[ad_1]
TOKYO (AP) – The latest news on the Tokyo Olympics, which are being held under heavy restrictions after a year of delay due to the coronavirus pandemic:
___
Naomi Osaka is in the third round of the Tokyo tennis tournament.
The host nation superstar stepped up her game when she needed it in a 6-3, 6-2 win over 49th Swiss Viktorija Golubic to reach the last 16 at Ariake Tennis Park.
The second Osaka will then face the 2019 Roland-Garros finalist, the Czech Marketa Vondrousova or the Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu.
___
The men’s surfing competition at the Olympics was delayed by 90 minutes due to low tide at Tsurigasaki Beach, about 90 miles east of Tokyo.
The International Surfing Association, the sport’s Olympic governing body, said low tide combined with changing weather conditions destabilized the quality of surfing conditions for the sport’s big debut.
The call came at the end of the eight 1-on-1 innings for the women’s competition, and now the men’s match has been pushed back to start at 1:18 p.m. local time.
Such delays are not unusual in competitive surfing, as it is perhaps the only organized sport that depends both on an uncontrollable variable – the weather – and defined by a literal unequal playing field – the ocean.
___
MEDAL ALERT
Caeleb Dressel went in search of six swimming gold medals at the Tokyo Games, leading an American victory in the men’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
Dressel gave the United States a lead they’ve never given up, swimming the first stage in 47.26 seconds.
Blake Pieroni and Bowe Becker kept the Americans in the lead before Zach Apple spun in a 46.69 anchor leg to leave no doubt in the end.
The United States won in 3:08.97, the third fastest stint in history. Italy took silver in 3: 10.11, while bronze went to Australia in 3: 10.22.
___
MEDAL ALERT
Ariarne Titmus of Australia defeated Katie Ledecky of the United States in the 400-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics.
Titmus won one of the games’ most anticipated races, taking the gold with the second fastest time in history.
Titmus, who was close behind a full length at the halfway point of the eight-lap race, cranked up speed to touch in 3 minutes 56.69 seconds.
Reigning Olympic champion and world record holder Ledecky settled for silver this time around in 3: 57.36 – the fourth fastest time on record.
No one else was even close. Bronze went to China’s Li Bingjie in 4: 01.08.
___
MEDAL ALERT
Britain’s Adam Peaty repeated his Olympic 100-meter breaststroke title at the Tokyo Aquatics Center.
Peaty was perhaps the best in the Olympic pool, being the first man to break both 58 and 57 seconds in his flagship event. He recorded the fifth fastest time in history (57.37 seconds) to blow up the field.
Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands took silver in 58.00 while bronze went to Italian Nicolo Martinenghi in 58.33. American Michael Andrew was next in 58.84 – the second straight final in which an American swimmer finished fourth and was denied a medal.
___
The Olympic archery schedule was changed for Tuesday due to high winds and rain expected from an expected typhoon.
Morning sessions involving the first and second round matches are officially delayed until noon local time at the Yumenoshima Park archery field. But the afternoon session was postponed.
The plan is to catch up on Wednesday and Thursday games. The men’s and women’s individual finals at the Tokyo Games are still scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
This is the first time that the Olympic archery program has been heavily influenced by weather, according to World Archery. At the 2008 Beijing Games, there was an hour late.
___
MEDAL ALERT
Maggie MacNeil won Canada’s first pool gold medal with a victory in the women’s 100-meter butterfly.
The reigning world champion hit the first in 55.59 seconds, edging China’s Zhang Yufei (55.64) for first place. Australia’s Emma McKeon won the bronze medal in 55.72, beating American teenager Torri Huske by a hundredth of a second.
Huske came out quickly, as was his style, and appeared to be close to the front with about 10 yards to go. But she passed out on her last strokes and narrowly missed a place on the podium.
The US team was denied a medal for the first time in the swimming competition.
Defending champion and world record holder Sarah Sjöström of Sweden was seventh.
___
According to NBC, about 17 million people in the United States watched the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, down 36% from the start of the Games in Rio de Janeiro five years ago.
Nielsen says the 17 million includes people who watched the ceremony live on NBC or online when it aired Friday morning and those who saw an edited version on NBC in prime time that night.
NBC was unable to determine how many people watched live and how many saw the prime-time version. The 26.7 million people who attended Rio’s opening ceremony included both television and online viewers.
Nine years ago, when the Summer Olympics were held in London, the Opening Ceremony drew a record American audience of 40.7 million people.
It’s hard to say how the slow start of the Tokyo Games reflects less interest in the Olympics, which have been delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, or profound changes in the way Americans watch television. With the explosion of streaming as an alternative, live TV ratings have fallen sharply over the past five years.
___
MEDAL ALERT
Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt won the men’s triathlon in one hour, 45 minutes and four seconds, 11 seconds ahead of Briton Alex Yee.
New Zealander Hayden Wilde finished third.
Blummenfelt is the first Norwegian to win a medal in the triathlon, which combines swimming, cycling and running. He finished 13th at the Rio Games in 2016.
Blummenfelt was fifth after the 1,500-meter swimming and 40-kilometer cycling stages of the race before securing victory in the final stage.
Britain’s Jonathan Brownlee, who won silver in Rio and bronze in London in 2012, was sixth.
___
Defending champions Fiji opened the Olympic men’s rugby sevens competition with a 24-19 victory over Japan.
The much-favored Fijians scored in the opening 30 seconds of the tournament, with Jiuta Wainiqolo scoring the first points after Japan failed to control the ball from the kick-off.
The Fijians nearly doubled the lead, but Wainiqolo’s one-handed pickup attempt saw Japan captain Chihito Matsui cover three-quarters of the field to equalize for the hosts.
The Fijians regained the advantage but, after the halftime siren sounded, Fijian-born Japanese Lote Tuqiri crossed to give the hosts a surprising 14-12 lead at the break.
Japan, surprise semi-finalists when rugby sevens made their Olympic debut in 2016, extended the margin to seven points at the start of the second half before Fiji responded with two tries and refused one afterwards. the full-time mermaid to achieve victory.
[ad_2]
Source link