Sayōnara. That’s all for now but you can monitor proceedings from Day 11 in Tokyo with Tom Lutz.
History is made on the bar 🤸♂️
— Olympics (@Olympics) August 2, 2021
Who’ll become a gold medallist today?
#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/Y9kFQRKnkK
Tuesday’s medal events
Artistic gymnastics
- Men’s parallel bars
- Women’s beam
- Men’s horizontal bar
Athletics
- Women’s long jump
- Men’s 400m hurdles
- Men’s pole vault
- Women’s hammer throw
- Women’s 800m
- Women’s 200m
Boxing
- Women’s featherweight
- Men’s welterweight
Canoe sprint
- Women’s K1 200m
- Men’s C2 1,000m
- Men’s K1 1,000m
- Women’s K2 500m
Cycling
- Women’s team pursuit
- Men’s team sprint
Diving
- Men’s 3m springboard
Sailing
- Women’s skiff 49er FX
- Men’s skiff 49er
- Mixed Nacra 17
- Men’s Finn
Weightlifting
- Men’s 109kg
Wrestling
- Women’s freestyle 68kg
- Men’s Greco-Roman 77kg
- Men’s Greco-Roman 97kg
Women’s hockey: Steve McMillan was at the Oi Stadium to see Maddie Hinch pull off a goalkeeping masterclass in a shootout against Spain to propel the reigning women’s Olympic champions into a semi-final against the Netherlands.
Italian reaction: Stunned and ecstatic after claiming two gold medals in the space of 11 minutes, as Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the 100m final and Gianmarco Tamberi shared first place in the high jump, Italians have been celebrating a golden Sunday at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, writes Lorenzo Tondo in Caltanissetta.
“It is Italian sport’s most beautiful day,” said Giovanni Malagò, the president of the Italian Olympics Committee. “They have made history. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will talk about it. This is better than the Eurocup,” he added, referring to Italy’s Euro 2020 football victory last month.
Women’s boxing: Ireland will get the chance to add to their tally of medals when Kellie Harrington fights Algeria’s Imane Khalif in the quarter-finals of the women’s lightweight division at 4.35am (BST).
The 31-year-old Dubliner, who took a job working part-time as a cleaner in St Vincent’s Hospital following the postponement of the Olympics last year, has said that whether she goes home with a medal or not, she will return to her job working on the frontline during the pandemic.
“I am more than just a boxer,” she said. ““I’m a giving person. I have a fantastic family and a great job at home. That’s who I am, this is just a part of the journey I’m on in life. It’s not the destination.
“I’ve been saying this to a lot of people lately, that you need to have a life outside of boxing because there is more to life than sport - anything can happen in sport, you need something to fall back on and my job is what I fall back on.
“I work every second weekend, so it’s grand splitting that time. I feel like when you work in a job you love, then you never work. There is more to life than sport and anything can happen in sport, so you need something to fall back on.”
Irish athletes have won one gold and two bronze medals so far.
Updated
Heptathlon: Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been talking about her struggles with injury ahead of the heptathlon, which starts on Wednesday. The 28-year-old needed surgery on a ruptured Achilles in December and was a major doubt for the Olympics.
She recovered but has managed just three competitions ahead of a much anticipated face-off with defending heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam. Despite her less than ideal preparations, Johnson-Thompson insists she is ready to compete.
“I’ve worked so hard in the last eight months just to get to the start line so I’m really grateful to be here, grateful to be able to do what I do for a living, really grateful for my third Olympics,” she said.
“All things you take for granted normally and I’m really taking it in now. Getting on the plane to come to the Olympics is something that I took for granted in Rio, coming to the start line, putting on a Team GB kit, I’m just really, really grateful for everything.
“It’s been really tough. I’m at peace with that now and I don’t know when that happened but I am. I’m happy that I was able to get given the space to do that and go through that process as well. I’m a different person now, a different athlete now, Covid, the injury, cancellation of the event, all these different things.
“I feel at complete peace with myself. I’ve been through so much and this is another part of the story. I’ve always been positive that I was going to make it. I think at the start when it first happened as an athlete you go onto Google and try to self-diagnose and see the recovery time.
“Once I started talking to doctors and got a team around me of people who said: ‘It’s possible, and it’s going to be a long, hard process but it’s within the timeframe,’ that’s what I needed to hear.
“I’m so happy I’m here now, I’m at the start line. I feel like once I’m at the start line it’s down to me here and I trust myself in that respect.”
The reigning world and Commonwealth champion competed in the long jump at the British Grand Prix in Gateshead in July having also done two low-key meets in France.
She confirmed she is fully fit but, if a medal is out of reach, it will not be a disaster.
“The gratitude is definitely something that is new,” she said. “I feel the gratitude of me just being able to be here and compete and to be an Olympian is down to my injury, down to it getting taken away last year, through to Covid and a lot of different factors.
“But I feel like through my past experiences leading into Rio and leading into Beijing I was in a similar position to the one I’m in now. I didn’t have enough competition practice and I didn’t know how to handle that going into those competitions. Now I feel like I’m in a place where I can. I’m a stronger athlete for sure.
“I’ve had those experiences so I know what I need to do to get to my best prep, and I know not to panic at certain performances because I know how long it takes to get better.
“I know what needs to be done to get better as well. It’s a lot of different factors that give me confidence on the start line - I’m not defeated in any respect. There’s a chance I’m not going to medal, I said the same thing pre-Doha, but I’m going to give my absolute best performance and that’s all I care about.”
A historical win!
— Olympics (@Olympics) August 2, 2021
Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu secure #INA's first ever #Badminton women's doubles Olympic gold - and the nation's first of #Tokyo2020.@bwfmedia @nocindonesia1 pic.twitter.com/F0HDisviLI
Swimming. British swimming Olympians have landed back in the UK from Tokyo after returning from their most successful Games, writes Nicola Slawson. Team GB finished third in the swimming medal table behind the US and Australia. They won eight medals this past week. The squad returned with a haul of four golds, beating the UK’s previous best performance, at the 1908 Games in London.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya latest ...
Poland has granted a visa to a Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she feared for her safety and that her team’s officials tried to force her to fly home, where the autocratic government was accused of diverting a flight to arrest a dissident journalist.
An activist group that is helping athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya told The Associated Press that it bought her a plane ticket to Warsaw for the coming days. The current standoff apparently began after Tsimanouskaya criticized how officials were managing her team — setting off a massive backlash in state-run media back home, where authorities relentlessly crack down on government critics. The runner said on her Instagram account that she was put in the 4x400m relay even though she has never raced in the event.
The runner was then apparently hustled to the airport but refused to board a flight for Istanbul and instead approached police for help. In a filmed message distributed on social media, she also asked the International Olympic Committee for assistance.
“I was put under pressure, and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent,” the 24-year-old said in the message. The rapid-fire series of events brought international political intrigue to an Olympics that have been more focused on operational dramas, like maintaining safety during a pandemic and navigating widespread Japanese opposition to holding the event at all.
Belarus’ authoritarian government has relentlessly targeted anyone even mildly expressing dissent since a presidential election a year ago triggered a wave of unprecedented mass protests. And it has also gone to extremes to stop its critics, including the recent plane diversion that European officials called an act of air piracy.
In this context, Tsimanouskaya feared for her safety once she saw the campaign against her in state media, according to the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, the activist group that is helping her.
“The campaign was quite serious and that was a clear signal that her life would be in danger in Belarus,” Alexander Opeikin, a spokesman for the foundation, told the AP in an interview.
State media have continued to come down hard on Tsimanouskaya. Presenters on state TV channel Belarus 1 called her decision to seek asylum “a cheap stunt” and “a disgusting act,” and described her performance at the Olympics as a “failure.”
Tsimanouskaya competed for Belarus on the first day of track events Friday at the National Stadium in Tokyo. She placed fourth in her first-round heat in the 100 meters, timing 11.47 seconds, and did not advance.
She was due to compete again in the Olympic 200-meter heats on Monday, but she said her team barred her from participating in a complaint filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport. She asked the court to overturn that decision, but the body declined to intervene.
Tsimanouskaya’s next steps were not clear. Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek, a Polish deputy foreign minister, said the runner asked for the humanitarian visa for now and can still seek refugee status once in Poland. Vadim Krivosheyev, of the activist sports foundation, said she planned to seek asylum.
Another Polish deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, told the Onet.pl news portal that once in Poland, Tsimanouskaya will be free to chose whether to stay there or to go to “another safe country.” Tsimanouskaya’s husband, Arseni Zdanevich, meanwhile, confirmed to the Russian Sport Express newspaper that he left Belarus for Ukraine.
Underscoring the seriousness of the allegations, several groups and countries say they are helping the runner. Poland and the Czech Republic offered assistance, and Japan’s Foreign Ministry said it was working with the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo Olympics organizers.
The IOC, which has been in dispute with the Belarus National Olympic Committee ahead of the Tokyo Games, said it had intervened. “The IOC is looking into the situation and has asked the NOC for clarification,” it said in a statement. A spokeswoman for the Belarus Olympic team did not respond to a request for comment. (Associated Press)
Updated
Swimming: Upon his return to London, Adam Peaty told a press conference he had been “handed champagne all the way home” and has not had time to reflect on his victory yet.
The 26-year-old from Uttoxeter won two golds and a silver at Tokyo 2020 and has since announced he will take a long break from the pool in a bid to prioritise his mental health.
“I’m going to take a few months off from the sport,” he said. “I’ve been pushing for so long, so it’s an outrageous amount of effort from not only myself but from my team. To be part of this team is very special.
“People are scared to race us now. We’re a small nation going against America and we’re going to try our best. We’re not scared to win.”
Women’s weightlifting: History was made on a Tokyo evening of superhuman strength and simmering tension as Laurel Hubbard, a 43-year-old weightlifter from New Zealand, became the first openly trans woman athlete to compete at an Olympic Games. Sean Ingle reports ...
Women’s football: United States triumphs at the 2015 and 2019 Women’s World Cups were defined by squads which peaked at exactly the right time, writes Jeff Kassouf. The talent was undeniably there, but in 2015, it took half a tournament to find the right combination. Four years later, the path was more difficult, but the team clicked from start to finish, besting four tough European foes in the knockout stage.
The timing at the Tokyo Olympics, however, could not have been worse. A team rich with talent could not establish any rhythm at these Games, and the Americans’ struggles culminated with a semi-final loss to Canada on Monday in which the US had ample time on the ball but few ideas in the final third – a criticism which haunted the team after its previous Olympic failure.
Athletics: On Sunday night, having just become the first Australian to qualify for the men’s Olympic 800m final since 1968, Peter Bol was asked about the significance of his historic achievement, writes Kieran Pender. “What does it mean to Australia?” he replied. Bol’s rhetorical question was probably meant in a sporting sense. But the rise of the nation’s latest middle-distance star prompts broader questions about Australia, too.
Bol was born in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1994. His mother is Sudanese, his father from the region that would become South Sudan. It was a time of turmoil in Sudan and the Bol family soon left for Egypt, before arriving in Australia in 2004. There is some misinformation circulating around his story – his Wikipedia page says he and his family came from a refugee camp in Egypt, but he has never been in one.
Bol has in the past acknowledged the long-and-difficult-road-to-sporting-success storyline is a powerful one, but he also feels uncomfortable with the use of stereotypes within that narrative. Read on ...
Women’s football: The Matildas pushed Sweden to their limits in the semi-final and expectation is rising after their extended run in Tokyo, writes Samantha Lewis.
Putting this to rest! Winning ANY Olympic🏅 is incredible. I was always favored for 🥇 so 🥈🥉 would be disappointing. But if I were a projected finalist,🥉 is a win! Don’t listen to people whose only sport is stirring up shit. Regardless how many followers they have. #Olympics
— Michael Johnson (@MJGold) August 2, 2021
Athletics: I don’t understand why people come up with stuff like that. I just don’t get it. It’s very cruel.” Beatrice Masilingi is 18, born and raised in Katima in the Zambezi region of Namibia. In the humid bowels of Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium she was as excited as you might expect of any teenager who has barely raced outside her home country, who lists “my grandmother” as her key influence, and who had minutes earlier come cantering in behind Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to make the women’s 200m Olympic final.
