baseball
- U.S. vs. South Korea, 3 a.m. (live)
Golf
- Men’s final round — 3:30 a.m., Golf Channel (live)
Multiple sports — 5 a.m.-3 p.m., NBC
- Archery — Men’s final
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Hungary
- Rugby — Women’s final
- Cycling — BMX freestyle qualifying
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final
- Tennis — Women’s singles final
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Golf — Men’s third round report
- Diving — Women’s springboard semifinal
- Women’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (11 a.m.)
- Men’s basketball — U.S. vs. Czech Republic (1 p.m.)
Women’s volleyball
- China vs. Italy, 6 a.m., USA (live)
Multiple sports — 6 a.m.-12 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Men’s doubles final (live)
- Women’s handball — Norway vs. Netherlands
- Fencing — Women’s team sabre final
- Beach volleyball — Lucky loser
- Equestrian — Eventing, dressage
Multiple sports — 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m., USA
- Men’s basketball — Australia vs. Germany
- Women’s volleyball — Serbia vs. Brazil
- Women’s rugby — Final and bronze medal matches
- Judo — Team final
- Boxing — Semifinals
- Weightlifting — Finals
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Hungary
- Men’s soccer — Quarterfinal (TBD)
- Men’s water polo — Croatia vs. Serbia
- Fencing — Men’s team foil quarterfinals
- Women’s basketball — Canada vs. Spain
- Fencing — Men’s team foil semifinals (live)
- Track and field — Finals and qualifying rounds, 5:10 p.m. (live): Women’s shotput final; Men’s 400 qualifying round; Women’s steeplechase qualifying round
Men’s basketball
- U.S. vs. Czech Republic, 10:45 a.m., NBCSN
Multiple sports — 5-9:05 p.m., NBC
- Beach volleyball – Women’s Elimination Round (live)
- Track and field — Qualifying rounds
- Swimming — Finals (live): Men’s and Women’s 50 freestyle; Men’s 1,500 freestyle; Men’s and women’s 100 medley relays
- Track and field — Finals (live): Mixed 400 relay final; Women’s 100 final
Fencing — Men’s team foil quarterfinals
Multiple sports — 9:05-11 p.m., NBC
- Beach volleyball — Men’s elimination round (live)
- Cycling — BMX freestyle finals
- Men’s swimming — 1,500 freestyle final
Multiple sports — 12-6:45 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Women’s semifinal
- Archery — Men’s individual final
- Beach volleyball — Qualifying round and lucky loser
- Tennis — Women’s final
- Men’s soccer — quarterfinals (TBD)
Multiple sports — 6:45-8:45 p.m., NBCSN
- Women’s volleyball – U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
Men’s water polo
- U.S. vs. Hungary, 8:45 p.m., NBCSN
Women’s rugby
Bronze medal and final matches, 9:45 p.m., NBCSN
SUNDAY
NBC coverage
Men’s volleyball
- U.S. vs. Argentina, 5:45 a.m., NBC
Multiple sports — 7:45 a.m.-3 p.m.
- Fencing — Men’s team foil final
- Equestrian — Eventing, Cross country
- Tennis — Men’s singles final
- Beach volleyball — Men’s elimination round
- Golf — Men’s final round
- Beach volleyball — Women’s elimination round
- Cycling — BMX freestyle finals
- Gymnastics — Men’s floor and pommel horse finals
Multiple sports — 4-6:30 p.m.
- Diving — Women’s springboard final
- Track and field — Semifinals: Men’s 100-meter; Women’s 100-meter hurdles
- Beach volleyball — Women’s elimination round (live)
- Gymnastics — Women’s vault final
Track and Field
Semifinals and Finals, 6:30 p.m.
- Men’s 100-meter final
- Women’s 100-meter hurdle final
- Men’s long jump final
- Men’s 800-meter semifinal
- Men’s 400-meter semifinal
- Women’s 200-meter Round One
Multiple sports — 8-9:05 p.m.
- Women’s uneven bars final, 8 p.m.
- Canoe — Qualifying (live)
Women’s volleyball
- U.S. vs. Italy, 9:05 p.m., NBC
USA Network Coverage
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Saturday)-11 a.m.
- Diving — Women’s springboard final (live)
- Men’s volleyball — Brazil vs. France
- Beach volleyball — Elimination Round
- Men’s handball — Denmark vs. Sweden (LIVE)
- Women’s water polo — Hungary vs. China
- Women’s water polo — Netherlands vs. Canada
Men’s Basketball
- Spain vs. Slovenia (live), 1:20 a.m.
Multiple sports — 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
- Men’s handball — Germany vs. Brazil
- Wrestling — Semifinals
- Boxing —Semifinals
- Weightlifting — Women’s final
- Tennis — Men’s singles final
- Canoeing — Qualifying (live)
Track and Field — Finals and Qualifying Rounds, 5 p.m. (live)
- Women’s 100 hurdles final
- Men’s long jump final
- Women’s 1,500 Round One
- Women’s 200 Round One
Women’s basketball
- U.S. vs. France, 9:40 p.m. (live)
CNBC coverage
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Saturday)-2 a.m.
Badminton – Men’s singles semifinal
Men’s handball – Norway vs. France (live)
Multiple sports — 5 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
Fencing – Men’s team foil final
Beach volleyball – Men’s elimination round (live)
Men’s water polo – Hungary vs. Italy
Field hockey – Women’s quarterfinal (live)
Badminton – Women’s doubles bronze medal and final (live)
Men’s water polo
U.S. vs. Greece (live), 7:30 p.m.
NBCSN Coverage
Men’s basketball
- U.S. vs. Czech Republic, 11 p.m. (Saturday)
Multiple sports — 12:30-11 a.m.
- Men’s soccer – Quarterfinal
- Field hockey – Men’s quarterfinal
- Weightlifting – Women’s final (live)
- Fencing – Men’s team foil final (live)
- Badminton – Women’s singles final (live)
- Table tennis – Elimination round
- Badminton – Men’s singles semifinal
Multiple sports — 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
- Equestrian – Eventing, Cross country
- Golf – Men’s final round
- Men’s handball – Denmark vs. Sweden
- Badminton – Women’s singles final
Men’s Volleyball
- U.S. vs. Argentina, 3 p.m.
Olympic Channel coverage
Tennis — 11 p.m. (Saturday)
- Men’s singles final
- Women’s doubles final
- Mixed doubles final
Tennis — 4 a.m.
- Men’s singles final
- Women’s doubles final
- Mixed doubles final
Wrestling — 4 p.m.
- Qualifying rounds and semifinals
- Greco Roman 60 kg and 130 kg
- Women’s freestyle 76 kg
Wrestling — 7 p.m.
- Qualifying rounds and semifinals (live)
- Greco Roman 60 kg, 77 kg, 97 kg and 130 kg
- Women’s freestyle 68 kg and 76 kg
Golf Channel
Golf
- Men’s final round, 8:30 a.m.
Peacock
- Gymnastics event finals 1 a.m. (live)
- Men’s floor exercise
- Women’s vault
- Men’s pommel horse
- Women’s uneven bars
Track and Field (live)
- Men’s high jump final
- Men’s 100-meter semifinals
- Women’s 100-meter hurdles semifinals
- Women’s triple jump final
- Men’s 800-meter semifinals
- Men’s 400-meter hurdles semifinals
- Men’s 100-meter final
How Mexico avoided Olympics embarrassment by becoming a racewalking power
Legend says the Aztecs wandered for more than a century before establishing Tenochtitlán, the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, on the site of what is now Mexico City. It was the journey that gave birth to the Aztec empire and built the foundation for modern Mexico.
Seven centuries later the descendants of those nomadic warriors still use walking as a way to project power. Only now it happens in the Olympic sport of racewalking, an odd mix of Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks” and ultramarathoning that Mexico has dominated for nearly half a century.
Mexico has won 10 gold medals since the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and three have come in racewalking. Mexican racewalkers also have captured five silver and two bronze medals; no country has won more in the sport over that time.
U.S. mixed relay team’s second chance could mean gold for Allyson Felix
The United States 4x400 mixed relay team got a second chance.
Is Allyson Felix now positioned to win a 10th gold medal?
That question was all the buzz at Olympic Stadium after the United States team, which had been disqualified for an exchange-zone violation during a qualifying heat, was reinstated for Saturday night’s final at Olympic Stadium.
U.S. BMX racer Connor Fields sustains brain hemorrhage in crash
TOKYO — U.S. BMX racer Connor Fields remained hospitalized Saturday under medical supervision after suffering a brain hemorrhage in a frightening crash on the track at Ariake Urban Sports Park.
Doctors reported the bleeding had stopped and had transferred the 28-year-old Las Vegas man out of intensive care, according to USA Cycling.
Fields, the defending gold medalist from 2016, had already earned a spot in the final when he lined up for Friday’s third and last semifinal heat. Pedaling into a turn in second-place, he clipped the wheel of the bike in front of him and slammed down head-first.
As the race continued, safety personnel rushed to Fields, who lay motionless. Minutes passed before he was carried away on a backboard and placed into an ambulance.
