Olympics 2020: latest news from day one of Tokyo Games – live updates!

Via Reuters – A report on Japan’s first gold medal of the Games. Naohisa Takato said the medal was ‘heavy’, presumably referring to its actual weight, rather than any emotional impact he may be feeling:

Naohisa Takato delivered the first gold medal of the Tokyo Games for a host nation desperate for Olympic glory by winning the men’s 60 kg judo, a sport born in Japan 140 years ago. The win against Taiwan’s Yang Yung-wei left Takato openly weeping on the mat, and stood in contrast to the lack of fans in an empty arena at the Nippon Budokan.

“This is heavy. It makes me feel like dreaming,” Takato, who was later all smiles, told reporters when asked about the gold medal that was put around his neck. The triple world champion judoka, who had disappointed the nation with bronze at the 2016 Games, had a nail-biting ride with three victories in the finals coming in sudden death. He had a close shave in his quarter-final in the 60kg class, winning during Golden Score overtime on a foul by his Georgian opponent Lukhumi Chkhvimiani. In the elimination round of 16, Takato delivered an ippon against Belgian Jorre Verstaeten. “It was frustrating in Rio,” Takato said, recalling the previous Games where he ended up with bronze. “It was a long road to get here.”

In gymnastics news: The German women’s team, in protest against ‘sexualisation in gymnastics’, will be wearing unitards instead of leotards at these Games.

Team member Elizabeth Seitz posted yesterday to that effect:

Great Britain’s women’s footballers roared into the knockout rounds earlier, with a 1-0 win against Japan.

Elsewhere, USA trounced New Zealand 6-1, much to the delight of Dr Jill Biden, who was there to witness it:

Thank you, Simon, and good afternoon / good evening / good morning to our readers around the world.

What’s occurring now on Super Saturday in Japan? Let me check. While I do, why not read Tumaini Carayol’s excellent piece on the Uzbek gymnast, Oksana Chusovitina. She competed at her first Games in 1991 !!

And with that, with the Olympic day nearly done – there is beach volleyball and non-beach volleyball ongoing, and that’s it – I’m going to hand over to Luke McLaughlin for a little while. Back in a bit.

Japan have beaten Belgium in the 3×3 basketball in sudden death overtime! I’m not entirely sure what was happening there, but I’m pretty sure I was excited by it. Here’s Tom Dart on a discipline making its Olympic bow, watched today by Emmanuel Macron and Jill Biden:

In the before times, when “urban cluster” was a phrase that meant something very different at the Tokyo Olympics, 3×3 basketball was poised to make some noise in its Games debut. It still did on Saturday – after all, DJs play music during contests to pump up the atmosphere. But while the world has grown used to sports taking place behind closed doors during the pandemic, there may be an especially keen sense of loss at the Ariake and Aomi urban sports parks in the next fortnight.

They were designed with mingling in mind, envisioned as the throbbing heart of an outdoor sporting carnival zone that, organisers promised in 2019, would deliver “a buzzing festival environment that brings fans closer to the Olympic action than ever before”. Now, with spectators barred, clusters are a matter for epidemiologists.

Much more here:

As the clock prepares to strike 11pm in Tokyo, there are still three sports being played: beach volleyball, 3×3 basketball – where Belgium v Japan has gone into overtime – and the last two table tennis matches.

Chris McHugh and Damien Schumann of Australia are playing a fabulous second set in their men’s beach volleyball match against Norway. Having lost the first 21-18, they have reached a higher plane of volleyballing and lead 14-8 as I type.

Dressage: Here’s a PA Media report on how Britain’s riders got on today, a memorable one for second-generation Olympian Charlotte Fry:

Charlotte Fry admitted her Olympic Games debut “could not have gone much better” as she cruised into the individual dressage final at Tokyo’s Equestrian Park.

The 25-year-old, whose late mother Laura rode for Britain in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, topped her qualifying group with Everdale on a personal best grand prix score of 77.096%.

Two riders from each of six groups – plus the next six-best finishers – will contest Wednesday’s individual final. And Fry’s outstanding performance under the floodlights also meant a strong start to British team hopes, with Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester completing a powerful trio.

Hester, who at 54 is Team GB’s oldest competitor in Tokyo, showcased all his experience with a solid display as heavy rain fell. Gloucestershire-based Hester, riding in his sixth Olympics, finished fourth in Group C aboard En Vogue on 75.124%. He will now have to wait until the end of Sunday’s action to discover whether he has done enough to join Fry in the individual final.

