Yahoo Finance Tokyo 2020 Olympics briefing: a pool party and shocks aplenty
Today in a nutshell: Team GB pick up their first medals – but Andy Murray and Jade Jones see their hopes dashed.
Tomorrow’s key moments: there’s a huge morning of swimming finals in the pool, the men’s triathlon starts at the crack of dawn in Tokyo, and the rugby sevens gets under way.
Here are some of the most eye-catching headlines from an incredibly busy day of sport in Tokyo. Australia’s 4x100m women’s freestyle relay team smashed their own world record in the process of picking up the country’s first gold, while the US picked up six medals in the pool, including a gold and silver one-two with Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland in the men’s 400m individual medley. Katie Ledecky and Ariarne Titmus progressed to set up a 400m freestyle final clash tomorrow morning. Tunisia’s 18-year-old Ahmed Hafnaoui pulled off the swimming shock of the day, winning gold in the men’s 400m freestyle.
Team GB claimed their first medals with a bronze for Chelsie Giles in the judo, followed by Bradly Sinden picking up silver in a hard-fought taekwondo final against Uzbekistan’s Ulugbek Rashitov. Sinden was bitterly disappointed, saying: “It was my gold medal to give away. We’re here to get gold, anything else is not what we’re here to celebrate. Maybe eventually I will get over it.”
Elsewhere, China’s Li Fabin won a weightlifting gold with a unique one-legged lift style nicknamed the “flamingo”, Naomi Osaka progressed in the tennis, and the IOC warned athletes against breaching Covid protocols by hugging on the podium, although it will allow them to take off their masks for 30 seconds for a photo opportunity. World No 1 Jon Rahm will miss the golf tournament having tested positive for Covid, as will Bryson DeChambeau of the US.
We’ll draw a discrete veil over this newsletter talking up Andy Murray’s chances yesterday. He withdrew from the men’s singles with a quad strain, although the two-time Olympic champion will continue to play in the doubles. It was Jade Jones’s exit that caused the most shockwaves for Team GB, though. Jones said she was “absolutely gutted”, but it was a heart-warming success for the IOC’s Refugee team.
Jones was going for a record third gold in the taekwondo, but lost her opening contest to Kimia Alizadeh. Alizadeh won bronze for Iran in Rio in 2016, but this year, having denounced the Iranian government, and sought refugee status in Germany, she is participating in the refugee team. She faced Jones after winning an emotionally charged preliminary bout against Nahid Kiani of Iran.
There was an astonishing victory for Austria’s Anna Kiesenhofer in the women’s road race cycling. She attacked in a breakaway from the start of the 137km race then rode alone out front for the last 40km. Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands finished second. With Kiesenhofer so far out ahead, and no race radio in the Olympics, the Dutch pre-race favourite appeared to think she had won when she crossed the line for silver. Italian Elisa Longo Borghini took bronze.
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Picture of the day
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Team USA update
Without finding her best form today, Simone Biles still progressed through qualifying in pursuit of six more Olympic golds. The US softball team, meanwhile, booked their spot against Japan for Tuesday’s 8pm final. As for the men’s basketball team, however …
The medals are going to start coming thick and fast over the next couple of days, especially in the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. But Tom Dart asks for us, is Tokyo the Olympics where USA’s swimming empire crumbles? He writes:
Dressel may well win gold in three individual events in Japan, but he reflected on what the US team has lost as well as what the coming days may bring. Ryan Lochte, Matt Grevers and Nathan Adrian, with 15 Olympic golds between them, failed to qualify for Tokyo. Then there is – or rather, isn’t – the now-retired Michael Phelps, who picked up five of his career 23 Olympic titles in Rio five years ago.
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 Team GB update
I haven’t mentioned the equestrian sport much, but dressage has gradually been going through qualifier rounds. Today Charlotte Dujardin and her horse Gio were one of only four combinations to score over eighty points, and progressed to the medal rounds later in the week. Carl Hester and En Vogue went through as well.
The hockey teams both have match-ups tomorrow. The men face Belgium at 1.30am UK time, and the women face South Africa at the somewhat friendlier UK time of 10.30am. The women lost their opener to Germany today. The men opened with a win over South Africa yesterday.
Also starting tomorrow is Tom Daley in the diving. Our Donald McRae has profiled him as the teenage sensation turned crocheter competes in his last Olympics. And with the athletics starting later in the Games, Tom Lamont has interviewed the fastest woman Britain has ever seen, Dina Asher-Smith.
🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺 Australia update
I feel like as well as cursing Murray, I also put the whammy on Ash Barty yesterday. Having written that Naomi Osaka would start her match as soon as Barty had dispensed with Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, that did not in fact happen. Barty lost in straight sets, making 55 unforced errors in the process. Sorry, Ash.
Australia’s men won their basketball opener against Nigeria convincingly 84-65. Italy are up next for them on Wednesday.
🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵 The hosts and beyond
The organising committees gamble on including the sport in these Games paid off as the very first ever Olympic skateboarding medal went to Yuto Horigome. He grew up in Tokyo and learned to skate there, where the activity is often looked down on. In fact, any visitors to the Ariake Urban Sports Park found themselves confronted with some DIY “skateboarding banned” signs posted on the perimeter fence to dissuade anyone from emulating the athletes inside.