A day earlier, coming off a preliminary heat, Fields had talked about the track.
“It’s a limestone that is built to handle the rain,” he said. “It feels a little bit different … but that’s part of BMX.”
Asked if he planned to make any changes to his racing strategy, he said: “I’ll just try to do the exact same thing.”
USA Cycling said he will remain at St. Luke’s International Hospital until cleared to return home.
Simone Biles withdraws from vault and uneven bars at Tokyo Olympics
Simone Biles, who was scratched from the women’s team competition and withdrew from the all-around event final after losing her ability to sense where she is in the air, has withdrawn from the event finals in the vault and uneven bars, which will be contested Sunday.
USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body in the United States, said in a statement released Saturday that Biles made the decision to withdraw from the vault and uneven bars finals “after further consultation with medical staff.”
MyKayla Skinner will replace Biles and will join Jade Carey in the vault final. Skinner had the fourth-best vault score in qualifying but didn’t reach the final automatically because of a rule that limits each country to a maximum of two representatives in any event final. The U.S. will not be granted a replacement for Biles on the uneven bars because no other U.S. woman scored high enough to earn a replacement spot.
Katie Ledecky wins the 800-meter freestyle for seventh career Olympic gold medal
TOKYO — Katie Ledecky won the 800-meter freestyle for the third straight Summer Games on Saturday, finishing her signature event in 8 minutes, 12.57 seconds at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
The 24-year-old has dominated the race like no other woman since she first captured gold at the London Olympics in 2012 and introduced herself to the world. She has recorded the 25 fastest times in history and 31 of the top 32 times.
The 800 freestyle provided the third battle this week between Australian sensation Ariarne Titmus and Ledecky. Titmus edged Ledecky in the 400 freestyle and won handily in the 200 freestyle, when Ledecky fell to fifth. But the American got the better of Titmus, who finished second, this time around, edging her by a little over a second.
Caeleb Dressel sets world record en route winning gold in 100 butterfly
TOKYO — Caeleb Dressel added another gold medal to his haul at the Summer Games on Saturday, cruising to victory in the 100-meter butterfly with a world-record time at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Earlier this week, Dressel won the 100 freestyle and helped the 4x100 freestyle relay to gold.
Dressel finished in 49.45 seconds, breaking the record he set in 2019 by five-hundredths of a second.
The swim is the first part of a busy day for the 24-year-old. He’ll swim in the 50 freestyle semifinals — the final is Sunday on the final day of the nine-day competition — then return to the pool to anchor the mixed 4x100 medley in the final for a chance at another gold.
U.S. women’s soccer team edges Netherlands on penalty kicks to advance at Olympics
YOKOHAMA — For several minutes, goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher sat on the grass alone with her thoughts.
She had just saved the game, her team’s chance at a historic world championship double, coach Vlatko Andonovski’s reputation and perhaps a big part of the national team’s legacy. She did it by saving three penalty kicks — one in regulation and two in a tie-breaking penalty-kick shootout — to beat the Netherlands and earn her team a spot in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics.
And so she sat, knees bent, arms extended behind her, on the floor of an empty Yokohama International Stadium and let the emotion wash over her, not sure whether she should laugh or cry.
So she did a little of both.
Ethiopia claims first track and field gold medal of Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Selemon Barega of Ethiopia won the first track and field gold medal of the Tokyo Games by racing to victory in the 10,000-meter race on Friday night at Olympic Stadium.
Barega, 21, held off Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei and Uga Kiplimo for the victory in 27 minutes, 43.22 seconds.
“I was not worried at all even though they were winners before and even though they were really coming near,” Barega said through a translator, adding, “I was not that much worried about winning, especially because I was looking at the TV screen inside the stadium.”
It was Ethiopia’s fourth gold medal in the 10,000 in the last six Olympics, the first since Kenensisa Bekele won in 2004 and 2008.
Grant Fisher of the United States finished fifth.
For U.S. volleyball coach John Speraw, pressure comes with crafting identity
He replaced a UCLA legend who won nearly twice as many NCAA titles as John Wooden.
Now he coaches a U.S. men’s volleyball team that has won Olympic gold medals three times since 1984.
Pressure, anyone?
One couldn’t tell if John Speraw felt any Friday inside Ariake Arena. He spent most of his team’s tense pool-play loss to defending Olympic champion Brazil expressionless, pacing the sideline in front of his team’s bench. Besides the occasional fist pump or the slightest grimace, it was hard to tell how he was feeling.
Isaiah Jewett embraces his inner superhero in quest to conquer Olympic 800 meters
The plan, as Isaiah Jewett envisioned it, lined up perfect.
Make the U.S. Olympic team. Compete for a gold medal in the 800 meters. And, as if he needed any more motivation, spend a few heavenly days in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, the center of the anime universe.
Jewett learned to read by combing through manga, Japanese comics. He overcame self-doubt and gained confidence by obsessively watching anime, Japanese cartoons.
Consider: At the U.S. Olympic trials in June, Jewett ran the last 250 meters imagining he was an anime character carrying a companion through a tunnel to safety.
“These shows just inspired me to keep moving forward,” he said this month before leaving for Tokyo.
U.S. swimmer Ryan Murphy’s comments about doping puts Russia on the defensive
Tension over Russia’s participation in the Summer Games — the country’s athletes are competing under the moniker of the Russian Olympic Committee as a penalty for state-sponsored doping — spilled into the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Friday.
After Evgeny Rylov of the ROC beat Ryan Murphy in the 200-meter backstroke final by almost a second with an Olympic-record time, the U.S. star was asked if he was concerned about competitors doping.
“When I’m asked a question like that, I’ve got about 15 thoughts. Thirteen of them would get me into a lot of trouble. It is what it is,” said Murphy, who had been the defending Olympic champion in the event before placing second Friday.
Alexander Zverev upsets Novak Djokovic at Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Novak Djokovic’s pursuit of a Golden Slam — titles at all four tennis Grand Slam singles events as well as at the Olympics — ended on Friday in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympic tournament at Ariake Tennis Park.
Djokovic, who has won the singles championships at the Australian and French Opens and at Wimbledon this year and is ranked No. 1 in the world, was upset by Germany’s Alexander Zverev, who put on a shotmaking display in the third set. Zverev’s 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory put him in Sunday’s final against Karen Khachanov of the Russian Olympic Committee, who eliminated Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain 6-3, 6-3, in the first semifinal.
Japan expands coronavirus emergency after record spikes amid Olympics
Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency to four more areas in addition to Tokyo on Friday following record spikes in infections as the capital hosts the Olympics.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared an emergency in Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba, near Tokyo, as well as in the western city of Osaka, effective Monday until Aug. 31. Emergency measures already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa will be extended until the end of August, after the Olympics and well into the Paralympics which start Aug. 24.
Five other areas, including Hokkaido, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be placed under less-stringent emergency restrictions.
Tokyo has reported a record increase in cases for three days in a row, including 3,865 on Thursday, before logging another 3,300 on Friday. The cases have doubled since last week, although officials say the surge is unrelated to the Olympics.
