Current time in Tokyo: July 24, 2:44 p.m.
TOKYO — A terrible last shot cost a Russian shooter the first gold medal of the 2020 Olympics.
In the women’s air rifle competition on Saturday morning, Anastasiia Galashina held a lead of 0.2 of a point over Yang Qian of China with one shot to go.
Air rifle at the highest level is a witheringly precise sport. The bull’s-eye is a mere half a millimeter across.
Women’s 10m Air Rifle Shooting › |
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Anastasiia Galashina Olympic Athletes From Russia |
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Nina Christen Switzerland |
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Galashina fired her last shot and missed the center of the target, scoring just 8.9 points. It was the worst score of the entire eight-woman final. Yang’s last shot, at 9.8, was her lowest score of the competition as well, but it was easily enough to surpass Galashina and win the gold medal.
Galashina’s blunder was all the more remarkable because her previous shot had been worth 10.8, just a tenth of a point short of the maximum score.
Nina Christen of Switzerland won the bronze, and the American shooter Mary Tucker placed sixth.
The Olympics really start now. Oh boy, do they start now. A full 23 sports will be in action on Saturday in Tokyo. Eleven gold medals will be awarded.
The very first came around 11:30 a.m. Tokyo time (10:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday), when with Yang Qian of China won the women’s air rifle competition.
After the embarrassment of a 3-0 loss to Sweden in their opener, the U.S. women’s soccer team will try to bounce back against New Zealand at 8:30 p.m. in Tokyo (7:30 a.m. Eastern).
Many of the cyclists who just finished the Tour de France, including the winner, Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia, will contest the men’s road race. Expect some scenery. There’s plenty of climbing, and the riders will go partway up Mount Fuji.
In tennis, Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic will get their bids for Olympic gold underway.
Three-on-three basketball makes its Olympic debut, and the American women will play two games.
And in the Tokyo evening (morning U.S. time), swimming will begin, although there will only be heats, no finals.
Plus more gold medals in weight lifting, archery, judo, fencing and taekwondo. Buckle up!
TOKYO — After the final point, after all that she had been through, Hend Zaza, the youngest Olympian at the Tokyo Games, shed a tear.
Reaching the Olympics is no small feat, let alone at age 12 and from war-torn Syria, where finding a safe place to train with uninterrupted electricity was a challenge.
But Zaza’s Olympic appearance was short-lived. She lost on Saturday in straight sets (4-11, 9-11, 3-11, 5-11) to Liu Jia of Austria in the opening round of the women’s singles table tennis tournament. Afterward, Liu, 39, walked over to Zaza and offered a hug.
“I had maternal feelings,” said Liu, who has a 10-year-old daughter. “It was less about the sport side of this game and more the human side.”
At 12 years and 204 days, Zaza became the youngest table tennis player ever to compete in the Olympics, according to the Tokyo Games. She was the youngest Olympian in any sport since 1992, when Judit Kiss of Hungary, then 12, competed in swimming, and 11-year-old Carlos Font of Spain participated in rowing.
Although Zaza had hoped for a better showing, the loss capped a whirlwind trip. The night before her match, she was a flag bearer for Syria at the opening ceremony. A late night, plus the lingering six-hour jet lag, meant that she barely slept — not great preparation against Liu, who is making her sixth Olympic appearance.
“I was hoping for a winning match and for better play, but it’s a tough opponent so it’s a good lesson for me, especially with the first Olympics,” Zaza said through an interpreter. “I will work on it to get a better result next time, hopefully.”
Still, with her long hair bouncing as she did around the table, Zaza showed ability that impressed her seasoned opponent.
“I had to remind myself not to underestimate her,” Liu said. She called Zaza “a great talent” with good rhythm and instincts who simply needed more experience.
Zaza began playing table tennis at 5, following in the footsteps of an older brother. A local coach, Adham Aljamaan, spotted her and took her under his wing.
For most of Zaza’s life, Syria has been locked in a civil war. She practiced in a place with old tables, a concrete floor and frequent power outages, according to the International Table Tennis Federation’s publication.
At 11, Zaza qualified for the Tokyo Games by defeating 42-year-old Mariana Sahakian of Lebanon in the Western Asia Olympic qualification tournament in Jordan last year. The Chinese Olympic Committee invited Zaza to train in China, a table tennis powerhouse, once coronavirus pandemic restrictions were lifted, she said.