If Masilingi was also a little wary, it is because she knows some part of the future is likely to take a difficult turn if she performs with the same level of grace and fire in Tuesday’s final. Masilingi is one of a pair of Namibian teenagers, schoolmates at Grootfontein Agricultural College, who have a serious chance of a medal in the blue chip sprint event of these Olympic Games.
At which point, that cruelty. In June Masilingi and Christine Mboma were barred by World Athletics from running in the 400m, their chosen event at these Games. In Tokyo they have already faced questions about whether they should be running at all, and indeed (again, aged 18) whether they should be classing themselves as women at all.
This stems from something both Masilingi and Christine Mboma were born with. Naturally occurring raised testosterone levels mean both have been classified as DSD, or athletes with Differences of Sexual Development, and placed – to their surprise – in a strange, indeterminate category of sporting womanhood. Read on ...
The Guardian view: By seeking asylum in Poland following what was ostensibly a sporting dispute, 24-year-old Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has followed in the footsteps of thousands of others deserting Alexander Lukashenko’s totalitarian state.
Ms Tsimanouskaya had publicly criticised the Belarus team’s coaches for failing to conduct the necessary doping tests ahead of the women’s 4x400m race. When she refused to be sent home in disgrace, a leaked tape revealed that a member of the Belarus delegation had told her: “Let this situation go. Otherwise the more that you struggle, it will be like a fly caught in a spider’s web: the more it spins, the more it gets entangled.” If the chilling menace contained in these words seems disproportionate, the tone probably comes from the top: the head of the Belarus National Olympic Committee is Mr Lukashenko’s son Viktor. Read on ...
Equestrianism: Great Britain won their 11th gold in Tokyo with victory in the Olympic team eventing title for the first time in just shy of half a century.
World number one Oliver Townend, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen booked themselves the top spot on the podium before McEwen bagged himself silver in the individual competition.
“It’s not really hit me yet, it’s been a super special experience,” said McEwen. “To get the gold with a record score has been phenomenal.
“In the last few years I’ve messed up in many a place where I probably shouldn’t have done but he’s been a very special partner. I loved the pressure this week, I’ve loved being in this team and we’ve had to perform. To get that team gold after 49 years is really special.
“We are new to this experience, we’ve all just embraced the pressure and we’ve got three amazing horses. They deal with a lot more pressure than I ever would, they keep calm and relaxed at all points, so I followed in their steps.”
Weightlifting: With one extraordinary act of strength and defiance, Emily Campbell ripped a 158kg barbell off the floor, rested it on her shoulders, and began to squat, writes Sean Ingle. With another she exploded upwards to thrust the weight - more than two beer kegs worth put together - high above her head.
There was a little wobble of the knees. A steadying smile. Then a beep. And, just like that, Britain had its first ever female Olympic weightlifting medallist - and surely its most powerful, heartwarming and potentially life-changing story of these Games. Read on to find out why ...
Gallery: The best images from the 10th day’s action in Tokyo, including diving, water polo, athletics and basketball.
Swimming: Great Britain’s national performance director Chris Spice has been basking in the glow of a job well done and is looking forward to the prospect of even more glory at the Paris Olympics.
Team GB collected a record eight swimming medals with four golds, three silvers and a bronze, representing their best ever haul at a single Games, achieved by those who will have high hopes of going to France in three years.
“One of the great things is that 75 per cent [of the swimmers were] in their first Olympics. The extra year has helped us. No doubt about it. Our team looks totally different than it would have looked last year.
“The experience now that the group have got from coming here, the experience those youngsters have got, we want to get better each Olympics. Our plan is not to stand still. The minute you stand still you get overtaken.
“Our plan is to keep pushing in every single aspect of performance, science and medicine and the innovation projects that we have got going. We are still going to push. Our goal will be to be better in Paris. That doesn’t mean it is going to happen because we’ve got to work hard to make it happen.”
Only the United States and Australia finished ahead of Britain in the swimming medals table, but Spice acknowledged those countries, along with one or two others, have greater funding in locating and nurturing fresh talent. Spice, though, estimates they can go up another gear or two by directing the resources they do get into different channels to discover untapped potential within Britain.
When asked how much better, in percentage terms they can be, the British Swimming chief replied: “I think there is another 10 to 15 in the short-term, but probably in the long term another 25.
“There is still investment going in to different areas that we haven’t got outputs yet. That coupled with the talent we have in this group and the fact that they are young and moving forward is significant.
“There is a whole range of stuff we haven’t hit yet. We have got a bit up our sleeve. Equally we are never going to be as deep as China, Russia and America, we have to maximise our potential, Australia too of course.
“They have got a lot more numbers than us. We have to maximise the talent we have got - we have to get a gem early.”
Kon’nichiwa everybody. Seeing as Adam got the cross-promotion ball rolling, it behoves me to inform you that I’ll be participating in a Guardian Football Weekly Live (online) Premier League preview on Thursday 12 August. Details below ...
Actually, a plug as I run out the door... I’m on a Guardian Live (online) panel at 7pm BST if cricket is also your jam. £5 - swing by.
Right, that’s me. Thanks for your company on another fine Olympic day. Indeed, with the Test cricket starting on Wednesday, that’s my final stint on the live coverage; it’s been a true delight. I’ll leave you with Barry Glendenning as we build towards day 11 in Tokyo. Bye!
A nice, uplifting piece by Tom Dart at the wrestling.
This is my quote of the Olympics. “I am not happy,” he said. “Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me.”
A gutting result for the Matildas, going down 1-0 to Sweden in the football semi-final. Australia’s women pulled off a stunning come-from-behind extra-time win over Team GB on Friday, inspiring genuine belief that they could go all the way, but couldn’t repeat the dose in the final four. Emma Kemp reported on the match.
A big story that continues to move quickly. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, the Belarusianm sprinter, has received a humanitarian visa from Poland. Andrew Roth has the details.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, wrote on Twitter on Monday that the Belarusian sprinter was in direct contact with Polish diplomats and had been granted a humanitarian visa to the country, where she is expected to fly later this week. “Poland will do whatever is necessary to help her to continue her sporting career,” wrote Przydacz.
Penalty shootout. Those two words; so emotionally loaded in this corner of the world. But as Team GB in the women’s hockey, it mattered not a jot. After finishing 2-2 against Spain in the quarter final, they did not buckle in the shootout, Maddie Hinch denying all four Spanish penalty takers. Next stop for the defending champions: the Netherlands on Wednesday in a semi-final blockbuster.
Steve McMillan reported on the thriller from Oi Hockey Stadium.
“When will we see Sky Brown?” asks Karl Perleberg. Wednesday, with the final at 4:30am BST. Who is Sky Brown? The superstar who will be 13 and 23 days (!) when she competes in the park skateboarding. And you can dare to dream, explains Jonny Weeks.
She will be just 13 years and 23 days old when she tackles the bowls at the Ariake Urban Sports Park. And there’s every chance she’ll win a medal, having won bronze at the world championships in São Paulo in 2019 and silver at the Dew Tour in Des Moines in May this year.
The daily briefing is here. I’ll keep saying it: this is the email you need to subscribe to with Martin Belam doing a fine job of capturing the highlights of each day then peeking at the best to come. Sign up!
Andrew Hoy! When I was a kid in Australia, you knew Andrew Hoy was a champion. He looked old then, even though he probably wasn’t. His first Olympics were LA in 1984. He struck gold in 1992 at Barcelona in the team eventing. He wasn’t on Kibah Tic Toc, but there is every chance the horse would have been given a tickertape parade, such was the national joy at winning anything in those days.
In Atlanta 1996 they defended the title. By Sydney 2000, triple champion Andrew Hoy had a brilliant ring to it. At age 41, a five-time Olympian, you retire, right? Not Andrew Hoy. To Athens and Beijing and London and Rio. No medals, but there he was, a staple.
And so it was today at age 62, on Vassily de Lassos, riding the Aussie trio to a silver medal in the competition he won some 27 years ago in Spain. Then to underline his longevity, he went and snaffled the bronze in the individual event, just as he did 21 years ago at Sydney.
Andrew Hoy is equestrian. Kieran Pender picks up the tale.
Updated
Tamyra Mensah-Stock was running at a happiness rating of 10 long before she made it into the women’s 68kg freestyle wrestling final.
The day landing into Japan, I knew I was going to have fun in Nakatsugawa. They’re freaking awesome! They let me karaoke literally every single day. It was awesome!
Imagine how happy she is now then?
The future is bright (x2) for British gymnastics:
What a compelling first day in the velodrome. Worth the wait. For Team GB, it wasn’t quite the continuation of the dominance we saw in Rio, but there’s time for that to change when they start dishing out medals tomorrow. As for Australia, Alex Porter’s nasty crash - eeek. Kieran Pender was there to write about the session.
In case you missed it earlier: Simone Biles is going to compete in the balance beam individual competition tomorrow. This was one event she didn’t actually win in Rio, taking the bronze. The eyes of the world will be on her routine - what a story if she can win it.
“Hi Adam.” James Twigg, hello. “Slightly veering off the Olympics here but if there’s one thing the shared gold emphasised above all else it was that the Cricket World Cup should have been shared between NZ and England! Just so much better than a contrived tie-breaker that makes the winner feel lucky and the loser cheated. Loving the coverage – keep up the great work.”
Look, this wasn’t a popular view at the time (and one I didn’t subscribe to because I had the enormous joy of commentating the Super Over on radio!) but it is one I’ve come around to recently.
We have an answer on the pole vault query. George Davidson, step up. “The depth of the PV is how far forward or back from the vertical, upright poles the horizontal pole is set. Each vaulter can ask for it to be set where suits them and the conditions. It’s never normally shared but is fascinating. Usually governed by valuters confidence, any wind and which pole they are using. e.g. a springy one or a stiff one.” Fascinating it is - thanks for sharing. George’s athletics bits and pieces are on twitter at @MrHenryGee. *Follow*
“Good afternoon Adam.” Hello to you, Des Brown. “At the end of Day 10 at the Tokyo Olympics, Team GB now have 11 Golds, 12 silver and 12 Bronze - a total of 35 medals. That’s more than the final medal total of Sydney 2000 (28 including 11 Golds) and Athens (30, including 9 Golds). In terms of where Team GB are in comparison with the last 3 Games at the end of Day 10:
Beijing 2008 - 12 Golds, 7 Silver and 9 Bronze. A total of 28 medals.
London 2012 - 18 Gold, 11 Silver and 11 Bronze. A total of 40 medals.
Rio 2016 - 16 Gold, 17 Silver and 8 Bronze. A total of 41 medals.
So in terms of total medals, at this stage Team GB are ahead of Beijing and not that far behind London and Rio.”
To get into the Olympic spirit last week I popped on the BBC Goldrush documentary charting Team GB’s Atlanta 1996 to London 2012 rise. Well worth a look. It makes the obvious point that if you pour hundreds of millions in from a national lottery, and you’re a host city, there will be a return on investment with medals. And much as it was with Australia/Sydney, the success continues.
The best bit about the shared gold medal yesterday? How angry it has made the usual suspects. And if it is good enough for the godfather of high jump, that should be the end of the matter.
I'm not bothered by it. It was a perfect competition, with no misses until out. They are great champions! https://t.co/SAfvjqeWPs
— Dick Fosbury (@DickFosbury1) August 2, 2021
“Hi Adam!” Allo, Daniel Cavanillas. “First of all I want to give you a big thanks for the great coverage you people at the Guardian are doing of the Olympics.” Thank you, it’s a true pleasure.