Olympic TV schedule for Friday and Saturday
TOKYO — Here’s a rundown of Olympic events airing Friday and Saturday on NBCUniversal networks during the Tokyo Games:
FRIDAY
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-11 a.m., USA
- Women’s basketball — U.S. vs. Japan (live)
- Diving — Women’s springboard qualifying (live)
- Table tennis — Men’s singles final
- Women’s rugby — Quarterfinals (live)
- Men’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Brazil
- Swimming — Qualifying heats (live)
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-1 a.m., CNBC
- Gymnastics — Women’s trampoline final (live)
- Women’s Water Polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
- Archery — Women’s individual final (live)
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-11 a.m., NBCSN
- Baseball — U.S. vs. Israel
- Men’s handball — France vs. Spain
- Women’s soccer — Quarterfinal
- Women’s volleyball — China vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
Tennis
- Men’s doubles final; men’s doubles bronze medal match, men’s singles semifinal match, mixed doubles semifinals, 11 p.m. (Thursday)-4 a.m., Olympic Channel (live)
- Men’s doubles gold medal match; men’s singles semifinals, men’s singles semifinals, mixed doubles semifinals; 4 a.m.-12 p.m., Olympic Channel (live)
- Women’s singles final; men’s singles bronze medal match; women’s singles bronze medal; women’s doubles bronze medal match, mixed doubles bronze medal match, 8 p.m., Olympic Channel (live)
Women’s soccer
- Quarterfinal TBD, 1 a.m. (live), NBCSN
- Quarterfinal TBD, 3 a.m. (live), NBCSN
- Quarterfinal TBD, 5 a.m. (live), NBCSN
Golf
- Men’s third round — 3:30 a.m., Golf Channel
Beach volleyball
- Men’s qualifying round, 6 a.m., NBCSN
- Men’s volleyball — France vs. ROC, 7 a.m., NBCSN
Multiple sports — 9 a.m.-2 p.m., NBC
- Rowing — Women’s and men’s finals
- Women’s water polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
- Cycling — BMX racing finals
- Diving — Women’s springboard qualifying
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Swimming — Qualifying heats
Multiple sports — 11 a.m.-11 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Mixed doubles final
- Equestrian — Eventing, Dressage
- Women’s basketball — U.S. vs. Japan
- Women’s soccer — Quarterfinal
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Women’s water polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
- Women’s rugby — Semifinals
Multiple sports — 5-8:30 p.m., NBC
- Track and field — Women’s 400 hurdles round one (live)
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Track and field — Mixed 400 relay semifinals
- Swimming — Finals: Men’s 100 butterfly; women’s 200 backstroke; women’s 800 freestyle; Mixed 100 medley relay (live)
- Track and field — Qualifying rounds: Men’s 800 round one; Women’s 100 hurdles round one; Men’s 100 prelims
Multiple sports — 5-11 p.m., CNBC
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Cycling — Women’s BMX freestyle qualifying (live)
- Women’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
- Rugby — Women’s semifinals
- Fencing — Women’s team sabre, semifinals (live)
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final (live)
Archery
- Men’s individual round of 16, 8:30 p.m., NBC
Multiple sports — 9:05-11 p.m., NBC
- Triathlon — Mixed relay
- Cycling — BMX freestyle qualifying
Men’s water polo
- U.S. vs. Hungary, 10 p.m. (live), USA
SATURDAY
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Friday)-1:30 a.m., USA
- Diving — Women’s springboard semifinal (live)
- Women’s handball — Russian Olympic Committee vs. France
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Friday)-1 a.m., CNBC
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final (live)
- Shooting — Mixed trap final
- Archery — Men’s individual final (live)
Tennis
11 p.m. (Friday)-Saturday 4 a.m., Olympic Channel
- Women’s singles gold medal match
- Women’s singles bronze medal match
- Men’s singles bronze medal match
- Women’s doubles bronze medal match
- Mixed doubles bronze medal match
8-11 p.m., Olympic Channel
- Men’s singles final
- Women’s doubles final
- Mixed doubles final
Men’s volleyball
- U.S. vs. Brazil, 11 p.m. (Friday), NBCSN
Rugby
- Women’s final and bronze medal matches, 1:30 a.m., USA (live)
Soccer
- Men’s Quarterfinals (TBD), 1 a.m., NBCSN (live)
- Men’s quarterfinals (TBD), 1:30 a.m., USA (live)
- Men’s quarterfinals (TBD), 4 a.m., USA (live)
Track and field
Multiple events — 3-8 a.m., Peacock (live)
- Men’s long jump qualifying round
- Women’s 100 semifinals
- Men’s 100 round 1
- Men’s discus throw final
- Women’s 800 semifinals
- Mixed 400 relay final
- Women’s 100 final
Baseball
- U.S. vs. South Korea, 3 a.m. (live)
Golf
- Men’s final round — 3:30 a.m., Golf Channel (live)
Multiple sports — 5 a.m.-3 p.m., NBC
- Archery — Men’s final
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Hungary
- Rugby — Women’s final
- Cycling — BMX freestyle qualifying
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final
- Tennis — Women’s singles final
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Golf — Men’s third round report
- Diving — Women’s springboard semifinal
- Women’s Volleyball — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (11 a.m.)
- Men’s Basketball — U.S. vs. Czech Republic (1 p.m.)
Women’s volleyball
- China vs. Italy, 6 a.m., USA (live)
Multiple sports — 6 a.m.-12 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Men’s doubles final (live)
- Women’s handball — Norway vs. Netherlands
- Fencing — Women’s team sabre final
- Beach volleyball — Lucky loser
- Equestrian — Eventing, dressage
Multiple sports — 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m., USA
- Men’s basketball — Australia vs. Germany
- Women’s volleyball — Serbia vs. Brazil
- Women’s rugby — Final and bronze medal matches
- Judo — Team final
- Boxing — Semifinals
- Weightlifting — Finals
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Hungary
- Men’s soccer — Quarterfinal (TBD)
- Men’s water polo — Croatia vs. Serbia
- Fencing — Men’s team foil quarterfinals
- Women’s basketball — Canada vs. Spain
- Fencing — Men’s team foil semifinals (live)
- Track and field — Finals and qualifying rounds, 5:10 p.m. (live): Women’s shotput final; Men’s 400 qualifying round; Women’s steeplechase qualifying round
Men’s basketball
- U.S. vs. Czech Republic, 10:45 a.m., NBCSN
Multiple sports — 5-9:05 p.m., NBC
- Beach Volleyball – Women’s Elimination Round (live)
- Track and Field — Qualifying rounds
- Swimming — Finals (live): Men’s and Women’s 50 freestyle; Men’s 1,500 freestyle; Men’s and women’s 100 medley relays
- Track & Field — Finals (live): Mixed 400 relay final; Women’s 100 final
- Fencing — Men’s team foil quarterfinals
- Multiple sports — 9:05-11 p.m., NBC
- Beach Volleyball — Men’s elimination round (live)
- Cycling — BMX freestyle finals
- Men’s swimming — 1,500 freestyle final
Multiple sports — 12-6:45 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Women’s semifinal
- Archery — Men’s individual final
- Beach volleyball — Qualifying round and lucky loser
- Tennis — Women’s final
- Men’s soccer — quarterfinals (TBD)
Multiple sports — 6:45-8:45 p.m., NBCSN
- Women’s volleyball – U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
Men’s water polo
- U.S. vs. Hungary, 8:45 p.m., NBCSN
Women’s rugby
- Bronze medal and final matches, 9:45 p.m., NBCSN
Maggie Steffens breaks all-time scoring record in U.S. water polo win
TOKYO — The U.S. women’s water polo team rebounded from an upset loss to Hungary on Wednesday by dominating athletes from the Russian Olympic Committee 18-5 Friday at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre.
The win, the final before the tournament stage of competition, assured that the Americans wouldn’t suffer consecutive defeats — a near impossibility for the world’s most dominant team. The loss to Hungary was the team’s first in the Olympics since 2008.
Facing ROC, the team set the tone early defensively, playing with more urgency and a better sense of identity.
“That’s the way we play water polo,” Madeline Musselman said.
In the win, U.S. star Maggie Steffens became her sport’s all-time leading scorer in Olympics history. Against ROC, she scored four times, giving her 49 in her career.
“As much as it’s definitely cool, and I appreciate it, you know, you can’t have that without teammates,” Steffens said. “You can’t have that without a path. You can’t have that without even being able to play the sport with, you know, women who you train with and dream with.”
“So I think for our team, it’s cool to continue to propel the sport forward and push it forward. And as much as this is cool to have my name attached to it, it’s really about our team and our culture.”
The U.S. women’s water polo team will next play in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Simone Biles still dealing with ‘twisties’ and isn’t sure when it will end
Simone Biles’ Tokyo Olympics experience might be over after one shaky vault in the team competition.
Biles, who was expected to dominate the gymnastics competition here, said Friday on her Instagram account she’s still experiencing “the twisties,” the sense of spatial confusion that led her to withdraw from the team event after she narrowly escaped injuring herself while performing a relatively simple vault. She later withdrew from the all-around event, citing mental health concerns.
She said Friday she has had the twisties before but had never previously felt it across all events. She said the confusion that plagued her while vaulting had spread to other events, a worrisome admission. “BTW it’s never transferred to bars & beam before for me,” she said. “It strictly likes floor & vault. Go figure. The scariest 2. But this time it’s literally on every event, which sucks…really bad.”
U.S. women’s basketball team overcomes sluggish start in win over Japan
SAITAMA, Japan — After a slow start against host Japan, the U.S. women’s basketball team found its form and won 86-69.
Reigning WNBA MVP A’Ja Wilson finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, Brittney Griner and Breanna Stewart had 15 points each, Jewell Loyd added 12 points and Diana Taurasi had 11.
Japan led early, scoring 30 points in a very offensive-minded first quarter. But the U.S. slowed down and locked in, holding Japan to 39 points over the next three quarters.
Medal moment for Annie Lazor and Lilly King holds special meaning amid tough year
TOKYO — They had been there for each other through tragedy and training, so when Lilly King and Annie Lazor walked off the pool deck at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in triumph, their arms were around each other.
In the background, South Africa’s noisy contingent of coaches and swimmers celebrated Tatjana Schoenmaker’s world record in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Summer Games on Friday.
But the moment represented much more to King and Lazor, who finished second and third, than the brush with history.
In late April, Lazor’s father, David, died unexpectedly at the family’s home in Michigan.
Michael Andrew fades to fifth place in the men’s 200 individual medley
After leading most of the men’s 200-meter individual medley, U.S. swimmer Michael Andrew fell back over the final 50 meters, having to settle for fifth place.
Andrew finished in 1 minute, 57.31 seconds — more than two seconds behind gold-medal winner Wang Shun. Britain’s Duncan Scott won silver and Jeremy Desplanches of Switzerland took bronze.
Andrew was among the favorites to win the race.
Lilly King, Annie Lazor and Ryan Murphy earn swimming medals for U.S.
South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker won gold in the first medal race of the day at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, finishing ahead of Americans Lilly King and Annie Lazor in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke.
