Rowing (7.30am-12.30pm ET)
Team USA’s women’s rowing team will be in the spotlight on Wednesday as they compete for the quadruple and pairs finals. The quadruples team – which includes 2015 world champions Tracy Eisser and Megan Kalmoe – has gotten off to a slow start. They scraped through the semi-final, beating Australia by only 0.06 seconds. However, the pairs team, Felice Mueller and Grace Luczak, won their opening heat by the largest margin of the event. They go into this final favorites to beat the 2012 champions, Great Britain. Fears around the water quality of the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas also seem to have subsided.
Shooting – men’s double trap
The USA started strongly in shooting with the 19-year-old Ginny Thrasher surprising everyone by taking the gold medal – the first of the tournament – in the women’s 10m air rifle tournament. Army staff sergeant Joshua Richmond will be hoping to replicate Thrasher’s success on Wednesday in the men’s double trap. Richmond is part of the elite US army marksmanship unit, and completed a three-month stint in Afghanistan training local troops. He’ll be hoping to improve on his 16th-place finish at London 2012.
Swimming
The United States will look to continue its domination of Olympic swimming on Wednesday in the men’s 200m breaststroke, 100m freestyle and women’s freestyle relay. Team USA’s Nathan Adrian will be defending his 2012 gold medal but the 27-year-old’s form has dropped since then. He barely qualified for the semi-final. However, he’s already taken a team gold in these Games.
Judo
The 70kg women and 90kg men judo will be grappling it out on Wednesday. The event has already created some interesting stories. The hosts clinched their first gold on Monday, with Rafaela Silva overcoming racist remarks in 2012 Olympics to compete in 2016. Belgian judo competitor Dirk Van Tichelt was hit in the face on Tuesday night after his phone was stolen. He was reportedly left with a black eye after he tried to chase the thief.
Weightlifting
The men’s 77kg and women’s 69kg have a lot to live up to, after a record-setting day on Tuesday. China’s Deng Wei set two world records and took home the gold. Wei clean-and-jerked 147kg and lifted a total 262kg. China has dominated the women’s competition so far with four gold medals. One country that won’t be competing is Russia as the International Weightlifting Federation’s has banned them for doping.