“As someone who absolutely loves watching the pole vault competition but knows very little about it, today during the women’s qualification I noticed that the screens on the stadium show the current height that the athletes are jumping over (say, 4.25 metres) and also the depth, which also seemed to be varying somewhat randomly. Do you know what the ‘depth’ refers to? Is it something the athletes chose? Is it part of the competition? I am utterly confused but still amazed by this beautiful sport!”
Hmm, not sure. I’ve consulted my main track and field pal in these parts, Gary Naylor, who isn’t either. “My guess would be something to do with the alignment of the bar and the box into which the pole is planted. I saw a lot of Bubka and it was never mentioned.”
While we’re talking Bubka, it annoys me endlessly that there’s so much focus on the gold medals he didn’t claim - it even came up in the opening ceremony the Friday before last. How about the one he did, in magnificent style, at Seoul 1988? Joyous scenes.
A daily treat. The picture gallery from Tokyo, for your enjoyment.
Basketball: Australia’s winless women’s team had to thrash Puerto Rico to sneak into the quarter finals, despite finishing third in their group, and thrash them they did, 96-69 winners. Granted, they have entered this tournament short of full strength, but for a team that won three consecutive silver medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008, it’s quite a drop to scrape into the top eight. The quarter final draw is tomorrow ahead of the elimination stage starting on Wednesday.
Volleyball: As is almost always the case, the final event on show to complete the tenth evening of competition is the volleyball, with Brazil’s exceptional and undefeated women’s team up against the winless Kenya. And they are finishing the Pool A round robin stage in style, claiming the first set 25-10 and the second 25-16.
Badminton: I knew I missed one gold medal match in that final flurry at the stadium - the men’s singles. But reader Lars Bøgegaard had it on in Copenhagen. “One of the most beautiful Olympic moments!” he says of his countrymen Viktor Axelsen’s win, taking the gold after a clinical 21-15, 21-12 triumph over China’s Chen Long - the defending champion. “Immediately Axelsen started to cry and couldn’t stop. ‘I’m crying. That’s okay, isn’t it?’ He asked the Danish Broadcasting Services interviewer before cutting of their talk.”
If you can’t cry tears of joy after winning Olympic gold, when can you in the cold world of professional sport? Here it is - lovely stuff.
.@ViktorAxelsen was absolutely superb!! He didn't lose any game since the beginning of the tournament. He got 🥉 five years ago, now he converted it into a 🥇!! YEAHHHH!!!!! #BadmintonEropa #ViktorAxelsen #DEN @baddk pic.twitter.com/UpGidkF0cM
— Badminton Eropa (@badmintoneropa) August 2, 2021
All the medals have been won for day ten. China and the US have pulled away from Japan and Australia, Not Russia in fifth place.
Shooting: Ahh, wrong target? Some story this, thanks to Reuters.
World number two Serhiy Kulish left the Asaka Shooting Range cursing himself after committing one of the most extraordinary howlers at the Tokyo Olympics - hitting an opponent’s target.
The Ukrainian shooter had sailed into Monday’s final of the men’s 50-metre rifle 3 positions event chasing a second Olympic medal to go with his 10m air rifle silver in Rio five years ago.
While eventual winner Zhang Changhong of China led the eight-shooter group for much of the final, Kulish, in fourth place after 30 shots, was initially hovering around the medal bracket.
His nightmare unfolded in the seventh series when he fired at a rival’s target, and was soon the first of the eight shooters to be eliminated after his 35th shot was deemed to be worth nought.
More than his ouster, the manner in which it happened rankled the shooter.
“I shot into someone else’s target,” the 28-year-old fumed.
“I am not happy. Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me.”
Kulish at least knows what caused the lapse in his concentration.
“The button on my jacket came undone and I felt some discomfort, but time passed and I had to make a shot so I didn’t notice that I was already aiming for someone else’s target.”
It was a massive setback to the medal hopes of the shooter from Cherkasy who has had limited training opportunities heading into the Tokyo Games.
“We don’t have a shooting range and that is a problem. We have to go abroad to train and that is a problem. For now there is no solution,” he said.
“I have a shooting range in my city, but it only has five targets so it is impossible to hold competitions there.
“There is no place to hold competitions; there is no place to grow new athletes and that is a problem,” added Kulish.
One more time on this glorious quote: “I shot into someone else’s target,” the 28-year-old fumed. “I am not happy. Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me.”
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Hockey: Pérez v Hinch, take two. One save on the backstick, a rebound, a second attempt and it’s over the top! Maddie Hinch has kept a clean sheet in the penalty shootout putting Team GB through to the semi-final against the Dutch on Wednesday.
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Hockey: Sarah Jones scores after nailing her dummy to perfection! Spain must score here, with their fourth penalty, or it is all over. And they don’t! Team GB are into the semi-finals! Hinch saves the secondary effort after the first shot hits the bar - drama! Hold on, Spain are referring the decision. Has there been a push on Beatriz Pérez? Nervous moments as the video ref makes her call: “There was contact, there will need to be a re-take.” Blimey!
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Hockey: Two misses to begin. In hockey, the shootout is a running start from the forward third line rather than going to the spot. And Hinch saves Spain’s second, accutately antipating Garcia’s backstick effort! Now Martin replies by scoring on the rebound! It prompts the Olympics DJ to play the best Eurovision winner of all time.
Hockey: We’re off a shoot out! Team GB and Spain finish their quarter final 2-2. BBC voiceover: “I promise you this is on BBC 1” before the coverage I am watching moves to... something else. Odd.
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Hockey: Spain equalise with Team GB! It’s 2-2 with seven minutes to go in the quarter final. Tense times for the defending champions.
Athletics: That’s the end of another brilliant night of track and field. I’m already excited about tomorrow night, where Elaine Thompson-Herah looks wonderfully placed to break Florence Griffith Joyner’s 1988 world record of 21.34 in the women’s 200m final.
“Hi Adam.” Hello, Jim Wicks. “I believe that Weightlifting silver means that GB are top of a medal table! Medallists in 18 different sports, ahead of China and the USA in 17. And that also doesn’t include athletics for GB... yet.” Creative! I like it. Well played.
Valarie Allman wins the women's discus for the USA!
In the end, her throw of 68.98m in the opening round of the rain-affected competition was enough to rule the roost. Kristin Pudenz (GER) wins silver and Yaime Pérez (CUB) takes the bronze. Allman gets to celebrate with one final throw as the Olympic champion but it matters little - she has a precious gold medal. Sandra Perkovic, the two-time world champion from Croatia, finishes in fourth.
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Gold for Aline Rotter-Focken (GER) in the women's 76kg freestyle wrestling!
That’s two gold medals in an hour for the Germans, Rotten-Focken overcoming American Adeline Gray in the decider.
Athletics: Sandi Morris (USA) is out of the women’s pole vault in qualifying! One of the big stars of track and field, and the silver medal winner in Rio, she’s failed to clear 4.55m on three occasions in the wet at the stadium, breaking into tears on the mat.
Hockey: Team GB’s women are back in the lead against Spain their quarter final, taking a 2-1 advantage into the final stanza.
37' 🇪🇸 1-2 🇬🇧
— Great Britain Hockey (@GBHockey) August 2, 2021
Oh what a beauty! It's a classic @Balsdon_Grace rocket to restore our lead 🚀🚀🚀
📺@discoveryplusUK, @Eurosport_UK E5 & BBC iPlayer/Red Button
💻https://t.co/zlHsSiRu8J#ESPvGBR #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/fXTkcwxRvc
Sean Ingle has an update from the weightlifting mixed zone.
Laurel Hubbard, who became the first openly trangender Olympian earlier tonight, has been speaking in the mixed zone after bombing out of the women’s over-87 super heavyweight category.
She spoke for just under three minutes, often breathing heavily as she thanked the IOC, NZ Olympic Committee and Japanese organisers. “I know that my participation in these Games has not been entirely without controversy,” she said. “But I think they’ve been just so wonderful. They’ve been such a help, and I’m so grateful to them all. Thank you.”
She did not take questions but also told journalists:
“Thank you so very much for your interest in my performance this evening,” she said. “I know that from a sporting perspective, I haven’t really hit the standards that I’ve put on myself, and perhaps the standards that my country was expecting of me. But one of the things which I’m so profoundly grateful for is the supporters in New Zealand that have just given me so much love and encouragement, and I really wish I could thank them all at this point but it’s just too many.”
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Football: Sweden 1-0 FT. They go on to face Canada in the gold medal match with the Matildas playing for bronze against the USA.
Sifan Hassan (Netherlands) wins gold in the women's 5000!
Forget what I said about it being a race in four, the Dutch superstar kicked with 300m to go and won by 30 metres! What a stunning final lap, timing her run magnificently. She wins it in 14:36.79.
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Athletics: A race in four as the bell rings in the women’s 5000: Obiri (KEN) leading Taye (ETH), Tsegay (ETH) and Tirop (KEN).
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Football: There are five minutes of added time to come for Australia to find a goal to take it to extra time, but Sweden still lead them 1-0.
Germany's Julia Krajewski wins eventing gold!
Some history too, as the first woman to win it. Remarkably Andrew Hoy, at age 62, has secured the bronze after claiming silver earlier in the day in Australia’s team eventing trio. Hoy’s first Olympics was LA in 1984, his first equestrian gold at Barcelona in 1992.
Athletics: Back to the stadium, where the women’s 5000m is 1400m in as we pick it up. After leading them around for a couple of laps, Japan’s Ririka Hironaka has been overtaken by Kenyan pair Hellen Obiri and Agnes Jebet Tirop. And now another change, with the Ethopian Ejgayehu Taye hitting the lead. Seven laps to go!
Football: Sweden’s women are holding Australia off, leading 1-0 at the 84 minute mark in their semi final. Follow it all live with JP.
Gold for China in the 87kg women's weightlifting
Weightlifting: Phwoar! Emily Campbell! 157kg, it went up, she took a moment to settle, but it’s there! She’s into gold medal position. Back to China’s Li Wenwen and she does it too! It’s gold! And 173kg now to smash the Olympic Record for fun, and she does it too. Emphatic.
Weightlifting: Sarah Robles (USA) is into gold medal position in the women’s 87kg weightlifting, posting a combined weight of 282kg after lifting 150kg with her first clean and jerk attempt. Korea’s Lee Seon Mi is 5kg behind. Wow, here’s Emily Campbell! Team GB’s main contender is now into second after lifting 156kg! Back to Robles with 157kg on the bar... and up it goes! Oh hang on, no it doesn’t! There was movement in her arms, the judges have given her the red light. She is sending it off to be challenged by the jury! This is a big moment. Emily Campbell is still in it to win gold if she can finish with a 5kg increase. And here she comes, all fired up. Stand by!
Hockey: It’s 1-1 between Team GB and Spain in their women’s hockey quarter final with six minutes left in the second quarter. I’ll keep a closer eye on that when they return from the half-time break.
Athletics: Some race, that. 8:08.90 the winning time for Soufiane El Bakkali with Lamcha Girma (ETH) holding on for the silver medal and Benjamin Kigen (KEN) taking the bronze.
Men's steeplechase gold for Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali!
Here comes the Moroccan! Soufiane El Bakkali hits in the lead with 200m to go. One barrier to go and he’s over! He storms home to gold! What an expertly timed run and what a win for the 25-year-old. “The Kenyan stranglehold on this race is over!” says the commentator.
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Athletics: “The Kenyans are responding!” is the call at the 2km mark, Benjamin Kigen and Abraham Kibiwott led only by the aforementioned Ethiopian pair. The second kilometre was run five seconds quicker than the first. It’s all set up for a rapid finish.
Athletics: The TV caller notes that they are on track to run the 3000m journey in about eight and a half minutes, which is 30 seconds off world record pace. The two Ethiopians - Lamecha Girma and Getnet Wale - are leading the field at the halfway mark.
Athletics: The steeplechase final! 3000m, plenty of jumps, a lot of water on the track, 15 runners... this should be chaotic. Lamecha Girma (ETH), the world No1, qualified fastest but he was only a late addition to the field, injured for much of this year. They’re away!