King finished nearly a second behind Schoenmaker’s fastest time of 2 minutes, 18.95 seconds, and Lazor finished almost a second behind King.
In the men’s 200 backstroke, Ryan Murphy collected his second medal of the games for the U.S., winning silver behind Evgeny Rylov of the Russian Olympic Committee. Murphy was almost a second off of Rylov’s Olympic record time of 1:53.27.
Murphy’s teammate, Bryce Mefford, was fourth.
Sunisa Lee wins gymnastics all-around gold medal at Tokyo Olympics
A star was born at the women’s Olympic all-around gymnastics final on Thursday.
Sunisa Lee, an 18-year-old from St. Paul, Minn., won the all-around gold medal, taking the lead after the third of four rotations and cementing her hold with a strong performance in her floor exercise routine in her finale. A standout on the uneven bars but versatile and compelling in every facet, Lee finished with 57.433 points. She was the first American of Hmong heritage to make the U.S. Olympic team.
Lee is the fifth straight American woman to win all-around gold, a streak begun by Carly Patterson in2004 and continued by Nastia Liukin in 2008, Gabby Douglas in 2012, and Simone Biles in 2016.
Rebeca Andrade of Brazil stepped out of bounds twice during her floor exercise routine in her finale, ending her chances of overtaking Lee. Andrade finished second, with 57.298 points. Angelina Melnikova of the Russian Olympic Committee — which won the women’s team title on Tuesday—took the bronze medal with 57.199 points at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre.
DJ Roueche breaks the silence, pumps up athletes during an Olympics without fans
TOKYO — It can be crazy fun, pumping up nobody.
DJ Roueche, known as Jeremy Roueche in everyday life, does it in bursts of sound lasting several seconds. The heads bopping and bodies swaying belong to the beach volleyball players scurrying below empty stands.
Understanding his target (and only) audience is a must. Before Nick Lucena’s opening match of the Tokyo Olympics last week at Shiokaze Park’s Centre Court, Roueche played Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” because he knew it would resonate with the American star.
Lucena likes to locate Roueche’s DJ stand before matches, as if the first serve can’t be delivered until he finds the familiar face. Roueche’s might be the only one many players see at these Games besides their partner.
How drug scandals and politics led to Russians competing as the ROC at Olympics
Thousands of athletes from around the globe paraded into Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games, all but one team proudly carrying its nation’s flag.
Late in the procession, a large contingent nattily outfitted in red and black enthusiastically made its way across the stadium field. Two athletes held a pole flying a white flag that featured red, white and blue flames above the Olympic rings. Others behind them waved smaller versions of the same flag.
The athletes and officials were from Russia, but there was no visible sign of their country’s traditionally recognizable symbols.
In the aftermath of 2019 sanctions levied against Russia for state-sponsored doping, the International Olympic Committee determined that while Russian athletes could compete in these Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, they could not do so under their country’s banner. They would be without their flag and, should they win gold medals, without their national anthem.
Olympics TV schedule for Thursday and Friday
TOKYO — Here’s a rundown of Olympic events airing Thursday and Friday on NBCUniversal networks during the Tokyo Games:
THURSDAY
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Wednesday)-9:30 a.m., USA
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Italy (live)
- Canoe slalom — Women’s final (live)
- Rugby — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Swimming — Qualifying heats (live)
- Archery — Individual eliminations
- Women’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Turkey (live)
- Beach Volleyball — Qualifying round
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Wednesday)-2 a.m., CNBC
- Fencing — Women’s team foil semifinals (live)
- Table tennis — Men’s semifinals (live)
- Men’s water polo — Croatia vs. Montenegro
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Wednesday)-5:10 a.m., NBCSN
- Rugby — Men’s bronze medal and gold medal matches
- Soccer — Men’s qualifying round
- Men’s beach volleyball
- Badminton — Elimination round
- Fencing — Women’s team foil bronze medal and Final (live)
Tennis — 11 p.m. (Wednesday)-11 p.m., Olympic Channel
- Men’s singles and mixed doubles — Quarterfinals
- Women’s singles and doubles — Semifinals
- Men’s singles and mixed doubles — Semifinals
- Men’s doubles — Final
Gymnastics
- Women’s all-around final — 3 a.m., Peacock (live)
Men’s basketball
Spain vs. Argentina, 5:10 a.m., NBCSN
Multiple sports — 7 a.m.-5 p.m., NBCSN
- Table tennis — Women’s singles final
- Women’s handball — Montenegro vs. Norway
- Badminton — Elimination rounds
- Archery — Individual eliminations
- Women’s handball — Sweden vs. France
- Rowing — Finals
- Women’s volleyball — China vs. Russian Olympic Committee
- Rugby — Women’s qualifying round
Multiple sports — 9 a.m.-2 p.m., NBC
- Rowing — Finals
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Italy
- Cycling — BMX racing quarterfinals
- Canoe slalom — Women’s final
- Women’s volleyball – U.S. vs. Turkey
- Swimming — Qualifying heats
Multiple sports — 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m., USA
- Table tennis — Men’s semifinals
- Fencing — Women’s team foil final
- Shooting — Women’s trap final
- Judo — finals
- Boxing — Elimination rounds
- Canoe slalom — Women’s final
Men’s basketball
- Spain vs. Argentina, 3 p.m., USA
Golf
- Men’s second round — 3:30 p.m.-2 p.m. (live)
Multiple sports — 5-8:30 p.m., NBC
- Gymnastics — Women’s all-around final
- Swimming — Finals: Women’s 200 breaststroke; men’s 200 backstroke; women’s 100 freestyle; Men’s 200 individual medley (live)
- Gymnastics — Women’s all-around final
- Swimming — Women’s 200 backstroke semifinals
- Track and Field — Qualifying rounds: Women’s 800; Men’s 400 hurdles; Women’s 100 (live)
Multiple sports — 5-9:30 p.m., USA
- Track and Field — Qualifying rounds (live)
- Rugby — Women’s qualifying round
- Archery — Women’s elimination round
- Multiple sports — 9:40-11:30 p.m.
Multiple sports — 5-11 p.m., CNBC
- Men’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Brazil (live)
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Rowing — Finals (live)
- Women’s rugby — U.S. vs. Australia (live)
- Cycling — BMX racing finals (live)
- Badminton — Women’s singles quarterfinal
- Gymnastics — Women’s trampoline final (live)
Multiple sports — 5-11 p.m., NBCSN
- Men’s water polo — U.S. vs. Italy
- Women’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Turkey
- Beach volleyball — Men’s qualifying round
- Women’s handball — Montenegro vs. Norway
- Rugby — Women’s qualifying round
Rugby
- Women’s qualifying round, 8:30 p.m.
Multiple sports — 9:05-11 p.m., NBC
- Track and Field — Qualifying rounds
- Cycling — BMX racing finals
Women’s basketball
- U.S. vs. Japan, 9:40 p.m. (live)
FRIDAY
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-11 a.m., USA
- Women’s basketball — U.S. vs. Japan (live)
- Diving — Women’s springboard qualifying (live)
- Table tennis — Men’s singles final
- Women’s rugby — Quarterfinals (live)
- Men’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Brazil
- Swimming — Qualifying heats (live)
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-1 a.m., CNBC
- Gymnastics — Women’s trampoline final (live)
- Women’s Water Polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
- Archery — Women’s individual final (live)
Multiple sports — 11 p.m. (Thursday)-11 a.m., NBCSN
- Baseball — U.S. vs. Israel
- Men’s handball — France vs. Spain
- Women’s soccer — Quarterfinal
- Women’s volleyball — China vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
Tennis
- Men’s doubles final; men’s doubles bronze medal match, men’s singles semifinal match, mixed doubles semifinals, 11 p.m. (Thursday)-4 a.m., Olympic Channel (live)
- Men’s doubles gold medal match; men’s singles semifinals, men’s singles semifinals, mixed doubles semifinals; 4 a.m.-12 p.m., Olympic Channel (live)
- Women’s singles final; men’s singles bronze medal match; women’s singles bronze medal; women’s doubles bronze medal match, mixed doubles bronze medal match, 8 p.m., Olympic Channel (live)
Women’s soccer
- Quarterfinal TBD, 1 a.m. (live), NBCSN
- Quarterfinal TBD, 3 a.m. (live), NBCSN
- Quarterfinal TBD, 5 a.m. (live), NBCSN
Golf
- Men’s third round — 3:30 a.m., Golf Channel
Beach volleyball
- Men’s qualifying round, 6 a.m., NBCSN
- Men’s volleyball — France vs. ROC, 7 a.m., NBCSN
Multiple sports — 9 a.m.-2 p.m., NBC
- Rowing — Women’s and men’s finals
- Women’s water polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
- Cycling — BMX racing finals
- Diving — Women’s springboard qualifying
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Swimming — Qualifying heats
Multiple sports — 11 a.m.-11 p.m., NBCSN
- Badminton — Mixed doubles final
- Equestrian — Eventing, Dressage
- Women’s basketball — U.S. vs. Japan
- Women’s soccer — Quarterfinal
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round
- Women’s water polo — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee
- Women’s rugby — Semifinals
Multiple sports — 5-8:30 p.m., NBC
- Track and field — Women’s 400 hurdles round one (live)
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Track and field — Mixed 400 relay semifinals
- Swimming — Finals: Men’s 100 butterfly; women’s 200 backstroke; women’s 800 freestyle; Mixed 100 medley relay (live)
- Track and field — Qualifying rounds: Men’s 800 round one; Women’s 100 hurdles round one; Men’s 100 prelims
Multiple sports — 5-11 p.m., CNBC
- Beach volleyball — Women’s qualifying round (live)
- Cycling — Women’s BMX freestyle qualifying (live)
- Women’s volleyball — U.S. vs. Russian Olympic Committee (live)
- Rugby — Women’s semifinals
- Fencing — Women’s team sabre, semifinals (live)
- Gymnastics — Men’s trampoline final (live)
Archery
- Men’s individual round of 16, 8:30 p.m., NBC
Multiple sports — 9:05-11 p.m., NBC
- Triathlon — Mixed relay
- Cycling — BMX freestyle qualifying
Men’s water polo
- U.S. vs. Hungary, 10 p.m. (live), USA
Tokyo officials alarmed as coronavirus cases hit record highs
Japanese officials sounded the alarm Thursday as Tokyo reported record-breaking coronavirus cases for the third straight day with the Olympics well underway.