Double Olympic champion Dujardin begins her individual and team quest among Sunday’s late starters that also include Germany’s multiple gold medallist Isabell Werth. And while Germany remain clear favourites for team gold, Britain made an impressive start as Fry built the foundations in nerveless fashion.

“I was really happy with it,” she said. “It couldn’t have gone much better, to be honest.

“He [Everdale] definitely knew it was a big occasion. He was so concentrated today. It was such a great feeling.

“We have really kind of grown up together and built a really good partnership. I enjoyed every second of it, and he felt like he was enjoying it as well. You never know how it is going to feel when you go into the arena, and every arena is different, but I really trust him and he really trusts me, so that kind of situation we don’t worry about too much.”

USA’s comfortable lead over New Zealand in the women’s football was briefly threatened when Betsy Hassett pulled a goal back to make it 3-1 with 18 minutes to go, but Christian Press has just scored to make it 4-1 and put the game to bed (STC).

That is today’s final medal, so it’s time for a wildly premature look at the medal table. Particularly premature because it hasn’t been updated with Italy’s first gold of the Games yet. Still, here are the leaders (insert Italy somewhere high up).

Gold for Italy in the taekwondo! Vito dell’Aquila has beaten Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi 16-12 in the men’s -59kg, storming through with a phenomenal final round, which he started 9-6 down.

Here’s Suzanne Wrack’s report on Team GB’s win over Japan in the women’s football:

Ellen White scored her third goal at the Tokyo Olympics as a patient Team GB ensured their passage to the knockout stage with a 1-0 defeat of hosts Japan. The win means Team GB go into their final game of Group E against Canada needing a draw to top the group, while defeat would ensure they finish second behind their opponents.

Head coach Hege Riise shifted things around to attempt to combat the technical strength of Japan. In came Arsenal centre-back Leah Williamson for Chelsea’s Millie Bright, with the former much more comfortable with the ball at her feet. Sophie Ingle, Team GB’s sole Welsh representative, was brought in alongside Keira Walsh as part of a midfield two in a 4-2-3-1 to try and give Team GB the edge in central areas.

Much more here:

It was a record-breaking day in the water polo, where the USA broke the record for the most goals scored in a single match, thrashing Japan 25-4 … and then Spain beat it, thumping South Africa 29-4. There were 10 different scorers for Spain, with 16-year-old Elena Ruiz getting five.

World champions the United States began their quest for a third straight Olympic gold medal in women’s water polo by storming into the record books with a 25-4 humbling of hosts Japan at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre on Saturday – it was 3-3 at one point early on, though it didn’t stay close for long. But the U.S. record for most goals scored in a single match at the Olympics stood just a few hours before being overhauled by reigning European champions Spain, who crushed South Africa 29-4 to lay down a marker of their own.

“We got off to a rocky start, especially defensively,” said US captain Maggie Steffens, who scored five goals. “The Olympics gives you extra bit of energy and excitement and it was nice to see our team recover and take a deep breath.”

“We’re human, and we get nervous just like everyone else,” US coach Adam Krikorian said. “It’s the first game of the Olympics and those jitters aren’t going to go away for us or for any other team. Sometimes it just gets us, but once we settled down, we were much better.”

Fantastic scenes at the Mukuhari Messe, as Wongpattanakit wraps up gold and leaps into her coach’s arms! Her Spanish opponent is in tears: she pushed all the way, and led 10-9 until Wongpattanakit landed a body kick for two points to steal gold 11-10.

Here’s a report on Australia’s 4-2 defeat to Sweden in the women’s football:

Sam Kerr would not have forgotten the weight of the silence that stretched and warped the world around her as she stood staring at the ball she had just launched over the crossbar in Nice in 2019. The Matildas had endured an onslaught from a determined Norway side, somehow stumbling into a desperate, exhausted penalty shoot-out in the quarter-final of the Women’s World Cup.

Kerr – in her first major tournament as captain – stepped up to take Australia’s first penalty after Norway star Caroline Graham Hansen calmly buried hers. The camera zoomed in to show a face etched with furious concentration, as though calculating all the possible mathematical variables that have turned modern football analysis into a series of algorithms.

It was as if she had too much time to think about it; too much time to bluff and double-bluff. The calculations got in the way of the parts of football that are its actual beating heart: emotion, momentum, confidence, luck, intuition. There was a similar sense of sprawling time as Kerr stepped up to take a penalty in the Matildas’ second outing of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics against Sweden. Even the camerawork was similar.