Athletics: The rain has stopped so the women’s discus finalists are on their way back out after an hour. There is now a 15-minute walk-up period before they crack on. “You simply won’t be able to dry the circle so the earlier throws will have been conducted in so much more favourable conditions,” says the TV commentator. American Valarie Allman is in gold-medal position with her 68.98m throw.
Football: Sweden score! Per JP in the dedicated blog:
GOAL! Australia 0-1 Sweden (Rolfö 46)
What on earth happened there? A deflected shot from outside the box spun wickedly off the wet turf forcing Micah to backpedal and tip onto the bar. Australia’s defence couldn’t clear and Rolfö was the fox in the box to hook home very adroitly.
Thanks, Geoff. Great shift. Once again, it’s a privilege to be taking over for the final couple of hours of action in the stadium - a wet night, adding to the chaos we can expect in the men’s steeplechase final, coming up shortly, then the women’s 5000m. Between times, it won’t be long before the women’s discus has been decided. Fun!
Elsewhere, as the women’s 76kg weightlifting reaches the business end the men’s badminton gold medal singles starts between Viktor Alexsen of Denmark and Chen Long of China. In quarter of hour it’s also the 76kg women’s freestyle wrestling gold medal stoush: The USA’s Adeline Gray against Germany’s Aline Focken.
In the team sports, the first whistle has just blown in the men’s hockey quarter final between Team GB and Spain. Over in the women’s basketball, it’s the Australian Opals against Puerto Rico. Oh, and the mixed equestrian medals will be decided, too.
And how did I nearly forget: the second half has just started between Australia’s women and Sweden in the football semi. Follow the minute-by-minute blog on that, with JP Howcroft on the tools.
What has been going on today? As of 9pm Tokyo time...
A big one. They all are, at the Olympics.
- Gold for Great Britain in the team jumps equestrian, silver for Australia and the ageless, deathless Andrew Hoy.
- Two world records for women at the velodrome, for Germany in the team pursuit and China in the team sprint.
- Heaps of gold for China: women’s weightlifting, cycling, a double on the men’s rings, the rifle shooting.
- Jade Carey got gold for America in the women’s floor, Jeahwan Shin for Korea in the men’s vault.
- Simone Biles is back for the beam final tomorrow.
- Canada knocked out the might USA from the women’s football final.
I’m out for the night. Cold compress. Adam Collins is your next keen bean. Give him water, help him grow.
Pole vault and discus: The women’s qualification for the pole is delayed due to rain at the moment, as is the gold-medal discus. Valarie Allman is leading all comers for the USA at the moment with 68.98.
Updated
Water polo: Any Australians stressed about the football, does it make you feel better that your team just beat Kazakhstan 15-7 in the men’s Group B match? Not really? Ok, worth a shot.
Baseball: The Americans have come back, sorry for lovers of fairytales. Three home runs in the fourth, three in the fifth, and they now lead 6-3.
Football: Australia and Sweden are 0-0 at half time in the women’s semifinal. They’ve had by far the better of the first half, the Australians. Had the ball in the net from a corner after a good volley, but the referee ruled it out for a block that looked very insubstantial on replay. No VAR applicable, unlike if the goal had first been awarded and then checked. A few other searing corners in the first half for Australia. At the other end, Rolfo for Sweden has had one stunning shot rattle off the crossbar, and a couple of other dangerous turns or passes into space.
Weightlifting: China’s Li Wenwen holds the world record in the women’s 87kg+ category, and she sets an Olympic record here. Lifts 140kg with her third attempt in the snatch, meaning she’s ahead of Robles on 128 and Lee on 125. Now the lifters will go to the clean-and-jerk, and add those weights to their first round tally.
Laurel Hubbard is out of the weightlifting final
There was so much attention on her qualification, but Laurel Hubbard will not advance. Her first lift at 120 in the snatch contest she lost over the back and couldn’t hold. Her second lift at 125 she did elevate and hold, but the judges disqualify it for a twitch of the elbows. Her third lift at the same weight goes the same way as the first, over the back.
And so, even though there is still the clean-and-jerk part of the event to come, Hubbard has no successful lifts from three attempts and won’t proceed.
Updated
Athletics: So the women’s 200m final tomorrow will line up like this.
Switzerland - Mujinga KAMBUNDJI
USA - Gabrielle THOMAS
Jamaica - Shelly-Ann FRASER-PRYCE
Namibia - Christine MBOMA
Cote d’Ivoire - Marie-Josee TA LOU
Jamaica - Elaine THOMPSON-HERAH
Namibia - Beatrice MASILINGI
Bahamas - Shaunae MILLER-UIBO
Weightlifting: In the women’s 87+ kilogram division, Sarah Robles (USA) is leading with a lift of 120 in the snatch component of the program. Laurel Hubbard (NZ) missed her first attempt at 122 and has lodged her next attempt as being 122. Emily Campbell (GB) lifts 118 but fails at 122. Seon Mi Lee then goes top for Korea with 122. She has one lift left.
Athletics: Men’s 400m third semi-final.
Bahamas - Steven GARDINER 44.14
USA - Michael NORMAN 44.52
Botswana - Isaac MAKWALA 44.59
Jamaica - Demish GAYE 45.09
South Africa - Wayde van NIEKERK 45.14
Netherlands - Jochem DOBBER 45.48
Trinidad & Tobago - Dwight ST. HILLAIRE 45.58
Barbados - Jonathan JONES 45.61
Updated
Athletics: Men’s 400m second semi-final.
USA - Michael CHERRY 44.44
Jamaica - Christopher TAYLOR 44.92
Australia - Steven SOLOMON 45.15
Saudi Arabia - Mazen Moutan AL YASSIN 45.37
Botswana - Leungo SCOTCH 45.56
Trinidad & Tobago - Machel CEDENIO 45.86
Bahamas - Alonzo RUSSELL 46.04
Athletics: Men’s 400m first semi-final. The first two runners qualify.
Grenada - Kirani JAMES 43.88
Colombia - Anthony Jose ZAMBRANO 43.93
Netherlands - Liemarvin BONEVACIA 44.62
Trinidad & Tobago - Deon LENDORE 44.93
Italy - Davide RE 44.94
Switzerland - Ricky PETRUCCIANI 45.26
Slovenia - Luka JANEZIC 45.36
Belgium - Jonathan SACOOR 45.88
Martin Belam has more info for you about Great Britain in the eventing.
Weightlifting: It’s Fischer and Amoe-Tarrant trading lifts initially. Most of the field have set their first weights at 115 or more. Kuinini Juanita Mechteld Manuma of Tonga lifts 103.
Baseball: 2-0 Japan now. USA batting at the top of the fourth.
Weightlifting: Austria’s Sarah Fischer gets the first lift away with 93 kg in the snatch component. Australia’s Charisma Amoe-Tarrant comes in and lifts 95 with apparent ease.
Weightlifting: At the Tokyo International Forum, the women’s 87+kg final is about to start. Plenty of attention on Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand in this event. The world record is 335 kilograms across the two lifts. Ten athletes facing off.
Football: The anthems ring out for Australia and Sweden in the women’s semi. If you want our dedicated live blog for that match, join Jonathan Howcroft. I won’t hold it against you.
Hockey: Netherlands are 3-0 up against New Zealand in the women’s quarters, not long to go in the fourth quarter.
Baseball: Japan score! They’re 1-0 up against the US of A after the third inning.
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Rishabh Pant might have a big cricket series starting in a couple of days, but he’s glued to the hockey.
Phenomenal two days for Indian hockey. First the men qualify for a semifinal after 49 years, and this morning the women do the same for the first time in Olympic history. Chak de, all over!
— Rishabh Pant (@RishabhPant17) August 2, 2021
The whole nation is behind you to win this. #TeamIndia #Hockey #Tokyo2020
Gold! for Korea in the men's vault
Jeahwan Shin does it for Korea tumbling over the wooden horse. Difficulty 5.600, execution an eye-watering 9.233. That’ll do it.
Denis Abliazin of Russia nearly matched him, with Artur Davtyan of Armenia in the bronze position. That’s Armenia’s first medal of these games and only its 14th overall.
Thompson-Herah 21.66 from lane nine after switching off with 25m to go... Flo-Jo's 21.34 could go in the final. #Tokyo2020
— Adam Collins (@collinsadam) August 2, 2021
Athletics: Women’s 200m third semifinal. A big performance in the 100 metres, and Marie-Josee Ta Lou puts in another in her heat. The best start and held the front strongly despite Miller-Uibo hammering through late.
Cote d’Ivoire - Marie-Josee TA LOU 22.11
Bahamas - Shaunae MILLER-UIBO 22.14
Switzerland - Mujinga KAMBUNDJI 22.26
Nigeria - Nzubechi Grace NWOKOCHA 22.47
Niger - Aminatou SEYNI 22.54
USA - Anavia BATTLE 23.02
Belgium - Imke VERVAET 23.31
Italy - Dalia KADDARI 23.41
Athletics: Women’s 200m second semifinal. Another easy win for Jamaica, another tight tussle for second and third. Riley Day’s time was fast for Australia in the first heat, she’s still some chance to qualify.
Jamaica - Elaine THOMPSON-HERAH 21.66
Namibia - Christine MBOMA 21.97
USA - Gabrielle THOMAS 22.01
Gambia - Gina BASS 22.67
Great Britain - Beth DOBBIN 22.85
Canada - Crystal EMMANUEL 23.05
France - Gemima JOSEPH 23.19
Italy - Gloria HOOPER 23.28
Greece - Rafalia SPANOUDAKI 23.38
Athletics: Women’s 200m first semifinal.
Jamaice - Shelly-Ann FRASER-PRYCE 22.13
Namibia - Beatrice MASILINGI 22.40
Bahamas - Anthonique STRACHAN 22.56 (.551)
Australia - Riley DAY 22.56 (.557)
USA - Jenna PRANDINI 22.57
Netherlands - Dafne SCHIPPERS 23.03
Portugal - Lorene Dorcas BAZOLO 23.20
Germany - Lisa Marie KWAYIE 23.42
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Athletics: The women’s 200m semi-finals, first race. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce blitzes the field. “Slings around the bend,” says Bruce McAvaney. Just quietly, is there much better than Bruce on the track for an evening session? You can feel how much he loves it.
Fraser-Pryce is such a vision in these games, the flaming red and yellow hair burning behind her like a rocket tail, opening up several metres on her next competitor before cruising to the line.
Bec May has sent me this deep look at the crazy Team GB bikes, if that’s your kind of bag.
Oh God, the women’s 200 metre semi-finals at the track start in... four minutes. The Games really never stop, do they? Netherlands leading New Zealand 2-0 in the women’s hockey quarter final, by the way. USA and Japan 0-0 in the second inning of the baseball round two match.
Gold! for Great Britain in the team eventing
Speaking of horses! They’ve defied the neighsayers. The Great Brits have done it with the fewest penalties, which I assume is a good thing, ahead of the Australians. I didn’t get to watch it because it takes a long time and there were 43 other things on, including the men’s vault final which is just starting. That’s humans jumping over things on their own instead of on horses. Although if someone could get a horse off the springboard and land that, they’d probably get mad difficulty points.
Anyway, here’s what our friends at the Press Association had to say.
“Great Britain’s eventing team won gold after producing a dominant display in the showjumping finale at Tokyo Equestrian Park. The trio of Oliver Townend, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen led by 17.9 penalties following their outstanding cross-country rounds on Sunday. And they comfortably retained top spot, with McEwen going clear on Toledo De Kerser, Collett having four faults aboard London 52 and Townend also collecting four with Ballaghmor Class. It is Great Britain’s first Olympic team gold in eventing since Munich 1972, while Australia took silver and France bronze.”
Silver for Andrew Hoy, Kevin McNab, and Shane Rose. How many medals has Andrew Hoy got now? I swear he lit the cauldron a Melbourne 1956.
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Matthew Brown with another correction. “About the tie – there is a precedent. Wikipedia has a list of all ties in Olympic history. There has even been a tie for high jump gold before, in 1900. Although that was between two horses.”
