Yahoo Finance Tokyo 2020 Olympics briefing: rain, pain, and equestrian glory for Britain
Today in a nutshell: A very wet Olympic stadium watched Sifan Hassan claim the first of the three golds she wants, Team GB took gold in the team eventing, and the USWNT crashed out of the football at the semi-final stage.
Tomorrow’s key moments: Sport climbing makes it debut, the women run their 800m and 200m finals, and Simone Biles looks set to return to competition, in the balance beam final.
In Monday’s morning athletics session, Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece won the men’s long jump after tying with Juan Miguel Echevarría on 8.41m. His second furthest jump, further than the Cuban’s, then proved decisive so there was no repeat of the previous days dual golds in the high jump.
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn won the women’s 100 metres hurdles gold – only Puerto Rico’s second ever gold. Camacho-Quinn burst into tears afterwards, saying: “For such a small country it gives little people hope. I am just glad I am the person to do that. I am really happy right now. Anything is possible.”
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands produced a miraculous recovery to keep her audacious Olympic treble alive after a heavy fall left her 25 metres adrift of her rivals on the final lap of the women’s 1500m heats. She fell in a tangle of legs with 380m to go … and then went on to win the heat. A few hours later, she went on to win the 5,000m at ease. Kenya’s Hellen Obiri and Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay took silver and bronze respectively.
Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco won gold in the men’s 3,000m steeplechase. Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia claimed silver and Benjamin Kigen of Kenya took the bronze. Torrential rain disrupted many events in the stadium, but eventually the delayed women’s discus finished with a gold for Valarie Allman of the US.
There was an 11th gold medal of the Games for Team GB in the equestrian eventing, as Oliver Townend, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen won the team event for Britain for the first time since 1972. Sixty-two-year-old Andrew Hoy led the Australian team to silver, with defending champions France in third. McEwen then added individual silver as Hoy took bronze, his sixth Olympic medal. He’s now Australia’s oldest ever Olympic medallist. The individual event was won by Germany’s Julia Krajewski.
Li Wenwen set an Olympic record in winning the +87kg weightlifting for China, as Emily Campbell won Britain’s first weightlifting medal since 1984 with silver. Laurel Hubbard’s historic appearance saw her fail to register a lift.
In the track cycling, Germany’s women smashed the world record in the qualifying round of the women’s team pursuit. Their time was almost three seconds faster than the record set by Britain when they won gold in Rio five years ago. Team GB qualified in second.
The first medals on the track saw China retain their women’s team sprint title with a new pairing of Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi, with Germany in silver. The Russian Olympic Committee athletes took bronze.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
The artistic swimming joined the party today with the first session featuring the preliminary round of the women’s duet free routine, as teams from 22 countries competed.
Here’s the best of day 10 in pictures.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Team USA update
It just hasn’t flowed for us. It hasn’t been easy. I think that we’ve tried to find it – it’s not for lack of effort or anyone not giving everything they have. You can see everything is all the way out there every single game. But it just didn’t didn’t click for us.
A despondent Megan Rapinoe reacting to the USWNT 1-0 defeat to Canada in today’s semi-final which sees the 2019 World Cup winners chasing a bronze at best. Canada will face Sweden in Friday’s final. The US will contest third place against Australia on Thursday.
Jade Carey took gold in the women’s floor final in the gymnastics. Italy’s Vanessa Ferrari claimed silver and there were two bronzes as Japan’s Mai Murakami and Angelina Melnikova of Not Russia could not be separated in third.
The US women’s basketball team stretched their unbeaten run to 52 games with a 93-82 win over France.
The IOC said it was looking into shot put silver medallist Raven Saunders’s gesture yesterday as potentially breaking rules banning protest on the podium. Saunders, who is black and gay, said she formed an “X” with her wrists as she held her arms above her head – to represent “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet”.
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee have made their feelings clear, saying: “Raven Saunders’ peaceful expression in support of racial and social justice that happened at the conclusion of the ceremony was respectful of her competitors and did not violate our rules.”
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 Team GB update
There was a frustrating day in the sailing, as a lack of wind saw all the races cancelled on Monday, but Deborah Kerr progressed to the semi-finals of the women’s kayak single 200m. Emily Lewis missed out in the same quarter-final by the narrowest of margins – Canadian Michelle Russell was placed ahead of her on a time of 42.940, Lewis was timed at 42.945.
Race walker Tom Bosworth wasn’t making any friends in Japan, having complained of the “cold slop” being served up to athletes in Sapporo and saying the host city for the distance races “feels like a prison”.
Spain came from behind twice to force defending champions Great Britain to a women’s hockey shootout after a 2-2 draw. The Spaniards were no match for Maddie Hinch’s goalkeeping, as she shut them out completely, setting up a Wednesday semi-final against the Netherlands.
🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺 Australia update
Australia suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to India and the Hockeyroos’ quest to end their Olympic medal drought was over for another Games. The Matildas’ went down 1-0 too, in a semi-final loss to Sweden in the football.
There was also a catastrophic equipment failure in the men’s team pursuit on the cycle track, with Alex Porter ending up on the deck. He eventually recovered enough for the team to continue for a rerun, where they finished fifth.
🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵 The hosts and beyond
Jean Quiquampoix of France won the 25m rapid fire pistol final, while China’s Zhang Changhong set a world record in the men’s 25-metre three-position rifle to win. Ukrainian shooter Serhiy Kulish missed out on a medal after committing one of the most extraordinary howlers at the Tokyo Olympics by hitting an opponent’s target.
“I shot into someone else’s target,” Kulish fumed after his early exit at the Asaka Shooting Range. “I am not happy. Who shoots into someone else’s target? Only people like me. The button on my jacket came undone and I felt some discomfort, but time passed and I had to make a shot. I didn’t notice that I was already aiming for someone else’s target.”