Much more here:

In the Taekwondo, Panipak Wongpattanakit of Thailand is in the middle of her gold medal bout against Adriana Cerezo Iglesias of Spain, and 9-6 up as I type. There’s just one more medal to be decided after this one, in the men’s -58kg, with Vito dell’Aquila of Italy against Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi of Tunisia in the gold medal contest.

The second-seeded Americans Mackenzie Brown and Brady Ellison were dumped out of the mixed archery event by the Indonesian 15th seeds in the first round earlier today, an event eventually won by South Korea. This is what Brown said afterwards:

It’s supposed to be big and give you goosebumps … We’re out here by ourselves. You know, we’ve got our team mates, but there’s nobody out here. To work for five years for an Olympic Games and then not to have any spectators at all is a little bit frustrating.

It’s half-time in USA v New Zealand, and the American’s take a two-goal lead into the break after Lindsey Horan snaffled a second just before the interval. In the other women’s football match still in progress Brazil have just equalised to make it 2-2 against the Netherlands, with Marta scoring from the spot.

Aron Szilagi storms to victory in the men’s individual sabre fencing! That’s gold medal No3 for the all-conquering Hungarian, 15-7.

Final score: Great Britain 1-0 Japan It’s all over in Sapporo, and Team GB have banked a second win and are through to the quarter-finals!

OK, the schedules aren’t exactly set in stone. Aron Szilagi’s attempt to win a third successive individual men’s sabre gold is a few minutes ahead of schedule but currently on track, leading as he does 8-5 at the break against Italy’s Luigi Samele. The Hungarian led 7-1, so is fighting a bit of a momentum shift.

Hello world!

As we approach the end of the first full day of Olympic action, and with the final race in the pool in progress, here’s what we’ve still got to look forward to today:

• The conclusion of the three women’s football matches currently in progress, including Japan v GB and New Zealand v USA.
• The end of a busy day’s fencing, with the men’s sabre individual gold medal bout between Aron Szilagyi of Hungary and Luigi Samele of Italy starting at 1.15pm BST (9.15pm Tokyo/8.15am New York/5.15am Los Angeles/10.15pm Sydney)
• Some taekwondo medals will be decided at Makuhari Messe, with the men’s 58kg and women’s -49kg competitions coming to a close. The question on everyone’s lips is: can Panipak Wongpattanakit win Thailand’s first ever taekwondo gold? She’s very much the favourite against Adriana Cerezo Iglesias of Spain. Thailand have only ever won gold medals in weightlifting and boxing, and those two sports plus taekwondo are the only ones they have won any flavour of medal in. Wongpattanakit, who won bronze in Rio, goes in the penultimate bout at 1.30pm BST (9.30pm Tokyo, 8.30am N/5.30am LA/10.30pm Sydney).
• An entire session of 3×3 basketball, including the unlikely match-up that is USA v Mongolia in the women, and concluding with Belgium v Japan in the men, at 2.25pm BST (10.25pm Tokyo, 9.25am New York, 6.25am Los Angeles, 11.25pm Sydney).
• A couple of men’s Beach volleyball matches, starting with America’s Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena against the Netherlands’ Alex Brouwer and Rob Meeuwsen (1pm BST/9pm Tokyo/8am NY/5am LA/10pm Sydney), and both continuing and concluding an hour later with Australia’s Chris McHugh and Damien Schumann against Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum. The Norwegians are widely favoured to win gold.
• Handball, one of the very greatest love-it-at-the-Olympics-then-forget-about-it-until-the-next-one sports, with Japan against gold medal favourites Denmark at 1.30pm BST (9.30pm Tokyo/8.30pm NY/5.30am LA/10.30pm Sydney). A quarter of an hour earlier, Ireland’s pool game against South Africa gets under way at the marvellously aggressively-named Oi Hockey Stadium.
• The day’s last seven table tennis matches, though none of the medal favourites – indeed, nobody from the entire, table-tennis-dominating continent of Asia – is involved.
• A volleyball pool game between the USA and France. The French are supposed to be handy, if you’ll pardon the pun.

What has happened today? We’ve had gold medals for China in the women’s 49kg weightlifting and the women’s 10-metre air rifle, via Hou Zhihui and Yang Qian. The men’s 10-metre air pistol gold went to Iran’s Javad Foroughi. Korea won gold in the mixed teams archery via Je Deok Kim and An San. We’ve also had the men’s road race in the cycling with a dramatic solo effort for gold by Richard Carapaz.