“If you don’t win a medal at the Olympics what do you get?” asks Kurt Perleberg.
I’m guessing you’re an Olympic medal-less?
Bless my reader Lasse Roren, who corrects one point below: the Australians in the men’s team pursuit cycling do still have a shot at bronze.
“Unlike you I’ve got the luxury of having enough time to check Wikipedia,” writes Lasse. “So it seems that the format is: 1 vs 4 – winner advances to the gold medal final. 2 vs 3 – winner advances to the gold medal final. The 6 teams not in the gold medal final get ranked by time, and the two best times race for bronze, the next two for 5th etc. So the Aussies will advance to the bronze medal final if they can get one of the two best times of the non-gold medal final teams.”
I understood more of that one than the one about the bike. Was it “a fatbike shaved down by a weight weenie”? I’m not even game to google that on the work computer.
Canada beat the USA to go into the women's football final
What a boilover. The Americans didn’t really look like it tonight, and aside from beating up New Zealand they’ve been pretty lacklustre all tournament. Tierna Davidson gave up the penalty after a VAR check. Jessie Fleming put flames through it. Adrianna Franch guessed the right way to dive but couldn’t reach it.
Sweden or Australia will face Canada for gold.
“But a penalty shoot out in football is a contrivance, as are extra holes in the golf. The objective of the Olympics is that someone wins,” writes Richard Hirst.
It is the objective, yes. And sometimes, in direct contests, there are dead heats. These two were better than everyone else, and couldn’t be separated from one another, for the first time in the history of the event. That feels like a pretty great result to me.
Lars Bøgegaard writes in from Copenhagen. “It was really a flabbergasting rule that allowed the two high jumpers to share the gold. They could have lowered the bar one centimetre and had three jumps. If both jumpers managed that, they could have continued until one failed and the other one made it. If neither could pass it in three attempts one centimetre down again and so on. Just like at penalty shootout in football. But hey, it’s the charm of witnessing sports you are not that familiar with. Citius, altitus, fortius!”
They could have done basically that under the ‘jump off’ rules: they move the bar down until someone fails a jump. But I think Lars, that your closing quotation is the reason that wouldn’t have been a better solution. As per another reader, Steve Tayler:
“To my mind that is exactly when you should realise the need to award two golds. That is a direct contradiction of faster, higher, stronger!”
Speaking of (or alluding to) Simone Biles, here’s the latest on her.
Gold! for Jade Carey in the women's floor
Gymnastics: Carey’s strong early showing held her ahead of the field until the end. The USA team gets gold on the floor and in the all-around, neither from the expected source. Vanessa Ferrari takes silver for Italy in her farewell Games, and there will not be a tiebreak situation for the bronze - Murakami Mai and Angelina Melnikova will take one apiece for Japan and Russia.
Gymnastics: Jennifer Gadirova, the other half of the British duo, goes through her routine without errors but is starting with a low difficulty score, so comes through in seventh place with 13.233. The Gadirovas are 16 years old and will hope to be back for Paris. And that’s that!
Goal for Canada in the semi-final
Football: 74 minutes gone and Canada lead! A penalty called after a shoulder-barge in the area, and Fleming sizzles it into the side netting - but on the right side of the post.
Gymnastics: Rebecca Andrade produces another charismatic performance on the floor. Silver in the all-around final, gold on the vault, she can take home a lot of happiness from her campaign whatever happens here. She gets a penalty for out of bounds on her first pass, stepping back to keep balance, but even without that she would have been just short of the pair locked in equal third. She scores 14.033.
Cycling: The Australians get up and race after their crash in the men’s team pursuit, but only qualify fifth. No chance at a medal, then.
Denmark
Italy
New Zealand
Great Britain
Australia
Canada
Germany
Switzerland
Gymnastics: Murakami Mai is sixth on the floor and third on the board. Another outstanding routine, nothing evident to fault with it, including a front out on one pass that is a point of difference with the other routines. Very high execution score. In fact she’s equal third, with Melnikova. That could require a tiebreak.
Gymnastics: Vanessa Ferrari surges into second place for Italy! She looked in great contention for top spot, actually. The most invested performance we’ve seen in terms of the choreography, costume, expressions, but she also had a complicated tumbling section and stuck each landing.
She gets 14.200, a better execution score than Carey with 8.300 to 8.066, but Carey’s difficulty multiplier retains the edge.
Gymnastics: Viktoriia Listunova is up first on the floor, and the Russian produces a nightclub vibe routine with a couple of mistakes that gets her 12.400 with a o.1 penalty. USA’s Jade Carey nails her effort next though: three big passes, a slight stutter on one landing while the other two are absolutely nailed to the mat. Difficulty of 6.3 compared to Listunova’s 5.2 gives some sense, and Carey posts a strong leading score of 14.366.
Young Jessica Gadirova clocks the best execution score of the night, an 8.400, in a very good routine that gives her 14.000, but Russia’s Angelina Melinkova goes past into second place with 14.166 based off a higher difficulty score. We’re halfway.
Gold for China! In the women's team sprint
Cycling: Germany may be world champ winners, but China take Olympic gold. The gap is 0.015 seconds. Tianshi Zhong and Shanju Bao set a world record earlier today. They were just under a tenth of a second slower in their final, but still blazing fast. Wrestled the bikes out of the blocks with literal screams of effort, stomping the pedals to get them going. And it’s enough to stay just in front and carry them home. The winning time is 31.895.
Updated
Cycling: The Russians take bronze over Netherlands in the women’s team sprint, clocking 32.252.
Australians crash in men's team pursuit
Kieran Pender, trackside:
Disaster for Australia at the Izu Velodrome with a rider in the men’s team pursuit coming unstuck early in the team’s qualifying effort. It was a bad crash - he seems to have walked away okay, but has lost a lot of skin. The team stopped. Confirming Aussies will get to ride again later tonight.
So we have seven of those results in, but not the eights. Now it’ll be the women’s team sprint. Poland pip Ukraine for seventh, Lithuania beat Mexico for fifth.
The women’s floor final in the gymnastics is about to start, and shortly the women’s team sprint gold at the velodrome.
More gold for China, this time in the men's 50m rifle
Shooting: Changhong Zhang is the master of the three positions: he can shoot lying down, kneeling down, or standing up. Don’t cross him. And he’s done it with a new world record of 466. Sergey Kamenskiy from Russia is second, Serbia’s Milenko Sebic is third.
Email from John Gray, and good question about the high jump.
“Great to see Tamberi and Barshim celebrating together; but I’m curious what made it possible for two gold medals in that event. Why couldn’t Zverev and Khachanov simply agreed to have gold each rather than play each other in the tennis final?”
Basically because Tamberi and Barshim had already played their final and were in a dead heat. High jump finals can have athletes locked on height, and so it uses the countback system of how many missed attempts they have at previous heights. Except these two had both jumped perfectly all night. Until the height that neither could beat, they had both cleared every other jump at their first attempt.
The fact that this is unlikely is demonstrated by the fact that there has never been a shared high jump gold before. I think there was one in the pole vault in the early 1900s. That’s it.
So, they’ve done all that their event requires, and they’re completely even. Neither can clear a bigger height. At which point, manufacturing a tiebreak is a contrivance.
Simone Biles returns for the beam final tomorrow
Here’s news. Simone Biles will compete in the women’s beam final on Tuesday, USA Gymnastics has just announced.
We are so excited to confirm that you will see two U.S. athletes in the balance beam final tomorrow - Suni Lee AND Simone Biles!! Can’t wait to watch you both!
— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) August 2, 2021
Updated
Football: Still 0-0 into injury time for Canada and USA in the women’s semis. Six minutes added.
Gold and silver for China on the rings
Gymnastics: It’s a double for Yang Liu and Hao You, with Greece’s Eleftherious Petrounias taking bronze. Yang’s winning score was 15.500 with an astonishing 9.000 on execution. His teammate next to him on the podium hangs the gold medal around Yang’s neck.
Updated
Diving: The men’s 3 metre springboard qualifiers are done, and the Great British Jump Off fans will be glad to know that James Heatly is through in fourth, and Jack Laugher in sixth. China’s pair go through one and two: Zongyuan Wang and Siyi Xie with 531.3 and 520.9 respectively across their six dives. Li Shixin of Australia misses out.
Cycling: An email from Wilson Beuys, of which I understood about four words. This is for those in the know.
“If you’re interested and can get a closeup from agency photos, those GB track bikes are a new design by Lotus in conjunction with Hope (purveyors of expensive bike bits to the deep of pocket) and the weird front forks and seat stays look like something from a fatbike that’s been shaved down by a weight weenie. As with all bikes in UCI track events, they have to be available to the general public, and they are - if you fancy lashing out 30 grand. The chain alone costs 450 smackers...”
And yes, Wilson, if my accomplice Jonny Weeks can find a closeup then we’ll post it.
Football: Still 0-0 for Canada and the US after half an hour. But a yellow card for the States and a corner for Canada, after O’Hara’s sliding tackle collected the attacker and knocked the ball over the goal line. Canada’s corner attack is headed wide.
Gold for China's Zhouyou Wang in the women's 87kg
Weightlifting: Ankhsetseg Munkhjantsan for Mongolia tries a 147 with her final attempt, but is stuck under the bar. Just can’t get that final push of power, and after several efforts she abandons it at last, dropping her head into her hands in tears.
That means silver for Salazar, bronze for Crismery Dominga Santana Peguero of Ecuador.
Zhouyou Wang of China lifts 150 on her way to gold. She has another lift in the bag as well. She’ll try 158 for a personal record.
Before that, Salazar gets a third lift as well. She lifts 150 too! Trailing Wang on the overall weight across both categories, 263 to 270, but that lift for Salazar is purely for her own enjoyment, and she celebrates with everything she has, on her knees on the mat and her face to the sky.
Wang can’t lift the final 158, but the gold is already hers. She pumps a first in understated fashion and leaves the arena.
Updated
Weightlifting: The business end in the women’s 87kg gold medal contest, not to be confused with the 87+kg edition later tonight Japan time. Gaelle Nayo Ketchanke bows out for France attempting a 145 in the clean and jerk. But Tamara Salazar of Ecuador, a joyful and colourful competitor through her whole campaign, lifts 148 to guarantee herself a medal.
Gymnastics: We’re up and away in one of the men’s gymnastics finals as well, on everyone’s favourite apparatus: it’s time to find out who is truly the Lord of the Rings.
Cycling: Here’s Kieran Pender, our correspondent at Izu Velodrome.
The Australian women will be bitterly disappointed with that time, which ends their gold medal hopes in the team pursuit. The 2019 world champions went out strong, staying close to Germany’s new world record time, but faded in the four laps. The best the Aussies can now hope for is bronze - and they will have a lot of ground to make up on Tuesday. The men’s team pursuit qualifying is later this afternoon - hopefully the Australian men, 2016 silver medallists and 2019 world champions, can keep Australia’s track gold medal hopes alive.
Cycling: The seeding for the men’s team pursuit is on now. Mixing and matching.
In the women’s team sprint, China and Germany will ride off later for gold. Netherlands and ROC race for bronze, Mexico and Lithuania have the next race down, and Poland-Ukraine will be the 7th place contest.
Football: The big North American grudge match, the battle of the continent, the contest to decide who gets to be called the hat of whom: this is the women’s semi-final between USA and Canada. Underway, fast pace through the first 10 minutes, and no score.
World record for China in the women's team sprint
Cycling: Another WR goes down at the cycling track today! As we switch formats to the team sprint, which is where two pairs of riders from competing countries start on opposite sides of the track at the same time, the Chinese pair burns around in 31.804.
Diving: Great Britain’s Jack Laugher is currently in third spot after five of the six rounds in the men’s 3-metre springboard qualification. The top 18 go through to the semis, so don’t get too excited at this stage. But it’s a great start.
Updated
Handball: Hungary and Sweden are 15-all after the first half in Group B. In the water polo, Spain just beat Croatia 8-4.