“We have never experienced the expansion of the infections of this magnitude,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters. He said the new cases were soaring not only in the Tokyo area but across the country.
Tokyo reported 3,865 new cases Thursday, up from 3,177 on Wednesday and double the numbers a week ago, setting a new high since the pandemic began early last year.
U.S. pole vaulter Sam Kendricks tests positive for coronavirus
TOKYO — United States pole vaulter Sam Kendricks, who won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Games, will not compete in the Olympics after testing positive for the coronavirus, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced Thursday.
Kendricks, the reigning world champion, was placed in an isolation hotel, the USOPC said. He is the American record holder at 19 feet 10 ½ inches.
“The health and safety of our athletes, coaches and staff is our top priority. We are saddened to confirm that Sam Kendricks tested positive for COVID-19 and will not compete in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020,” the USOPC said in a statement. “In alignment with local rules and protocols, he has been transferred to a hotel to be placed in isolation and is being supported by the USATF and USOPC staff.
“Sam is an incredible and accomplished member of Team USA and his presence will be missed. Out of respect for his privacy, we cannot provide more information at this time.”
The men’s pole vault competition will begin Saturday.
Simone Biles thanks fans for making her realize ‘I’m more than my accomplishments’
Star gymnast Simone Biles thanked fans for their support after she made the startling decision to withdraw from team and all-around competitions at the Tokyo Olympics due to mental health strain.
While a flood of critics suggested Biles choked or quit on her teammates, the elite gymnast also was widely praised by celebrities, her peers and fans for boldly choosing to acknowledge she was risking catastrophic injury if mental health challenges were preventing her from focusing on her event.
Biles, who could still compete in individual events later in the Games, posted on Twitter on Thursday morning, “the outpouring love & support I’ve received has made me realize I’m more than my accomplishments and gymnastics which I never truly believed before.”
Katie Ledecky anchors U.S. 200-meter freestyle relay team to silver medal
Katie Ledecky missed out on another chance for Olympic gold, anchoring the U.S. women’s 200-meter freestyle relay team to silver-medal finish at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
China finished first and Australia took bronze. Ledecky spearheaded the U.S. comeback in the final leg of the race, but was four-tenths of a second away from winning a seventh career Olympic gold medal. China won the race in 7 minutes, 40.33 seconds.
Swimming in a legend’s wake, Caeleb Dressel relieved to win first individual gold
Relief washed over Caeleb Dressel.
Facing a television camera a few feet from the pool at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, the newly minted gold medalist panted and choked back sobs and searched for the right words.
The swimmer carrying the burden of being the natural successor to Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, finally had the first individual Olympic gold medal of his career.
“I knew that weight was on my shoulders,” Dressel said later. “I’d won [Olympic] relay medals, but never individual, so it was really special.”
Bobby Finke surprises with gold in the men’s 800-meter freestyle
In one of the most unexpected developments in the swimming competition at the Summer Games, Bobby Finke used a blazing finish to win gold for the U.S. in the 800-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Thursday.
Though Finke won the 800 freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials last month, he considers the 1,500 freestyle to be his best event.
Finke fell as far back as sixth place during the race, but crept up to fourth entering the final 50 meters. He swam the last stretch in 26.39 seconds — his fastest split of the race by more than two seconds — to touch the wall two-tenths of a second before Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri and finish in 7 minutes, 41.87 seconds.
Mexico soccer advances into quarterfinals with 3-0 victory over South Africa
The last time Mexico advanced beyond the group stage of an Olympic soccer tournament, it won the gold medal. That was 2012 in London.
El Tri is hoping history repeats itself in Tokyo after advancing to the knockout round for just the second time in a quarter-century with a 3-0 win over South Africa on Wednesday. The victory earned Mexico (2-1-0), which finished second in its group to unbeaten Japan, a quarterfinal date Saturday with South Korea.
Playing before 42,000 empty seats in the silent Sapporo Dome, Alexis Vega put Mexico ahead to stay in the 18th minute, although Henry Martin and Uriel Antuna did the work to set up the goal.
U.S. women defeat ROC to win gold in 3-on-3 basketball
TOKYO — The U.S. women’s basketball team capped one of the Olympics’ boldest experiments, winning gold in its first ever three-on-three event.
Played outdoors in the humidity with a slight breeze, a team of four WNBA players (each team is allowed one substitute) beat members of the Russian Olympic Committee 18-15 to finish first in the inaugural tournament.
Kelsey Plum, Stefanie Dolson, Alisha Gray and Jackie Young lost only once over the five days of play, falling to Japan right before entering the knockout round. They needed to survive a tight semifinal game with France, an 18-16 win thanks to some late free throws, to advance to the finals.
Coronavirus cases rise to all-time high in Tokyo amid Olympics
TOKYO — Tokyo reported 3,177 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, setting an all-time high and exceeding 3,000 for the first time days after the start of the Olympics.
The new cases exceeded the earlier record of 2,848 set the previous day and brought the total for the Japanese capital to 206,745 since the pandemic began early last year.
Tokyo has been under a fourth state of emergency since July 12 ahead of the Olympics, which began last Friday despite widespread public opposition and concern that they could further worsen the outbreak.
Experts say Tokyo’s surge is being propelled by the new, more contagious Delta variant of the virus, and there is no evidence of the disease being transmitted from Olympic participants to the general public.
Nationwide, Japan reported 7,630 cases on Tuesday for a total of 882,823.
Japan has kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries, but its vaccination campaign started very late in comparison to other large nations, and there is fear that rising cases could overwhelm hospitals.
Japan’s seven-day rolling average of cases is about 3.57 per 100,000 people, compared to 17.3 in the United States, 53.1 in Britain and 2.76 in India, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Showdown vs. Netherlands could offer a new start for Alyssa Naeher and the USWNT
TOKYO — It’s not Alyssa Naeher‘s fault.
Whatever is bothering the U.S. women’s soccer team, which limps into the knockout round of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday following the worst group-stage performance in an international championship in U.S. history, none of it came be blamed on Naeher, the goalkeeper.
Sure, she gave up three goals in the opening loss to Sweden. But she also made six saves, the most she’s had in a game in more than 31 months.
Her teammates couldn’t manage six shots on goal.
She’s given up one goal in 198 minutes since then, and that one came after defender Abby Dahlkemper slipped and took herself out of the play, leaving Naeher to face two attackers alone.
To vaccinate or not? For U.S. Olympic athletes, the debate creates division
TOKYO — Earlier this month, up-and-coming American swimmer Michael Andrew revealed that he had chosen not to get a COVID-19 vaccination before traveling to Japan for the Summer Olympics.
The news drew a lengthy rebuke on social media from another prominent figure in the sport, retired two-time Olympic gold medalist Maya DiRado.
“That Michael would make a decision that puts even a bit of risk on his teammates for his own perceived well-being frustrates me,” she wrote.
In a sport that usually avoids making waves outside the pool, the blunt comments triggered equally testy pushback from some of Andrew’s teammates.
The Games are supposed to bring people together, but they haven’t been able to escape the contentious vaccine debate that’s raging thousands of miles away in the U.S.
Even with fans at some events, the Olympic spirit remains elusive in Japan
RIFU, Japan — Signs along the highway warn of the predator that roams the forest: the Asian black bear.
Bear attacks are somewhat common in Japan, with more than 140 reported over a six-month period last year. This part of the country is familiar with such incidents, which often take place in autumn when people venture into the woods to harvest wild mushrooms.
With the metropolis of Sendai nearby, this isn’t the middle of nowhere, but this isn’t Tokyo, either.
A search for the elusive Olympic spirit brought me here, some 200 miles north of the center of the Games, to a crescent-shaped concrete block that was designed to resemble the helmet of one-eyed feudal warlord Date Masamune.