There will be more medals to come in judo and fencing in the final hours.

From an Australian perspective, we’ve seen a couple of national records already in the swimming heats, and the Matildas went down fighting to Sweden 4-2. In the other ongoing women’s football match, Netherlands and Brazil are 1-1.

Lucy Bronze wants gold. She sends in a cross from deep on the right, and Ellen white times her run to get a header across goal and past the Japanese keeper. It has been a frustrating half of football for the GB team but now they feel some relief. Substitutions have immediately started on the bench. There hasn’t been much threat from Japan offensively today.

There are two bronze medals up for grabs in the men’s 60kg category for some reason, which have gone to Kazakhstan’s Yeldos Smetov and France’s Luka Mkheidze.

Coming up to 65 minutes in the Japan-GB women’s football match and the stalemate continues. The Brits are trying to be patient, laying off passes at the back, pushing up on the wings, but can’t find a way through.

Katrina Lehis of Estonia has won the women’s épée bronze over the Russian Aizanat Murtazaeva. After which Jungwhan Kim of Korea overcame a deficit and a twisted ankle to beat Georgia’s Sandro Bazadze in the men’s sabre.

Emma Weyant of the USA qualifies fastest for the women’s 400m individual medley. Also going through are Aimee Wilmott of Great Britain and Yui Ohashi of Japan.

The fencing medals are getting underway now as well, with the women’s épée and the men’s sabre bronze and gold matches to come in quick succession.

The Australians dead-heat in the fifth heat of the men’s 400 freestyle. Eiljah Winnington and Jack McLoughlin touch at the same time and just hold off the USA pair of Kieran Smith and Jake Mitchell. Not that it matters, it’s all about qualifying, and all four of them do. The standings for the final:

Henning Muhlleitner (GER)
Felix Auboeck (AUT)
Gabriele Detti (ITA)
Elijah Winnington (AUS)
Jack McLoughlin (AUS)
Kieran Smith (USA)
Jake Mitchell (USA)
Ahmed Hafnoui (TUN)

Still 0-0 between GB and Japan in the football as we move towards half time. The final heat of the men’s 400 metres is about to raced in the pool. And the last qualifying round of the men’s artistic gymnastics team event is underway.

In the other Group F women’s football match, Netherlands and Brazil have kicked off and Netherlands have taken a fast lead via Miedema in the third minute.

A note from David Williams about the football. “Interestingly they cut away for 2 mins of Korea vs France at judo during the British anthem and then cut back again. Am assuming the GB women took a knee and they’re still censoring it here.”

I’ve got the squash fans out in force. Here’s Ian.

And here’s another Ian, via email from Ian Davis.

“Jahangir was certainly the greatest but there were plenty of other great Pakistani squash players around. I don’t know what penetration squash as a sport has in the world but it’s not much of a spectator event. When I was playing in the 1980s there was an annual pro tournament near where I lived which usually attracted a few of top players in the world. I always went but, with a single game sometimes lasting more than 30 minutes, it was like watching a slightly more mobile version of a game of chess. Great for the aficionado but not, I reckon, for the general viewer. Mind you, that also applies to my other sport, fencing, which has been in the Olympics forever.”

Don’t we know it – every time someone announces Thomas Bach’s name they have to append “champion Olympique 1976” to it for his fencing work.

Meanwhile in the men’s hockey Great Britain are running down time in the fourth period and leading South Africa 3-1.

A deflected strike on goal from Japan was their best opening of the match so far, but GB hold them at bay in the women’s football. Still no score as we tick past 27 minutes at the Sapporo Dome.

Distria Krasniqi wins Kosovo’s second ever gold medal in the 48kg division of the women’s judo, denying a dream result to Tonaki Funa to win Japan’s first gold medal of the games. She takes the silver though, and Japan’s first gold comes in the very next bout: the 60kg men’s bout, where Naohisa Takato beats Yung Wei Yang of Taipei.

Cannot wait to see this superstar go around in the days to come. Our feature on Simone Biles.

Emma McKeon sets a new Australian record in the heats for the 100m women’s butterfly. She was ahead of the world record pace coming into the last half of her second lap but slowed a touch, and China’s Zhang Yufei caught up for a dead heat on times. Qualifiers are:

Zhang Yufei (CHN)
Emma McKeon (AUS)
Sarah Sjoestrom (SWE)
Torri Huske (USA)
Margaret MacNeil (CAN)
Louise Hansson (SWE)
Anastasiya Shkurdia (BUR)
Marie Wattel (FRA)