Cycling: They don’t quite get there. That would have beaten Great Britain’s previous world record in the women’s team pursuit that stood until 29 minutes ago. The new GB mark is 4:09:022. They were nearly a full second ahead of Germany’s time today with about four laps to go, but ended up 1.7 seconds behind as they flagged in the last lap and a half.
The team pursuit qualification isn’t an elimination, it’s a seeding event, so the final order is:
Germany
Great Britain
USA
Italy
France
New Zealand
Australia
Canada
Germany will ride off against Italy, GB against USA, France against Canada, and Australia against NZ.
Still flying, the Brits, at 2750 metres!
Cycling: Great Britain to take their qualifying team pursuit ride... they’re ahead of Germany on the first couple of laps.
Athletics: I was thinking about the Sifan Hassan recovery again - that may be the best thing I’ve ever seen at an Olympics. The fall, right at the back, in the final lap after all the exertion of the 1500 and... she just gobbled them up. One at a time, all the way to the end.
Updated
@GeoffLemonSport
— ayon gupta (@ayongupta) August 2, 2021
The scale of the upset by India's women in the hockey QF was off the scale. They were 12th and last at Rio. Many of these girls have come from extreme poverty & reaching the Olympics is itself an achievement leave alone actually being in medal contention
Gold for France in the men's pistol
Shooting: That is the the rapid-fire 25m pistol, to be precise. Jean Quiquampoix shoots a score of 34 to equal the Olympic record set by Cuba’s Leuris Pupo in 2012. Pupo is the man with silver today, and China’s Yuehong Li gets bronze.
Cycling: The Australians bomb to 4:13:571. They were just over a second behind Germany’s time at the halfway mark, then fell all the way back to five seconds and change by the time they were done.
Cycling: New Zealand get through in 4:12:536, the slowest of the four times yet today. Teams from Australia, Canada, US and Great Britain to come.
Germany breaks the world record in women's team pursuit
Cycling: How’s that for a run in qualifying? No easing up at the finish there. Four riders in the team event at the velodrome, if you’re trying to picture it. Great Britain held the record until a few minutes ago with 4:10.236 from the Rio Olympics.
In Tokyo, Italy and France ride times a second or two outside that, before Germany’s team comes home in 4:07:307. Smashed it!
Updated
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. One for each of the five Olympic rings. Thanks Scott. Let’s get ready to get into the madness of a Japanese evening session once again, hey? Right now we’ve got the track cyclists, those adorable little miniature Darth Vaders who go bobble-heading around the track in big circles. There were two a moment ago, then three, now we’ve got four coming out. They’re multiplying. And when one leaves the front they go to the back and start again. Life metaphors abound.
On that note, and I admit it is a low one, I hand you over to Geoff Lemon. Thanks for your company. Let’s do it all again tomorrow.
True on point No 1, PeBo13, and I did actually mean the codpiece when referencing Cameo. I must have been thinking of my attempts in adolescence to imitate. Hence undies.
Fifty-two straight victories at the Olympics for the USA women’s basketball team. You could say their opponents are falling like a house of cards.
Graeme Arthur is doing what you should all be doing. Thinking about great sporting mullets.
Any advance on Chris Waddle? Especially with perm curls at the back. Psyched for the climbing tomorrow - there was some serious mullet action there back in the 80s mind. Spandex pants too.
Steady on, Graeme. Spandex? It’s not that kind of party. Like the Chris Waddle suggestion though.
Updated
Track cycling: Ah cycling, welcome to Tokyo 2020. What took you so long? Action is under way at the Izu Velodrome and Germany are setting the early pace in women’s team sprint qualifying. Sure to be some amazing performances to arise from this meet over the coming days.
Huge, huge semi-final for the Matildas tonight against Sweden in women’s football. There are question marks over Sam Kerr’s fitness and several more hanging over Australia’s ability to turn around the 4-2 thumping handed to them by the Swedes in the group stage. The winner will take on either world champions USA or Canada, who will slug it out in the earlier semi-final at Ibaraki Kashima Stadium.
Who knows, maybe the Matildas’ “it factor” can take them all the way.
Updated
Badminton: a couple of gold medal matches today and I’m delighted to report that Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu have broken new ground for Indonesia in the women’s doubles. They beat the Chinese second seeds in straight sets to hand their country their first gold of Tokyo 2020. Well done. That is outstanding.
A historical win!
— Olympics (@Olympics) August 2, 2021
Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu secure #INA's first ever #Badminton women's doubles Olympic gold - and the nation's first of #Tokyo2020.@bwfmedia @nocindonesia1 pic.twitter.com/F0HDisviLI
On Channel Seven’s Olympics coverage, Rohan Browning is talking about his mullet: how it came about, what his family and friends think about it, and what he hopes the future holds for it. He also says there isn’t an Asahi in Tokyo that isn’t safe tonight. I bet he races through one of those bad boys in OR time.
Look, his mullet’s not bad but it could be so much better. Favourite sporting mullets people, Olympic or otherwise?
Women’s basketball: France put up a good fight but class prevailed in the end as USA cleared away to a 93-82 victory to ensure qualification for the quarter-finals from Group B. A’ja Wilson top-scored with 22 points for USA, including 9/12 from the floor. The Americans were made to work and trailed at the first break but they are not gold medal favourites for no reason. Along with death and taxes, Team USA winning women’s basketball gold should be considered one of life’s certainties.
Later tonight, Australia take on Peurto Rico in Group C with both teams looking for their first win at Tokyo 2020.
Undefeated into quarterfinals. 😤#USABWNT tops France 93–82 to close out the preliminary round. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/vP51M4F0Hp
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) August 2, 2021
Thank you, max867, for pointing out my typo. Fixed.
But you can’t mention cameo without receiving this in return. Red undies worn on the outside kind of ties into an earlier discussion about Olympics attire. Kind of.
Updated
More here from Sean Ingle who’s down at the track in Tokyo, on that impossible run from the incomparable Sifan Hassan earlier in the day. The Dutchwoman’s hopes of gold in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m – a feat never before attempted – are still alive, despite taking a tumble with a lap to go in the 1,500m heats.
Women’s basketball: USA are starting to show their class against France, opening up a 78-72 lead over France with seven minutes remaining in their Group B clash. The French had started well to lead at the first break.
A big pat on the back to Alex Fraser, who has this to say on an earlier comment about what female athletes must/must not or should/should not wear in contrast to their male counterparts:
In response to Niall O’Keefe’s question about why female athletes are “required” to wear singlets that expose their midriffs whereas male athletes do not.
The simple answer is that they’re not required to do so by the rules. Marie Josie Ta Lou in the Women’s 100m and the long jumper Ivana Spanovic wore full length leotards in their events over the past couple days.
Keep up the great work! With no field event coverage on Canadian broadcast your rolling updates are my only source of news for those lesser spotted medals.
Thanks Alex. And you’re most welcome. We live to give here at the Guardian.
And here’s a wrap of other goings-on today, just in case you’ve been otherwise engaged:
- Miltiadis Tentoglou won men’s long jump gold for Greece, matching Juan Miguel Echevarria’s jump of 8.41m but relegating the Cuban to silver medal position. USA’s Juvaughn Harrison, not-so-fresh from his high jump exploits, could manage a best of only 8.15m and did not reach the podium.
-
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn was a dominant winner of the women’s 100m hurdle final. The Puerto Rican finished well in front of USA’s Kendra Harrison, who clipped the eighth jump and did well to hold off the fast-finishing Jamaican, Megan Tapper.
- Dutch running machine Sifan Hassan fell in her 1,500m heat, got up and went on to win the race. Geweldig! Australians Jessica Hull and Linden Hall also progressed.
- In canoe sprinting, Australia’s Thomas Green qualified for the semi-finals after finishing second to Josef Dostal of the Czech Republic in the first of this morning’s heats
- Australia’s women’s hockey team was bundled out of Tokyo 2020 after going down 1-0 to India in a massive quarter-final upset. Argentina beat Germany to become the first side through. Team GB are in action later on against Spain, after the Netherlands play New Zealand.
- And Belarusian athlete, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who refused to board a flight after she said she was taken to an Tokyo airport against her will was safe and in the hands of authorities, the International Olympic Committee said
Updated
If you’re in Britain and starting to smell the coffee, as in you’ve just woken up and fired up the percolator, here’s today’s key takeouts for Team GB:
- Laura Muir comfortably progressed in her 1,500m heat, finishing second to Canadian Gabriela Debues-Stafford
- Beth Dobbin is through to the 200m semi-finals after running second to Canadian Crystal Emmanuel at the heat stage
- Deborah Kerr won her K1 200m quarter-final and has progressed to the semi-finals of the canoe sprint event
- Nick Miller threw 76.93m to finish a highly creditable third in Group A of the men’s hammer throw qualifying
- In sailing, Team GB will be looking to claim medals in the women’s 49er FX and men’s 49er races
- Team GB have a strong eventing hand in both team and individual gold medal events
- In artistic gymnastics, twins Jessica and Jennifer Gadirova will be chasing gold in the women’s floor final
- Track cycling gets under way today with team sprint and team pursuit qualifying races
Updated
Hello Niall O’Keeffe:
Tubthumping is one of my favourite songs! Well done. Just curious why female track athletes are required to wear singlets that expose their midriffs. But males wear full length ones.
It’s a good question, Niall. My wife is enraged that female beach volleyball players wear bikini bottoms but the blokes wear shorts.
Women’s basketball: USA, unbeaten after two games in Group B, have started a little slowly and trail France 35-30 early in the second quarter. The French are on fire from the perimeter, hitting three after three.
Earlier today, Japan beat Nigeria 102-83 to lead Group B but the winner of USA-France will overtake the host nation.
Sailing: actually Rod, we are not sailing.
The start of Monday’s Olympic sailing programme has been delayed as organisers wait for winds to pick up at the Enoshima Yachting Harbour.
The venue was supposed to host the final two opening series races in the men’s and women’s 470 classes, as well as the medal races in the 49er class for both genders later in the afternoon.
The weather forecast published by World Sailing early on Monday morning predicts that winds will remain light at four to six knots until the early evening. World Sailing previously told reporters that winds of at least six knots would be necessary to ensure fair competition.
- Reuters
Back to the No 1 trending topic on Twitter - #Staring4Paris - and here’s an email I missed from the other day. Welcome to Blogsville, Patrick O’Keeffe:
Enjoyed watching those Big Train clips again – classic, classic sketches.
Also, I really enjoyed your write up of the North v Glenelg SANFL grand final last year. The SANFL was awesome in the 80s (KG presenting the SANFL highlights on Saturday evening was compulsory viewing at our place). I knew every West Adelaide player when I was 7, barely knew that the AFL existed!
#Staring4Paris!!!
While all manner of sports are contemplated as Olympics-worthy, why not Australian football - or, as many on the eastern seaboard of Australia would have you believe it’s called, AFL?
I mean, why not? If they let the Dream Team run amok in the 1990s, what’s wrong with the likes of Marcus Bontempelli and Lance Franklin going at it against a plumber from Sweden and a farmer from Chile?
But returning to what will surely be an extremely hot sport in Paris, sit back and enjoy this classic bout between Solowka and Uzliam in what was a golden era for staring.
Women’s hockey quarter-finals: big, big shock as Australia are sent packing from Tokyo 2020 courtesy of a 1-0 loss to India. The Hockeyroos had been in sublime touch but had no answer to Gurjit Kaur’s strike after 22 minutes.
India defended stoutly in the final quarter as Australia mounted attack after attack and they are now through to their first ever semi-final at an Olympic Games. The scenes of jubilation are still going on at Oi Hockey Stadium as India’s women contemplate their first Olympic medal.
This is the biggest boilover since Polly put the kettle on. Hockeyroos players are either prostrate or staring glumly into space. They can’t believe it and they are not alone.
India will next face Argentina, who earlier today secured their place in the semi-finals with a 3-0 win over Germany.