If there was a place and time the Olympics would be the shared experience they were intended to be, it would be at Miyagi Stadium on Tuesday night.
Nadeshiko Japan, the popular women’s national soccer team, was playing a must-win group-stage match against Chile.
The game would be played in front of a crowd.
China continues to dominate in diving; U.S. gets second Tokyo silver in sport
TOKYO — Even with a mistake that led to their lowest scoring dive, Wang Zongyuan and Xie Siyi couldn’t be caught.
The Chinese led all the way in winning men’s the 3-meter synchronized springboard on Wednesday, giving the diving powerhouse its third gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics.
Wang and Xie finished with 467.82 points in their Olympic debuts. They hugged each other and their coaches, and shed tears in celebration.
The U.S. earned its second diving medal in Tokyo.
Andrew Capobianco and Michael Hixon finished second with 444.36 points. It’s the same color medal that Hixon won five years ago in Rio de Janeiro with a different partner. American teammates Delaney Schnell and Jessica Parratto finished second in women’s 10-meter synchro on Tuesday.
U.S. women’s water polo loses at the Olympics for first time since 2008
The United States women’s water polo team entered the Tokyo Games regarded as a heavy favorite to win an unprecedented third consecutive Olympic gold medal.
The U.S. team had not lost a match en route to gold medals in 2012 at London and 2016 at Rio de Janeiro.
That streak ended Wednesday.
Hungary defeated the U.S., 10-9, in a preliminary round game at Tatsumi Water Polo Centre, the United States’ first defeat since losing to the Netherlands in the gold-medal match at the 2008 Beijing Games.
U.S. men’s basketball dominates in Olympic victory over Iran
SAITAMA, Japan — The ball popped from one hand to another, the U.S. men’s basketball team trading open looks for slightly better ones. Eventually, it went to Kevin Durant directly in front of his team’s bench with no defense around.
As Durant launched the open three, his teammates behind him began to cheer, slowly turning the volume up from one to 10, getting their loudest right as the ball splashed through the net.
Now this was more like it.
Following a tournament opening loss to France Sunday, the U.S. responded swiftly and viscously against a seriously undermanned Iranian team, beating them 120-66.
Simone Biles will not compete in Olympic all-around gymnastics competition
TOKYO — Simone Biles, who withdrew from the women’s gymnastics team competition on Tuesday to focus on the mental health issues that had dented her confidence in her ability to perform the difficult moves that have defined her brilliant career, will not compete in the women’s all-around event final on Thursday.
USA Gymnastics, the sport’s national governing body, announced Biles’ withdrawal from the all-around event in a statement released mid-afternoon Wednesday in Tokyo. Biles won the all-around gold medal at Rio in 2016 and had been favored to become the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic all-around championships since Vera Caslavska in 1968.
Katie Ledecky wins gold in the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle
The week has been filled with tumult at the Summer Olympics. Big names pulled out of competition. The host city reported its highest one-day total of coronavirus cases. A typhoon buffeted the region with rain and wind. Pre-event light shows swirled through arenas devoid of fans because of the pandemic.
Leave it to Katie Ledecky to provide a few minutes of normalcy.
The 24-year-old completed a grueling double by cruising to victory in the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Wednesday, about an hour after swimming the 200 freestyle final.
“People maybe feel bad that I’m not winning everything, but I want people to be more concerned about other things in the world,” Ledecky said. “People are truly suffering. I’m just proud to bring home a gold medal.”
Katie Ledecky finishes fifth in women’s 200-meter freestyle
TOKYO — Katie Ledecky faded to a fifth-place finish in the 200-meter freestyle final during the first leg of a historic double Wednesday at the Summer Games.
The surprising finish for the woman who has dominated freestyle swimming for a decade came as Australia’s Ariarne Titmus won the race in 1 minute, 53.50 seconds. Ledecky was more than a second and a half behind.
Ledecky will swim the 1,500 freestyle final later Wednesday at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, a race she’s owned since first breaking the world record in 2013.
Though Ledecky was the defending gold medalist in the 200, Titmus entered the final as the heavy favorite after swimming the second-fastest time in history at the Australian Olympic trials last month.
Earlier this week, Titmus defeated Ledecky in the 400 freestyle, handing the American her first loss in an individual Olympic event.
Simone Biles deserves respect, not contempt, for sitting out Olympic competition
Simone Biles choked.
That’s what some people think.
Simone Biles ruined her legacy.
That’s what some people are saying.
If Tom Brady or LeBron James had walked out on their teams during the biggest game of the season, they would be mercilessly ripped, so why is Simone Biles getting a pass?
That’s what some people are asking.
When the chalk settled after the greatest female gymnast bravely withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics team competition Tuesday because she was admittedly overcome by the pressure, an ugly truth emerged.
When is Katie Ledecky swimming today at the Tokyo Olympics?
American Katie Ledecky, the most decorated woman in Olympic swimming history, will try to open her gold-medal tally at the Tokyo Olympics tonight in the 200- and 1,500-meter freestyle races.
Ledecky will swim in the 200 final at 6:41 p.m. PDT (10:41 a.m. in Japan) and in the 1,500 at 7:54 p.m. PDT (11:54 a.m. in Japan).
The five-time Olympic gold medalist is looking to bounce back after losing to Australia’s Ariarne Titmus in the 400-meter freestyle on Monday to earn her first Olympic silver medal.
Japan defeats U.S. 2-0 in gold medal softball game
YOKOHAMA, Japan — For the U.S. softball team, one long excruciating wait will be followed by another.
Thirteen years after falling to Japan in the gold medal game at the Beijing Olympics, the U.S. endured another frustrating finish here against its chief rival ahead of an uncertain future for its sport.
Yukiko Ueno, the gutsy Japanese ace who outdueled Cat Osterman in 2008, did so again Tuesday night at Yokohama Baseball Stadium, pitching six strong innings during a 2-0 victory in the gold medal game at the Tokyo Olympics.
Japan’s offense continually pressured previously dominant U.S. pitching, and the country’s second consecutive gold medal seemed like destiny after a wild double play to end the sixth inning kept the U.S. scoreless.
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles pulls out of team competition at Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO — Superstar gymnast Simone Biles, who is trying to become the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic all-around titles and also lead the U.S. women to a third straight team gold medal, shockingly was scratched from the team competition Tuesday. According to NBC’s broadcast, U.S. coaches had said Biles’ issues were mental rather than physical.
USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body in the U.S., issued a statement via Twitter that said, “Simone Biles has withdrawn from the team final competition due to a medical issue. She will be assessed daily to determine medical clearance for future competitions.”
The tweet then added, “Thinking of you, Simone!”
Naomi Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron and was a favorite to win gold in her home country at the Tokyo Olympics, lost in the third round to Marketa Vondrousova.
Biles left the competition floor with the U.S. squad’s trainer after the first of four rotations at Ariake Gymnastics Centre. When she returned, she had new tape on her right ankle. She removed her hand grips and did not take her scheduled turn on the uneven bars.
Biles, a five-time medalist at the 2016 Rio Games, had experienced problems with her vault in her warmup. Her difficulties returned when the competition began. She did a relatively simple Yurchenko vault with 1½ twists and landed in a deep crouch, almost sitting, before she took a big hop forward. After the U.S. women completed their vaults, Biles and a trainer left and went backstage.
U.S. women’s soccer narrowly advances into next round after draw with Australia
TOKYO — A shaky U.S. team stumbled into the quarterfinals of the women’s Olympic soccer tournament by the narrowest of margins Tuesday, playing a dogged Australia to a scoreless tie to advance on goal differential.
The U.S. (1-1-1), which finished second in its group for the first time since the augural women’s Olympic tournament in 1996, will play Friday in Yokohama against the winner of Group F. The Netherlands and Brazil went into the final day of that group late Tuesday tied for first with four points each.
The U.S. beat the Netherlands in the last Women’s World Cup final in 2019.
American Carissa Moore wins first-ever women’s Olympic surfing gold
American Carissa Moore struck gold in surfing’s Olympic debut Tuesday with teenage teammate Caroline Marks finishing fourth under slate-gray skies at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach in Chiba prefecture, Japan.
In the men’s final, Brazil’s Italo Ferreira overcame a broken board on his first wave to beat Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi with a two-wave score of 15.14 to Igarashi’s 6.60. Australian Owen Wright won the men’s bronze by two-tenths of a point over Brazil’s Gabriel Medina in the most competitive heat of the final day.
Katie Ledecky puts up fast times in the 200 and 1,500 prelims
Less than eight hours after winning silver in the 400-meter freestyle, Katie Ledecky returned to the Tokyo Aquatics Centre pool Monday for the first stage of her grueling double at the Summer Games.
Ledecky clocked the fastest preliminary time in the 200 freestyle, while Australian rival Ariarne Titmus, who beat her in the 400, placed fourth.
About an hour later, Ledecky cruised to the top preliminary time in the 1,500 freestyle, which has been added to the women’s Olympic program for the first time this year. She finished in 15 minutes, 35.35 seconds, the ninth-best swim in history. That’s familiar territory for Ledecky, who is responsible for the top 12 all-time swims in the event.