Eighteen-year-old Namibian Christine Mboma, who is banned from competing in the 400m under World Athletics rules as she is an athlete with differences in sex development (DSD), ran the fastest time in the heats of the women’s 200m in 22.11sec, a world under-20 record. Niger’s Aminatou Seyni, who was also not allowed to compete in elite events between 400m and a mile due to high testosterone levels, came third in the same heat in 22.72.
Wang Zhouyu won the women’s 87kg class to give China its sixth gold medal in weightlifting at these Games. Ecuador’s Tamara Salazar took silver, Dominican Republic’s Crismery Santana bronze.
World number six women’s doubles pair Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu of Indonesia won their badminton final, an event Indonesia had never previously won. “People said: ‘You’re not going to make it because Indonesia doesn’t have a history in women’s doubles,” said a sobbing Polii, 33, whose Olympic dream began two decades ago. “Here I am now.”
Did you know?
When the 1956 Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia’s strict quarantine rules forbade the importation of horses, so the equestrian events at that Games were held four months before the opening ceremony, in Stockholm.
Key events for Tuesday 3 August
Related: Tokyo 2020 Olympics: complete event schedule
All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Harrogate, 13 hours for New York and 16 hours for San Francisco.
🌟If you only watch one thing: 5pm, 6pm and 9.10pm Sport climbing – there are qualification rounds for the men today. You’ve probably never seen sport climbing before. You’ve definitely never seen it at the Olympics before because it is making a debut and this is the first day. And I’ve got a hunch you are going to absolutely love it.
9.00am-12.35pm and 7pm-9.55pm Athletics – highlights today are the women’s long jump final (10.50am), the men’s 400m hurdles final (12.20pm), the men’s pole vault final (7.20pm), the women’s hammer throw final (8.35pm), and then todays session finishes with the women’s 800m final (9.25pm) and the women’s 200m final (9.50pm) 🥇
9.30am-12.56pm Canoe sprint – from 11.37am we get into finals territory in the water, with the women’s kayak single 200m, the men’s canoe double 1,000m, the men’s kayak single 1,000m and the women’s kayak double 500m 🥇
10am-9pm Basketball – the men’s competition has quarter-finals throughout the day. Team USA face Spain in the second, at 1.40pm.
10am and 3pm Diving – today sessions are the semi-final and then the final of the men’s 3m springboard 🥇
10.30am and 7pm Hockey: the men’s competition reaches the semi-final stage – India v Belgium go first, Australia v Germany is the evening game.
11am-1.40pm and 5pm-7.40pm Boxing – there’s the final of the women’s featherweight at 1.05pm and the final of the men’s welterweight at 7.05pm 🥇
3.30pm-6.10pm Cycling track – it is the women’s team pursuit and the men’s team sprint today. The finals start from 5.19pm 🥇
5pm Artistic gymnastics – its the individual finals in the men’s parallel bars, the men’s horizontal bar and the women’s balance beam final – with, it appears, Simone Biles 🥇
5pm and 8pm Football – the men’s semi-finals are on Tuesday, Mexico v Brazil at 5pm and the hosts face Spain at 8pm.
7.30pm Artistic swimming – it is the duet technical routine in the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
You can find our full interactive events schedule here. It also carries live scores of everything that is going on at any given moment.
As it stands
Here’s how the emoji table stood at 11.15pm Tokyo time
1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 29 🥈 17 🥉 16 total: 62
2 🇺🇸 USA 🥇 22 🥈 25 🥉 17 total: 64
3 🇯🇵 Japan 🥇 17 🥈 6 🥉 10 total: 33
4 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 14 🥈 4 🥉 15 total: 33
5 ◽️ Not Russia 🥇 12 🥈 21 🥉 17 total: 50
6 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 11 🥈 12 🥉 12 total: 35
7 🇫🇷 France 🥇 6 🥈 10 🥉 7 total: 23
8 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 6 🥈 6 🥉 11 total: 23
9 🇰🇷 South Korea 🥇 6 🥈 4 🥉 9 total: 19
10 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 5 🥈 7 🥉 6 total: 18
Get in touch
With the news that Simone Biles is lined up to resume her Olympics tomorrow on the balance beam, I’ve noticed a bit of chatter on social media about the different ways that Biles’s withdrawal from the gymnastics has been treated to the way that Novak Djokovic pulling out of the mixed doubles bronze medal match has been treated. There’s been acres of coverage of Biles, and scant attention to Djokovic who threw his racket into the stands and later violently smashed one up during his defeat to Pablo Carreño Busta in the singles bronze match. He then withdrew, citing a “left shoulder injury”, leaving Serbian partner Nina Stojanovic high and dry without a medal.
For me, one of the key difference is that Biles came forward and spoke about her mental health openly, making it a subject of debate, whereas Djokovic cited a physical injury, meaning it is just speculation to suggest something else was at play in his no-show. A lot of people on social media have posted to remind Djokovic of his words earlier in the week though, thought to be aimed at Biles, when he said: “Pressure is a privilege. Without pressure there is no professional sport. If you are aiming to be at the top of the game you better start learning how to deal with pressure.”
What do you think? You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com about this or anything else you want to chat about – especially if it is about how brilliant track cycling is and why having equestrian sports at the Olympics is a must. I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow – take care and stay safe.
The last word
Just to be here was more than a dream come true. It hasn’t sunk in. And I look back and I think where I was eight years ago. I knew I was lucky to even just be alive, let alone be able to come and do the job that I love, and be lucky enough to have a horse like London 52 to bring me to a place like Tokyo.
– Gold medal winner Laura Collett, who eight years ago suffered multiple fractures and was left in a coma for six days after a fall during competition.