Updated
Hmmm, this is interesting and not a little concerning.
A Belarusian athlete who refused to board a flight after she said she was taken to an Tokyo airport against her will was safe and in the hands of authorities, the International Olympic Committee said on Monday.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, spent the night in an airport hotel, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said at media conference, after she sought protection from Japanese police at Haneda airport late on Sunday.
Adams said the IOC would continue conversations with Tsimanouskaya, who remains in Tokyo, on Monday morning.
- Reuters
Back to the men’s long jump final and Samuel Cardwell has emailed in to shed some more light on the Tentoglou-Echevarria countback:
Re: Sue’s question, both sports have ‘the mysterious countback’. In the high jump, if either the Qatari or the Italian had missed a single jump before the final set of three, that would have put them into second. But both athletes managed to nail every single jump until they both came up short three times in a row at the 2.39m mark. So there was no way to separate them without a playoff.
The long jump doesn’t have that steadily increasing target, or the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule. As I understand it, the only way they could have been tied after the final jump is if both Tentoglou and Echevarria had somehow managed to equal each other with every single legal jump, which is obviously extremely improbable.
Thanks Sam. It is rather confusing, isn’t it. Even Tentoglou looked bewildered for a while.
Either that or he just celebrates on the inside.
Women’s hockey quarter-finals: it’s three-quarter-time at Oi Hockey Stadium and still Australia have not found a way through India’s defence. The Hockeyroos are trailing 1-0 and have 15 minutes to do something about it.
This is a huge upset in the making. India’s women have never got to a semi-final at the Olympics before.
Sue Aspinall writes in to ask what I’m sure many are thinking:
Hi Scott enjoying the running commentary, but can you explain how in the HJ they have the same height and tie the gold, whereas LJ have the same distance and it gets separated on a mysterious countback, what is this?
Hey Sue. Both men jumped 8.41m but Tentoglou won gold on countback because his next-best effort of 8.15m was greater than Echevarria’s 8.09m. In the high jump final, Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi ended with jumps of 2.37m and had no failed attempts until they both attempted to clear 2.39. They were offered a “jump-off”, which was politely declined and both men were awarded gold.
And still on long jump, here’s Kieran Johnson with a question, or is it an observation?
Maybe you or, more likely, another reader can explain why long jumpers often start their run-up with those prancing, loping strides, rather than just accelerating as fast as possible like the sprinters do?
KJ clearly has little faith in me, and with good reason. I’ll start the bidding with routine and dramatic effect. Anyone care to raise me?
Whatever it is, these sand shots are just spectacular.
Updated
Women’s hockey quarter-finals: over at a hot and humid Oi Hockey Stadium, Argentina secured their place in the semi-finals with a 3-0 win over Germany earlier this morning. Las Leonas are gunning for their first Olympic gold medal, having gone close with silvers both in London and Rio.
The identity of their next opponents remains very much up in the air, with Australia perhaps surprisingly 1-0 down at the half-time break in their quarter-final against India.
It was Gurjit Kaur who managed what no one in the past four games has been able to do against the Hockeyroos, the Australians having recorded four consecutive clean sheets previously.
Before Kaur’s goal from a penalty corner on 22 minutes, Australia had only conceded once this tournament - in their opener against Spain - but they’ll now have to dig deep after the break and come from behind if they’re to keep their hopes of a medal alive.
HT | @Hockeyroos have threatened without reward and have the job in front of them after conceding just their second goal of the tournament.
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) August 2, 2021
🇦🇺0-1🇮🇳 #AUSvIND #TokyoTogether #Tokyo2020 #Hockey
LIVE now on 7Plus: https://t.co/QFD9LVLbCJ
LIVE stats: https://t.co/je9qpIISow pic.twitter.com/pZN0bhoZ32
Canoe sprint - men’s kayak single 1000m: Australia’s Thomas Green has qualified for the semi-finals after finishing second to Josef Dostal of the Czech Republic in the first of this morning’s heats. Green’s countryman Jean van der Westhuyzen, however, will have to progress via the quarters after finishing third to Portugal’s Fernando Pimenta in the third heat.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Oh this? Just Olympic champ @TomDaley1994 knitting in the stands while watching the diving. 🧶 pic.twitter.com/o17i6vsG2j
— Olympics (@Olympics) August 1, 2021
Men’s hammer throw: athletics is done for now but there were plenty of performances to keep us going until action resumes tonight at the National Stadium.
Before we head elsewhere, Team GB’s Nick Miller threw 76.93m to finish a highly creditable third in Group A qualifying this morning. France’s Quentin Bigot, second in the 2019 World Championships, led the way with a throw of 78.73m ahead of Ukranian Mykhaylo Kokhan (78.36m).
A minimum throw of 77.50m is required for automatic qualification but Miller is safely through to the final as he was among the top 12 throwers from Groups A and B, the latter being taken out by Wojciech Nowicki of Poland with a big 79.78m effort.
USA pair Rudy Winkler, the national record holder, and Daniel Haugh are also through to Wednesday’s final courtesy of 78.81m and 75.73m throws respectively.
Okay, before we do a sweep around Tokyo how about the effort of Sifan Hassan to get knocked down in her 1,500m heat, get up and win the race? Don’t take it from me, take it from Reuters:
Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan’s dream of an unprecedented treble looked under threat on Monday as she tumbled and fell in her 1,500 metres heat but she recovered brilliantly and pushed hard to win her race and advance to the semi-finals.
Hassan, a 5,000m world bronze medalist and world champion in the 1,500m and 10,000m, confirmed she will bid to win medals in all three races, in what would be an Olympic first. It didn’t go smoothly for her on Monday.
At the start of the last lap of her 1,500m run, she got tangled up with Kenya’s Edinah Jebitok, who had just tripped and gone to ground in front of her. Hassan fell but quickly picked herself up and pushed hard, running from 11th with 600m remaining, to win in 4:05.17, her resilience ensuring she qualified for Wednesday’s semi-finals.
The Ethiopian-born 28-year-old will have to recover quickly as she is scheduled to run in the 5,000m final on Monday night. A major rival for gold, the defending Olympic champion, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, easily won her 1,500m heat with a dominant performance that paved her path to the semi-final, keeping her on track to retain the title she won five years ago in Rio.
Other qualifiers from Monday’s 1,500m heats include Britain’s Laura Muir, who came second in her heat to advance. Muir, who had also contemplated running in the 800m, said she will withdraw from the shorter distance.
“I’d hate to be mediocre at both and, while it was emotionally a tough decision to make, mentally it was clear to me that the 1500m is where I needed to be,” she told BBC Sport.
Take it away, Chumbawamba.
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (PUR) wins women's 100m hurdle gold!
Camacho-Quinn dominates a top-notch field, clearing away from the sixth jump to win in 12.37 and cap an incredible season in sprint hurdling.
USA’s Kendra Harrison (12.52) claims silver - her first Olympic medal - in a photo finish over fast-finishing Jamaican Megan Tapper (12.55). Harrison did well to steady herself after clipping the eighth jump.
But this was all about Camacho-Quinn. It seems nobody can hold a candle to her. A stunning display of power, precision and technical brilliance from the Puerto Rican.
Updated
Women’s 100m hurdles final: incredibly high-quality race coming up, if that needs to be said for an Olympic final. Jasmine Camacho-Quinn is the woman to beat.
Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE) wins men's long jump gold!
Huge, huge jump by Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece to jump 8.41m and knock Juan Miguel Echevarria out of gold medal contention on countback. Echevarria has a chance to better the Greek’s leap with his final jump but pulls up on his approach to the sand, clutching his leg. Oh the drama! Gold to Tentoglou!
So first position in the high jump was shared and now the first two men in the long jump final cannot be separated by distance, only countback. Tentoglou has been the standout jumper this season but that was cruel on Echevarria, who was all over a gold medalist until the very end. Bronze goes to Cuba’s Maykel Masso with a jump of 8.21m.
Women’s 100m hurdles final next.
Updated
Men’s long jump final: Righto, we are at the business end now: the sixth and final round of jumps.
Cuban Juan Miguel Echevarria still holds away in gold medal position with that jump of 8.41m. Sweden’s Thobias Montler just put in what looked to be a superior jump - and it was - but agonisingly it was a foul, barely centimetres over the stripe. Heartbreak for the Swede. But rules are rules.
Spaniard Eusebio Caceres has just put his best foot forward, registering a seasonal best to move into bronze position behind Echevarria and Cuba’s Maykel Masso (8.21m).
USA’s Juvaughn Harrison will not be medaling after closing with a jump of 7.49m - his best of the final was 8.15m.
Perhaps it’s the sexiness of the 100m, perhaps it’s because Australia has been starved of a male sprinter of note for what seems like a lifetime. Perhaps it’s both.
Even though he failed to back up his sizzling heat run in the semis, there is barely a sports fan down under who does not know the name Rohan Browning.
Women’s 200m: the seventh and final heat has gone the way of USA’s Jenna Prandini, who looked to run well within herself in a time of 22.56 - not the quickest of the morning but by no means the slowest. And a big run by Australia’s Riley Day to finish third and qualify for the semi-finals. Splitting the pair was Gambian Gina Bass.
“I’m into the semi-final, It’s unreal. I think I handled myself well,” said Day, AKA the Beaudesert Bullet. Her plan for the semis? “Absolutely floor it.”
Take it away, Starsailor.
Men’s long jump final: the springheeled Cuban Juan Miguel Echevarria is still showing the way with that jump of 8.41m but the big mover is USA’s Juvaughn Harrison, who has leapt into bronze medal contention with a jump (his fifth of the final) of 8.15m.
A bit of Covid news, anyone? Bad luck if the answer is no.
Tokyo Olympics organisers reported on Monday 17 new Games-related Covid-19 cases including one athlete, bringing the total number since 1 July to 276.
- Reuters
Women’s 200m: no such dramas for 100m gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah, who like Jackson left plenty in reserve in the penultimate heat but didn’t make the mistake of failing to qualify for the semis. The Jamaican was content to sit in third in the run to the line, behind Canadian Crystal Emmanuel (22.74) and Team GB’s Beth Dobbin.
Updated
Women’s 200m: big news out of the fifth heat with 100m bronze medalist Shericka Jackson fairly well ambling down the straight to be nosed out of third place - and out of the event. She finished 0.004 - that’s four one-thousandths of a second! - behind Dalia Kaddari in what is a big-name casualty from the women’s 200m. The Jamaican looked to ease up on the line. As the kids say, WTF?!?!
The heat was taken out by Bahaman Anthonique Strachan in a sluggish 22.76.
Women’s 200m: a couple more heats have been run and won, with Swiss Mujinga Kambundji claiming a five-runner third heat in 22.26.
But the action was really up a notch or two in the fourth heat. Namibian Christine Mbomba ran a national record 22.11 and was pushed all the way by USA’s Gabrielle Thomas. Daylight was third in what was a two-woman race. Well, that’s not entirely true. Third place went to Nigeria’s Aminatou Seyni, who was a half second and change behind Thomas in a time of 22.72. In sprinting, that is a big gap.
Men’s long jump final: some moving and shaking after the second round of jumps. At least there was. Gold medal favourite Juan Miguel Echevarria had slipped to fourth fourth place but is now back where many think he will stay - on top - after nailing a 8.41m jump early in the third round.
Cuba’s Maykel Masso and Greece’s Miltiadis Tentoglou are presently in medal positions but there is a way to go in this final. The best USA’s Juvaughn Harrison, fresh from his exertions in the high jump, can do after two jumps is 7.70m.
Women’s 200m: Easy does it for Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican who ran second in the 100m final, leading throughout from lane six to clock 22.22. Also guaranteed a spot in the semis is Namibian Beatrice Masilingi and Dutchwoman Dafne Schippers, the Rio silver medalist who toiled into third place. She really does look a power of the past.
She fairly well glides over the track, does Fraser-Pryce. She’ll be there at the business end of this event.