The finals for the 200 and 1,500 are Wednesday. Ledecky will also swim the 800, her signature event, later in the week.
U.S. women’s basketball will face challenges to its run of Olympic dominance
TOKYO — You can find the history in the details, the design stitched into the collars on their red uniforms, the six stars cascading down each side of the U.S. women’s basketball jerseys.
It’s an homage to the 12 players on the team in 1996 — and the U.S. response to bronze in the previous Games — when women who would become icons in their sport recaptured gold. Lisa Leslie. Rebecca Lobo. Sheryl Swoopes. Dawn Staley.
Since losing in the quarterfinals of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the U.S. women have dominated. Forty-nine times, they’ve taken the court as Olympians. Forty-nine times, they’ve left as winners.
With Olympic seats empty, the hottest ticket in Tokyo is not the Summer Games but pro wrestling
TOKYO — Thousands of masked Japanese fans filtered into the Tokyo Dome on Sunday night, abuzz with excitement. Those who couldn’t get a coveted ticket milled about outside, soaking in the atmosphere. Deafening pyrotechnics erupted, filling the stadium with smoke.
“More, more, more! Give me a bigger round of applause!” a voice thundered —and the crowd obliged.
The hottest-ticket event in town was off to a raucous start. But it wasn’t the Tokyo Olympics.
The New Japan Pro Wrestling Grand Slam — held before 5,000 enthralled fans at the 55,000-seat arena, the maximum level allowed under the city’s COVID-19 state of emergency — is one example of the strange duality of life in Tokyo during the 2½ weeks the city plays host to the world’s highest-profile sporting event.
With infections on the rise in a fifth wave of coronavirus cases, Olympic organizers decided two weeks before Friday’s opening ceremony that the long-delayed Summer Games would go on but without any spectators. For Tokyo’s 14 million residents, that’s meant a parallel existence with Olympic athletes and other visitors while life largely goes on as before outside the Olympic bubble. Under Tokyo state of emergency measures, alcohol sales are banned and businesses must close by 8 p.m., but live concerts and sporting events are permitted with attendance at 50% of venue capacity up to 5,000 seats.
Lee Kiefer wins first ever U.S. gold medal in women’s foil fencing
TOKYO — The words that Lee Kiefer mouthed after winning gold, after landing the touch that gave the U.S. its first-ever Olympic title in women’s foil fencing, pretty much said it all. She ripped off her mask and yelled.
Oh. My. God.
The Notre Dame graduate and current medical school student, ranked fifth in the world, upset top-ranked Inna Deriglazova of the Russian Olympic Committee in a tense 15-13 bout at Makuhari Messe Hall B on Sunday night.
“I had so much fun,” Kiefer said. “And to come out here and feel good about your fencing is really what all the athletes try to do and hope you have a medal at the end.”
Deriglazova, the defending Olympic champion and now a three-time medal winner, was not as cheery.
“I had a chance. I’m more experienced,” she said. “She’s younger than me and I know that I had a chance I could win a medal, could win this bout, but from the very beginning I did some mistakes.”
The 31-year-old Russian had cruised through earlier rounds but found herself in a battle against Kiefer, trailing 8-7 midway through the final. Kiefer seemed to keep the veteran off-balance, sometimes attacking, other times retreating and looking for a defensive action.
Neither fencer could pull away until the very end when Kiefer found the moment she needed.
The 27-year-old has ranked among the top American women in foil for a number of years but had fallen short of the podium at previous Olympics, finishing fifth at the 2012 London Games and 10th in Rio de Janeiro four years later.
The product of a fencing family — her father was competitive, as are two siblings — she talked about her lifetime in the sport.
Judo coach Yosh Uchida continues to affect the lives of Olympians at 101. One of his pupils, Colton Brown, is competing at the Tokyo Olympics.
“Before I left [for Tokyo] my dad wrote me a card and he said that we had been on this journey,” she said. “We have done our best and our pot of gold has been filled all along as we moved along, and just being here is the icing on top.”
Though thrilled with her win, Kiefer did not have much time to celebrate. Her husband, Gerek Meinhardt, is ranked second in the world and scheduled to compete in men’s foil Monday. Then comes the team foil event for women later in the week.
“Just go to bed,” she responded when asked what she might do after the medal ceremony. “Except I had so much caffeine today, I probably won’t go to bed.”
Will Shaner wins United States’ first gold medal in 10-meter air rifle
Will Shaner set an Olympic record en route to winning gold for the United States in the men’s 10-meter air rifle competition Sunday.
The 20-year-old Shaner scored a 10.5 or above in 13 of his 24 shots in the final, including a 10.1 on his penultimate shot to capture U.S. shooting’s first gold medal in the event. His final score of 251.6 points set an Olympic record and was 1.2 points away from a world record.
Teammate Lucas Kozeniesky finished sixth win a final score of 165.0. China’s Lihao Sheng took silver (250.9) and teammate Haoran Yang won bronze (229.4).
Yuto Horigome wins gold in street skateboarding; Jagger Eaton takes bronze
TOKYO — Skateboarding was born in California. But the first gold medal in the new Olympic sport belongs to Japan.
Specifically, Yuto Horigome, winner of the inaugural men’s street competition Sunday at Ariake Urban Sports Park.
Horigome, the reigning world champion, defeated a field that included Nyjah Huston of the United States, the most successful contest street skater in the history of the sport.
And Horigome, 22, did it in his hometown.
“Even right now, I can’t really believe that I’m here at the Olympic Games,” Horigome, who was born in Koto ward of Tokyo, said through an interpreter. “I was able to perform the best and I am super happy.”
Australia sets world record in women’s 400 freestyle relay; U.S. finishes third
TOKYO — Australia broke the world record in the women’s 400-meter freestyle relay with a time of 3 minutes and 29.69 seconds.
Canada finished with silver and the U.S. team of Erika Brown, Abbey Weitzeil, Natalie Hinds and Simone Manuel finished three one-hundredths of a second behind to take bronze — its sixth medal of the Games.
Athletes who have won medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games
TOKYO — A rundown of the athletes who have won medals at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Archery — Mixed team
🥇 Gold — South Korea: An San, Kim Je Deok
🥈 Silver — Netherlands: Gabriela Schloesser, Steve Wijler
🥉 Bronze — Mexico: Luis Alvarez, Alejandra Valencia
Archery — Women’s team
🥇 Gold — South Korea: Jang Minhee, San An, Kang Chaeyong
🥈 Silver — ROC: Svetlana Gomboeva, Elena Osipova, Ksenia Perova
🥉 Bronze — Germany: Michelle Kroppen, Charline Schwarz, Lisa Unruh
Cycling — Men’s road race
🥇 Gold — Richard Carapaz (Ecuador)
🥈 Silver — Wout van Aert (Belgium)
🥉 Bronze — Tadej Podacar (Slovenia)
Cycling — Women’s road race
🥇 Gold — Anna Autkiesenhofer (Austria)
🥈 Silver — Annemiek Vleuten (Netherlands)
🥉 Bronze — Elisa Borghini (Italy)
Diving — Women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard
🥇 Gold — Shi Tingmao, Wang Han (China)
🥈 Silver — Jennifer Abel, Melissa Citrini Beaulieu (Canada)
🥉 Bronze — Lena Hentschell, Tina Punzell (Germany)
Fencing — Women’s epee individual
🥇 Gold — Yiwen Sun (China)
🥈 Silver — Ana Maria Popescu (Romania)
🥉 Bronze — Katrina Lehis (Estonia)
Fencing — Women’s foil individual
🥇 Gold — Kiefer Lee (U.S.)
🥈 Silver — Inna Deriglazova (ROC)
🥉 Bronze — Laria Korobeynikova (ROC)
Fencing — Men’s sabre individual
🥇 Gold — Aron Szilagyi (Hungary)
🥈 Silver — Luigi Samele (Italy)
🥉 Bronze — Kim Junghwan (South Korea)
Fencing — Men’s epee individual
🥇 Gold — Gergely Siklosi (Hungary)
🥈 Silver — Romain Cannone (France)
🥉 Bronze — Igor Reizlin (Ukraine)
Judo — Men’s -60 kg
🥇 Gold — Naohisa Takato (Japan)
🥈 Silver — Yung Wei Yang (Taiwan)
🥉 Bronze — Luka Mkheidze (France), Yeldos Smetov (Kazakhstan)
Judo — Men’s -66 kg
🥇 Gold — Hifumi Abe (Japan)
🥈 Silver — Vazha Margvelashvili (Georgia)
🥉 Bronze — Baul An (South Korea), Daniel Cargnin (Brazil)
Judo — Women’s -52 kg
🥇 Gold — Uta Abe (Japan)
🥈 Silver — Amandine Buchard (France)
🥉 Bronze — Odette Giuffrida (Italy), Chelsie Giles (Britain)
Judo — Women’s -48 kg
🥇 Gold — Distria Krasniqi (Kosovo)
🥈 Silver — Funa Tonaki (Japan)
🥉 Bronze — Urantsetseg Munkhbat (Mongolia), Daria Bilodid (Ukraine)
Shooting — Men’s 10-meter air pistol
🥇 Gold — Javad Foroughi (Iran)
🥈 Silver — Damir Mikec (Serbia)
🥉 Bronze — Wei Pang (China)
Shooting — Women’s 10-meter air pistol
🥇 Gold — Vitalina Batsarashkina (Russian Olympic Committee)
🥈 Silver — Antoaneta Kostadinova (Bulgaria)
🥉 Bronze —Ranxin Jiang (China)
Shooting — Men’s 10-meter air rifle
🥇 Gold — Will Shaner (U.S.)
