Olympics 2020: Anna Kiesenhofer takes road race glory on day of upsets – live!

Volleyball: Brazil’s women have caned South Korea and look a decent bet for gold. They join Japan and Serbia at the top of Pool A.

Hockey: Netherlands men have beaten South Africa 5-3 in their Pool B match. They’re fourth favourites for gold, behind Australia, Belgium and Germany in that order.

Taekwondo: What a story this is. I watched a chunk of a doc about Jones on BBC last week – she seemed extremely nice and grounded. I hope she makes the right call about competing in Paris, whatever that is – she’ll be 32 then.

Beach volleyball: USA’s men lead Italy 1-0 and we’re at 20-19 in set two, which means it’s match point … and Italy go long. There’ll be a challenge, but I’m sure it was long and sure there was no touch.

“Have you ever heard of Sky Brown?” wonders Kurt Perleberg. “She’s 13 and competing in women’s street skateboarding.”

I absolutely have and, more importantly, so have various of my colleagues.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/17/skateboarding-sky-brown-begged-parents-to-let-me-go-olympics-team-gb

That’s a very impressive effort by France, while USA are, as their warmup match suggested, a way away from the Dream Team says of 1992.

Basketball: Two more free throws give France a seven-point margin with 10.7s to go.

Basketball: Lilliard, of USA, is penalised for a trip – after much refereeing discussion – and that should be enough! USA haven’t lost in 25 Olympics matches, but they’re going to her, all the more so when France sink a free throw!

Basketball: With 17s go, it’s still 78-74 and France are looking good.

Volleyball: Brazil’s women are two sets up on South Korea.

Basketball: Hello! France now lead USA 78-74 with 21.8s left. USA call a timeout!

Judo: But this was also a pretty nifty development. As a kid, Giles went to watch her brother train, someone asked if she fancied a go, and now look!

The judo I mentioned earlier was held at Budokan, where one of the all-time great live albums was recorded in 1975. Hard, hard recommend.

Basketball: USA have found what they need and now lead France 74-67 with just over three minutes left.

Hockey: Netherlands now lead South Africa 4-3 in their men’s pool match.

Hockey: One of the best things about the Olympics is that we don’t have to trouble ourselves with VAR controversy.

I’ve said it before and will doubtless say it again: no one fell in love with sport because of refereeing accuracy. It makes no sense to interrupt the flow of things to spend tiiiiime over decisions that even when they come, do not settle controversy.

Cycling: Every time you think you’re on top of how much incredible sport is to come, you realise you’re nowhere near.

Hockey: South Africa and Netherlands are locked at 3-3 in the third quarter of their pool match.

Germany have forced themselves back into the competition, but assuming Brazil avoid defeat against Saudi in their final match, they’ll have to beat Côte d’Ivoire in theirs to progress.

Basketball: Now then. France’s men exploded at the end of the third quarter and now lead USA 62-56! Kevin Durrant looks less then ecstatic.

Football: This competition is going to be a belter. I watched Netherlands last week and they were devastating in attack, while Barbra Banda of Zambia, who has two hat-tricks in two games, is going to be a superstar.

On which point, the GB kit looks in need of a bang on its top like an old telly. But it’s nice to see that Ellen White has four arms.

Extremely tangential, but we’re here celebrating humanity, so: someone alerted me to this earlier.

“A couple of great moments this evening,” says Harry Sachar. “First there was Anna Kiesenhofer’s amazing effort in the women’s road race, and now I’ve just seen Uzbek gymnast Okasan Chusovitina competing in her 8th Olympics. Got to love the Games.”

Agreed, just a glorious festival of humanity.

“Tremendously dignified and eloquent interview from Bradley Sinden moments after what must have been crushing disappointment on the mat,” emails Simon McMahon. “I know nothing about taekwondo but credit to him and the gold medalist from Uzbekistan for a fantastic contest. The Olympics right there. Gotta love them.”

Every word. His mum and sister were just on BBC talking about how proud they are of him, and so they should be. What it must only take to get as good as he is, and to keep at it without the riches on offer in other sports. He really captured the perfect mix of magnanimity, pride, optimism and hard-nosed dissatisfaction.

“To finish off my obsessive Simone Biles updating,” returns Geoff Lemon, “she’s qualified on everything. All the other competitors have finished. Held onto the spots for beam and parallel bars.”

On which point, has any human ever been better at anything than she is at gymnastics?

Basketball: With six minutes remaining in the third quarter, USA men lead France 49-47.

Football: Germany now lead Saudi 3-2 with about five minutes remaining.

Japan pretty much clinch their second-round spot, top of Group A with six points. Mexico have three, likewise France, while South Africa have none.

Taekwondo: Sinden tells BBC he’s disappointed – “It was my gold medal to give away” – says he made a few mistakes, was unlucky with a few things, but made mistakes, let his opponent back in, and “that’s taekwondo”. He congratulates Rashitov, but as world champ he was there to get gold, saying silver is the first loser, but he’ll be back in Paris– which is, I guess, three rather than four years away. What a silver lining that is – sport is brutal.

Taekwondo: Ah, that was a great bout, and with just a few seconds to go it looked like Sinden was going to win GB’s first-ever men’s gold in the sport. But Rashitov turned it up and stole it from him – all credit, because he found what he needed when he needed it – but poor Sinden is gutted.

At 10am, the Tashkent Taekwondoist wasn’t in the draw, but he qualified and now look! What an effort from him!

Taekwondo: Rashitov lands but falls and loses a point, but he still leads by one, lands again, and Rashitov is going to win!

Taekwondo: With 20 seconds to go, Sinden lands two kicks and now leads 28-26!