Updated
Women’s 200m: the first heat has been taken out by fourth placegetter in the 100m final, Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Côte d’Ivoire in a time of 22.30. She did it rather easily to finish in front of, Shaunae Miller-Uibo (Bahamas) and Nigeria’s Nzubechi Grace Nwokocha. All three are automatically through to tonight’s semi-finals.
Men’s long jump final: the first round of jumps is under way. The red-hot gold medal favourite, Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba, has shown up early with a leap of 8.09m. Long way to go. More on that shortly.
Now, however, attention turns to the women’s 200m heats.
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Thanks Tom. Stellar work as usual from your good self. Plenty on - mostly at the National Stadium - but my doesn’t the end of the swim meet seem to leave a a big hole in the Olympics. I might well be saying that as an Australian...
Anyhoo, on with the Games.
I’ll hand over to the esteemed Scott Heinrich now. Enjoy the rest of the day’s fun...
In the men’s hammer throw, Group A have finished their throws. France’s Quentin Bigot and Ukraine’s Mykhaylo Kokhan threw past the automatic qualification distance of 77.50m GBs Nick Miller finished third with 76.93m and will almost certainly make the final too. USA’s Alex Young was 11th and will struggle to move on.
Next is the men’s long jump final. USA’s Juvaughn Harrison is worth a note: he competed in the high jump final last night. No Aussie, British, NZ or Canadian athletes in this one.
In the Canoe Sprint Women’s K1 200m, GB’s Deborah Kerr and Emily Lewis missed out on the top two spots in their heats, which would have seen them go straight through to the semifinals. They will get another chance in the quarters though. NZ’s Lisa Carrington won her heat though and is straight into the semis.
The third and final heat of the 1500m stars the reigning Olympic champion, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon. She duly wins by a mile (not a literal mile, pedant). I believe that is what is called “sending a message”. And the commentator duly says she “sent a message”. It’s the fastest heat, which makes sense as they knew what they needed to run to get to the semis. Other qualifiers from the heat are Uganda’s Winnie Nanyondo, Australia’s Linden Hall, Japan’s Tanaka Nozomi, USA’s Heather MacLean and GB’s Katie Snowden. USA’s Cory McGee is through as a fastest loser but GB’s Revee Walcott-Nolan missed out by 0.01 seconds. Eeesh.
The brilliant Dutch runner Sifan Hassan is next in heat two of the women’s 1500m. She, you may remember, is also competing in the 5000m and 10000m. In fact she’s back for the 5000m final later today. She hangs at the back of the pack for much of the race (she won the 1500m at the 2019 world champs - and the 10,000m while she was at it). Oh, and she falls on the final lap! But she’s back up. She has to sprint to get back in contention, which she does and qualifies as winner. Of course she does. Told you she was brilliant. That may well take it out of her for tonight’s 5000m final though...
The other automatic qualifiers are Australia’s Jessica Hull, Czech star Diana Mezuliáníková, USA’s Elle Purrier St Pierre, Italy’s Gaia Sabbatini and Ethiopia’s Lemlem Hailu. GB’s Revee Walcott-Nolan is seventh and may end up as a fastest loser.
Alix Klineman and April Ross of the USA are through to the quarter-finals of the women’s beach volleyball with a 2-0 victory over Cuba’s Leila Martínez and Lidiannis Echevarria.
A fairly slow few laps before a burst on the final one for a winning time of 4min 03sec. Laura Muir qualifies comfortably in a heat won by Canada’s Gabriela Debues-Stafford. Finland’s Sara Kuivisto ran a national record to make the next round alongside Winny Chebet of Kenya and Freweyni Hailu of Ethiopia. USA’s Cory McGee is eighth and probably won’t make it as a fastest loser. Australia’s Georgia Griffith was 14th and her campaign is over.
On to the women’s 1500m now. And Britain’s Laura Muir goes in heat one. She has easily the best personal best out of any of the other athletes in the heat. She finished seventh in Rio and fifth at the world championships. The first six in the heat go through. USA’s Cory McGee and Australia’s Georgia Griffith will also hope to qualify. It’s 30C/86F in Tokyo and only just past 9.30am. Yikes!
You can read more on Laura Muir here:
GB’s Nick Miller is just short of the mark for automatic qualification for the hammer final with a throw of 76.93m. But that should be good enough to make the final anyway. He’s now in third place after a foul on his first attempt.
The US pair of Ross and Klineman won every game in the group stages of the women’s beach volleyball and they’re going along pretty well in the last 16. They’re up 1-0 in sets at the moment to Cuba’s Martínez and Echevarria.
There was a surprise winner in the men’s 100m yesterday in Tokyo and our man at the Olympic Stadium, Andy Bull, has some Thoughts:
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the fastest man on the planet, the face of the 2020 Games, your new Olympic champion, wait, wait, I’ve got it here somewhere, on one of these pieces of paper, yes: Marcell Jacobs. If you don’t know – and plenty didn’t – you do now. Jacobs, a 26-year-old former long jumper, born in Texas, raised in Italy, won a wildly unpredictable and wide-open men’s 100m in 9.80sec. Which is pretty damn quick. And would have won almost every other Olympic final, including, yes, the last one at Rio in 2016, when Usain Bolt finished in 9.81sec.
And there he is, unavoidably. I say almost every Olympic final because there are two exceptions, Bolt’s twice-in-a-lifetime runs in Beijing in 2008 and London 2012. If you were watching on Sunday, you’ll have seen that World Athletics have started blacking out the stadium at the beginning of the sprint finals. It’s one of the new tricks they’re using to make the sport more appealing now that they’re having to do without their biggest star. Maybe they’re hoping that in the pitch blackness, no one will notice the shadow Bolt still casts over the sport.
But I could see him in my mind’s eye, maybe you could too. If it helps any, so could Jacobs. “I can recall every one of his races because I watched them all,” he said, “It’s unbelievable that I am here today, where he was before.” To his credit, Jacobs resisted making any comparisons. “He was the face of the entire sport, which he has changed forever. I’ve just won an Olympic medal, it’s not time to compare myself to him,” he said.
In his pomp, Bolt would have obliterated this field. The men competing here will likely have to live with his 100m times for a long while yet, just like the women have lived with Florence Griffith Joyner’s.
You can read the full article below:
France’s Quentin Bigot has the first action of the day at the Olympic Stadium. He throws 76.10m in the men’s hammer qualification. Also coming up in the next hour: Cuba v USA in the women’s beach volleyball; the heats of the women’s K1 200m canoe sprint; the women’s 1500m heats; and Germany v Argentina in the women’s hockey quarter-finals.
The women’s 1500m heats start in around 30 minutes. The Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan will attempt to make the next round. Just getting to this stage is impressive enough, but Hassan will be on the track again this evening in Tokyo in the 5000m final. Oh, and she’s also running in the 10,000m later this week. She’s not here to make up the numbers either. She won the 1500m and the 10,000 at the 2019 world champs. Oh, and got bronze in the 5000m at the 2017 world champs.
So think about that the next time you’re boasting about doing 12,000 steps in a day.
The only live sport going on at the moment is the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol. And it’s only qualification! Not even the final! Sorry, I don’t make the schedule. These guys would be incredibly annoying to play online in Call of Duty, especially if, like me, you only play it once a year at a friend’s house where you spend your time getting shot 28 times in a minute by some 14-year-olds on the other side of the world (they have really powerful rifles).
The standings so far today: France’s Clément Bessaguet and Jean Quiquampoix are first and second; Germany’s Christian Reitz third; and South Korea’s Han Daeyoon in fourth. Australia’s Sergei Evglevski is 19th. For USA, the Leverett (brothers?), Henry and Jack, are 21st and 25th.
There has been some debate on the sports desk about the shared gold in the high jump yesterday in Tokyo. For those of you catching up Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim passed up the chance for a sudden death jump off for gold and instead decided to share the Olympic title. “I still can’t believe it happened,” Tamberi said. “Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful. ... It was just magical.”
Some people thought it devalued the level of competition. I thought it was quite nice and, even better, annoyed the “everyone gets a trophy these days” brigade. Here’s what Bakwaas says in our comments section:
And it’s a big day for the United States women’s soccer team, who take on their rivals to the north, Greenla Canada in around eight hours. The last time they met in an Olympic semi-final it ended with a 4-3 victory to the US in extra-time.
Here’s Suzanne Wrack, who will be at the match for us, on what to expect:
As tight as that game was and as much as it added to an already spicy rivalry, the Canadians have struggled to get the better of the US. The last time Canada beat USA was 20 years ago, in March 2001. Of the 61 games played between the two teams the US have won 51 times, lost three and seven have ended in draws.
That record does not mean there is any room for complacency, said Andonovksi. “They’re a very good team. They have very good individuals,” he warned.
The Chicago Red Stars defender Casey Krueger said: “Any time you’re playing Canada you’re going to be up for it because of the rivalry. We know they are going to bring their best and we have to do the same. We hope to bring that energy.”
Read the full article here:
After a remarkably successful week in the pool, Team Australia turn their eyes toward other disciplines. Today, the Hockeyroos play a quarter-final against India, Australia’s sailors target more medals, while there is hope of equestrian success and the Matildas seek to continue their charge towards a medal against Sweden. Here’s a full rundown of what to expect from the Aussie athletes:
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Preamble
Hello. And so we bade farewell to swimming yesterday but we still have the athletics/track & field, cycling and, of course, the modern pentathlon. Actually let’s check if we have the modern pentathlon coming ... Yep! On the fifth. So that’s nice
Anyway, here’s my colleague Martin Belam with what’s coming up today.
Key events for Day 10
All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Edinburgh, 13 hours for New York and 16 hours for San Francisco.
🌟If you only watch one thing: 3.30pm-6.30pm, Track cycling – cycling moves indoors to the Izu Velodrome, and opens with the women’s team sprint competition. The final starts at 6.09pm 🥇
- 9am, Beach volleyball – it is the round of 16 in both the men’s and the women’s sections
- 9am-11.55am and 7pm-10pm, Athletics – another packed programme in the stadium. The medals will come from the women’s 100m hurdles final (11.50am), women’s discus (8pm), the men’s 3,000m steeplechase (9.15pm) and the final race of the day at 9.40pm is the women’s 5,000m
- 11.50am and 3.50pm and 7.50pm, Weightlifting – it is the women’s 87kg and +87kg groups in the morning, and then the final of the 87kg group at 3.50pm, with the evening final being the +87kg. The +87kg category will feature Laurel Hubbard 🥇
- 1pm and 8pm, Badminton – the afternoon sees the bronze and gold medal matches in the women’s doubles. The evening session is the climax of the men’s singles 🥇
- 5pm, Artistic gymnastics – there are medals in three disciplines. The men have the rings final and vault final, and the women have the floor exercise final 🥇
- 5pm and 8.45pm, Equestrian – it’s the final day of the eventing competition and the team and individual medals will be decided by showjumping 🐴🥇
- 5pm and 8pm, Football – the women’s semi-finals are on Monday. USA v Canada in Kashima first, then Australia v Sweden in Yokohama
- 7.30pm, Artistic swimming – it is the opening free routine preliminary round.
You can find our full interactive events schedule here. It also acts as a live scorebaord during the day so you can see exactly what is happening where.
As it stands
Here’s how the emoji table stood at 10.25pm Tokyo time:
1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 24 🥈 14 🥉 13 total: 51
2 🇺🇸 USA 🥇 20 🥈 23 🥉 16 total: 59
3 🇯🇵 Japan 🥇 17 🥈 5 🥉 9 total: 31
4 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 14 🥈 3 🥉 14 total: 31
5 ◽️ Not Russia 🥇 12 🥈 19 🥉 13 total: 44
6 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 10 🥈 10 🥉 12 total: 32
7 🇫🇷 France 🥇 5 🥈 10 🥉 6 total: 21
8 🇰🇷 South Korea 🥇 5 🥈 4 🥉 8 total: 17
9 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 4 🥈 8 🥉 15 total: 27
10 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 4 🥈 7 🥉 6 total: 17