🥈 Silver — Sheng Lihao (China)
🥉 Bronze —Yang Haoran (China)
Shooting — Women’s 10-meter air rifle
🥇 Gold — Qian Yang (China)
🥈 Silver — Anastasiia Galashina (Russian Olympic Committee)
🥉 Bronze — Nina Christensen (Switzerland)
Skateboarding — Men’s street
🥇 Gold — Yuto Horigome (Japan)
🥈 Silver — Kelvin Hoefler (Brazil)
🥉 Bronze — Jagger Eaton (USA)
Swimming — Men’s 400-meter individual medley
🥇 Gold — Chase Kalisz (U.S.)
🥈 Silver — Jay Litherland (U.S.)
🥉 Bronze — Brendon Smith (Australia)
Swimming — Men’s 400-meter freestyle
🥇 Gold — Ahmed Tunhafnaoui (Tunisia)
🥈 Silver — Jack McLoughlin (Australia)
🥉 Bronze — Kieran Smith (U.S.)
Swimming — Women’s 400-meter individual medley
🥇 Gold — Yui Ohashi (Japan)
🥈 Silver — Emma Weyant (U.S.)
🥉 Bronze — Hali Flickinger (U.S.)
Swimming — Women’s 4X100 freestyle relay
🥇 Gold — Australia
🥈 Silver —Canada
🥉 Bronze — United States
Taekwondo — Men’s -58 kg
🥇 Gold — Vito Dell’Aquila (Italy)
🥈 Silver —Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi (Tunisia)
🥉 Bronze — Jang Jun (South Korea), Mikhail Artamonov, ROC
Taekwondo — Men’s -68 kg
🥇 Gold — Ulugbek Rashitov (Uzbekistan)
🥈 Silver —Bradly Sinden (Britain)
🥉 Bronze — Zhao Shuai (China), Hakan Recber (Turkey)
Taekwondo — Women’s -49 kg
🥇 Gold — Panipak Wongpattanakit (Thailand)
🥈 Silver — Adriana Cerezo Iglesias (Spain)
🥉 Bronze — Abishag Semberg (Israel), Tijana Bogdanovic (Serbia)
Taekwondo — Women’s -57 kg
🥇 Gold — Anastasija Zolotic (U.S.)
🥈 Silver — Tatiana Minina (ROC)
🥉 Bronze — Hatice Kubra Ilgun (Turkey), Lo Chia-Ling (Taiwan)
Weightlifting — Men’s 61 kg (134 pounds)
🥇 Gold — Li Fabin (China)
🥈 Silver — Eko Yuli Irawan (Indonesia)
🥉 Bronze — Igor Son (Kazakhstan)
Weightlifting — Men’s 67 kg (148 pounds)
🥇 Gold — Chen Lijun (China)
🥈 Silver — Luis Javier Mosquera Lozano (Colombia)
🥉 Bronze —Mirko Zanni (Italy)
Weightlifting — Women’s 49 kg (108 pounds)
🥇 Gold — Zhihui Hou (China)
🥈 Silver — Chanu Saikhom Foroughi (India)
🥉 Bronze — Windy Cantika Aisah (Indonesia)
Emma Weyant wins silver, Hali Flickinger takes bronze in women’s 400 IM
TOKYO — Emma Weyant won silver and Hali Flickinger took bronze in the women’s 400-meter individual medley, the first U.S. women’s medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
It marked the fourth and fifth U.S. medals at the Olympics.
Japan’s Yui Ohashi won gold in the race.
Chase Kalisz takes over for Michael Phelps as U.S. has strong first day
TOKYO — Though Chase Kalisz is nine years younger than Michael Phelps, they have a relationship like brothers.
That’s why the most decorated Olympian of all time was in the NBC booth at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Sunday wearing a headset to provide color commentary for the broadcast and arms raised in triumph.
His protégé finally had a gold medal.
Kalisz separated himself from the pack midway through the 400-meter individual medley on the way to capturing the first U.S. gold in any sport at these Summer Games.
“It’s my lifelong dream,” he said. “It’s what everyone dreams of in the sport.”
Sue Bird and Eddy Alvarez selected as Team USA’s flag bearers
WNBA star Sue Bird and two-sport Olympic athlete Eddy Alvarez have been chosen as the United States flag bearers for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Bird and Alvarez were voted to be flag bearers by their Olympic teammates. They will carry the American flag in front of the U.S. delegation, which is set to feature more than 230 athletes walking into Olympic Stadium in Tokyo on Friday.
Bird is a four-time Olympic champion who made her Olympic debut for the U.S. women’s basketball team at the 2004 Athens Games. Alvarez, a member of the U.S. baseball team, won a silver medal as part of the U.S. four-man short track speedskating team at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
“It’s an incredible honor to be selected the flag bearer for Team USA,” Bird said in a statement. “I know what that means because I got to witness Dawn Staley go through it when she was selected in 2004. It’s an honor that is bigger than the moment in that you’ve been selected by your fellow Team USA athletes to represent the entire delegation, and it will last forever.”
Britain’s women’s soccer team takes a knee before Olympic opener
Players on Britain’s women’s soccer team took a knee before its Olympic opener against Chile on Wednesday. Players on Chile’s squad gradually joined them on the field just before kickoff.
The British players told reporters earlier in the week they were planning to take a knee in support of racial and social justice.
“We want to show to everyone this is something serious,” Britain defender Demi Stokes said, per the Associated Press. “What a way to do it, on an Olympic stage.”
For the first time, the International Olympic Committee is giving athletes some leeway when it comes to making protests at the Games. The IOC no longer bans all forms of athlete protest before, during and immediately after competition, but protests during medal podium ceremonies are banned. The IOC is also allowing sport governing bodies to enforce rules and potential bans connected to protests.
Players on the U.S. Women’s National Team and the Sweden team took a knee just before the kickoff of the match.
Get Los Angeles Times updates from the Tokyo Olympics on Telegram
The Los Angeles Times has a new Olympics Telegram channel. The channel, which readers can access via the Telegram app on iPhone and Android smartphones, is a space where you can chat directly with Times journalists, catch up on Olympics news and access surveys and polls, and play trivia.
Join the channel and get daily news along with in-depth profiles, videos, photos and sound bites from the 12 Times journalists covering the games in Tokyo. If you want an insider’s look at what is happening on the ground, follow us on Telegram.
Speed climbing is poised to become your favorite Tokyo Olympics sport
For those who have not yet seen the sport of speed climbing, the concept is fairly simple.
Imagine Spider-Man scrambling, blurry fast, up the side of a four-story building. Now picture another Spider-Man racing him, side-by-side, to the top.
The fact that mere humans — minus the radioactive spider bite — can scale a standard 50-foot competition wall, scurrying from one small climbing hold to the next, and tap the buzzer in about six seconds makes this new Olympic event all the more startling. Even for the athletes.
“In the moment, it feels slow,” says Colin Duffy, a member of the U.S. squad headed for Tokyo. “But afterward you don’t even remember what happened, it went by so fast.”
A look at the 612 athletes representing the U.S. at the Tokyo Olympics
After a yearlong delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics are set to officially begin Friday. A total of 612 athletes, including 55 gold medalists, will represent the United States at the Olympics, with dozens hailing from cities and towns in the Greater Los Angeles and San Diego areas.
The opening ceremony will take place Friday (4 a.m. PDT), but competition begins two days earlier with the start of the soccer and softball tournaments. Most of the events will not begin until 10 a.m. Saturday (6 p.m. PDT Friday).
Who will be representing Southern California?
Who’s competing for the United States?
New sports to watch during the Tokyo Olympics
Take a closer look at the format and rules for all the new sports added to the Tokyo Olympics:
Surfing
What are the rules?
The competition in Tokyo will be on shortboards, with 40 athletes split evenly between men and women.
Five judges will score all rides in each heat spanning about 20-25 minutes based on degree of difficulty, innovation and progression, variety, combination of major maneuvers and speed, power and flow. The winners of each four-person heat are determined by the combined score of the athlete’s best two rides and the winners advance to the next round of competition.
Tokyo Olympics preview: Your guide to the Games
Welcome to your preview guide to the Tokyo Olympics, the most unique Games in history.
The Los Angeles Times staff explains how and why Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky are exponentially better than anyone else and poised to dominate in Tokyo.
We also highlight how Southern California has heavily influenced the Games, including giving birth to new Olympic sports surfing and skateboarding, and producing 70 Olympians ready to step into the spotlight.