Sister and brother Uta and Hifume Abe both won judo gold for Japan. He won the men’s 66kg and she won the women’s 52kg within an hour of each other.
China kept piling on the golds too, with Chen Lijun joining Li and Zhihui Hou with a weightlifting gold. France also picked up their first gold, with Romain Cannone winning in the individual men’s epee fencing competition on Sunday. Lee Kiefer of the US took gold in the individual women’s foil.
And are the host audience warming up to the games? It may have set low viewing figures in the US, but Friday’s opening ceremony was the most watched TV programme in Japan for a decade.
Did you know?
Tokyo was intended to be the host of the 1940 Games, which were cancelled due to the second world war. When the city did first host the Olympics in 1964, it was the first time they were held in Asia.
Key events for Monday 26 July
Related: Tokyo 2020 Olympics: complete event schedule
Mountain bike cycling and rugby all have their first days on Monday, and there are medals available in *draws deep breath* archery, artistic gymnastics, canoe slalom, mountain bike cycling, diving, fencing, judo, shooting, skateboarding, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting and the men’s triathlon,
All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for York, thirteen hours for New York and seventeen hours for San Francisco. I wonder if I should come up with some sort of jaunty jingle to help us remember this 🎶
🌟 If you only watch one thing: 6.30am Triathlon – it is the men’s individual competition, with the medals at the end of it. Please note this is an unusually early start time because of the Tokyo heat, so in the UK that’s on at 10.30pm and you can watch it with a nice mug of cocoa before bed. Jonathan Brownlee won bronze in London, silver in Rio. With his elder brother Alistair absent, can he go one better and grab gold? 🥇
8.30am-12.25pm Skateboarding – it is the women’s street contest on Monday 🥇
9.00am-7pm Rugby sevens – there are pool games throughout the day, starting with Rio gold medallists Fiji against the hosts. Team GB face Canada at 9.30am and Japan at 4.30pm. For Australia it is Argentina at 10.30am and Korea at 6pm.
9.30am Archery – the men’s team competition starts with Team GB, and US and Australia all involved in the quarter-final eliminations round. The final shoudl be around 4.40pm 🥇
10am-9.45pm Taekwondo – there’s more taekwondo throughout the day, with the women’s -67kg and men’s -80kg having their finals from 9.30pm
10.30am-12.05pm Swimming – a huge early session in the pool. The women’s 100m butterfly final starts it off, with Sweden’s world and Olympic record holder Sarah Sjoestroem defending her title. At 11.12am Adam Peaty defends his 100m breaststroke title. Straight after that is the women’s 400m freestyle final, and the session finishes with the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay 🥇
2pm Canoe slalom – the men’s semi-final and final should take a couple of hours to get through 🥇
2.50pm-3.50pm Shooting – the skeet shooting concludes with both the women’s and men’s finals 🥇
3pm Diving – Tom Daley is with Matty Lee in the men’s 10m synchro event 🥇
3pm Mountain bike cycling – this leads off with the men’s cross-country. Tom Pidcock features for Team GB 🥇
7pm Artistic gymnastics – Monday is the men’s team competition 🥇
You can find our full interactive events schedule here, which also updates with live scores and results throughout the day like a little mini-liveblog. It is a thing of wonder.
As it stands
The medal table as it stood at 10.15pm in Tokyo
1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 6 🥈 1 🥉 4 total: 11
2 🇯🇵 Japan 🥇 5 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 6
3 🇺🇸 USA 🥇 4 🥈 2 🥉 4 total: 10
4 🇰🇷 South Korea 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 3 total: 5
5 ◽️ Not Russia 🥇 1 🥈 4 🥉 2 total: 7
6 🇮🇹 Italy🥇 1 🥈 1🥉 3 total: 5
7 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 1 total: 3
7 🇫🇷 France 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 1 total: 3
Get in touch?
Can we talk about timezones for a moment? I’ve had some feedback. Angus Forsyth messaged to suggest that I just put all the times in either Japanese time or GMT throughout and leave it at that. Matt Barnard asked that everything be on Manchester time. And someone called Wendy mailed yesterday asking for the exact opposite, that I put (JST/AEST/BST/EDT/PDT) all the way through.
What I’ve been trying to do is stick to JST in the event listings, and then occasionally spelling out local time if I’m going to point out that something will make particularly late night viewing the UK or a good watch over your morning covfefe in New York. I suspect there is no one-size fits all solution, but I’m interested to hear what works best for you.
There’s something else you can help me with as well. As we know Russian athletes are competing as Not Russia, or officially as the “Russian Olympic Committee”. They aren’t allowed to use the Russian flag at the Games. Should I be using the Russian flag in my emoji medal table? Or something else? What do you think?
You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com, and I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow. Until then, take care and stay safe.
The last word
We come together at least once a year and train together for a full week. We push each other and we challenge each other, but we do that in a really supportive way. There’s no malice, no animosity towards one another. I think that has spoken volumes. – Cate Campbell, women’s 4x100m freestyle relay Olympic champion for Australia.