“For the last five years, I’ve been through many different experiences, especially with the war happening around the country, with the postponement, with the funding for the Olympics,” Zaza said. “It was very tough. But I had to fight for it.”
She added: “And this is my message to everyone who wishes to have the same situation: Fight for your dream, try hard regardless of the difficulties that you’re having, and you will reach your goal.”
The Olympic judo competition found itself mired in a political controversy even before Saturday’s start at the Nippon Budokan.
Having traveled all the way to Tokyo, Fethi Nourine, an Algerian judoka, withdrew from the event after learning that he most likely faced a bout against an Israeli opponent, Tohar Butbul, if the two men progressed to the second round.
Nourine’s withdrawal from the 73-kilogram category added another layer of controversy to an Olympics already facing a backdrop of coronavirus infections and local opposition. It also led to a furious and rapid response from judo’s governing body, which has grown weary of athletes who refuse to fight competitors from Israel.
Nourine and his coach, Amar Benikhlef, have already been temporarily suspended by the International Judo Federation, which is almost certain to impose further sanctions. The Algerian Olympic committee withdrew their Olympic credentials and was preparing to send them home.
Statements made by both men to Algerian news media about their withdrawal being linked to the prospect of facing an Israeli opponent was “in total opposition to the philosophy of the International Judo Federation,” the governing body said on its website. “The I.J.F. has a strict nondiscrimination policy, promoting solidarity as a key principle, reinforced by the values of judo.”
Nourine also withdrew from the judo world championship in 2019 after learning that he was scheduled to take on Butbul. That event also took place at the Nippon Budokan, the Tokyo venue that is host to this year’s Olympic competition.
Judo’s governing body has found itself having to take firm action amid anti-Israel sentiment expressed by some athletes in some of its most important tournaments. Iran, for example, received a four-year suspension in 2019 after refusing to allow its judokas to face Israelis. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban earlier this year, saying that while Iran deserved to be punished, the blanket ban went too far.
Saeid Mollaei, now fighting for Mongolia after having fled Iran, said he was ordered to lose a semifinal bout at the 2019 world championships in order to avoid a potential final against the Israeli world champion Sagi Muki.
Tokyo 2020 can’t seem to catch a break.
As if a tenacious pandemic and Japan’s notoriously humid summer heat weren’t enough for the Olympics organizers to worry about, forecasts for an approaching typhoon are adding another layer of risk to the Games, which officially opened on Friday.
Early on Saturday, the U.S. team sent an alert that the rowing schedule was being adjusted because of an “inclement weather forecast.” Races originally scheduled for Monday have been moved to Sunday, and heats in the men’s and women’s eights, originally scheduled for Sunday, were moved to Saturday.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, a typhoon hit the Ogasawara Islands, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, south of Tokyo, late Friday. Forecasts show that the storm, which was upgraded to a typhoon from a tropical cyclone during the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium, is slowly moving north and could affect the Tokyo region on Tuesday.
The rowing events take place at Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo Bay, not far from the city center.
At a news briefing on Saturday, Christophe Dubi, the sports director for the International Olympic Committee, said that having the forecasting abilities of Japan’s meteorologists “is a very big plus.”
“So we’re fortunate to have this technology available,” he said. Because of the advance warning, “we didn’t have to make the call on the day.”
No major schedule changes were planned other than those for rowing, Olympic organizers said on Saturday.
The effects of positive coronavirus tests among Olympic athletes began playing out on Saturday, hours after the opening ceremony, as a women’s beach volleyball team did not play because of an infection.
The Czech players Marketa Slukova and Barbora Hermannova were “unable to play,” according to the official scoring report, giving the win to their Japanese opponents. Slukova is one of at least four members of the Czech Olympic team who have tested positive.
Her result was announced on Thursday, and both she and her playing partner have been ruled out of the Games because of Covid-19 regulations.
Tokyo Olympic organizers announced 17 new positive tests on Saturday among people connected to the Games. At least 127 people with Olympic credentials, including 14 athletes, have tested positive.
You have probably heard it before: If California were its own country, it would rank fifth in an Olympic medal count.
When reached by phone in Tokyo, Dr. Bill Mallon of the International Society of Olympic Historians couldn’t say for sure whether that was true. But he did say the state would rank “almost certainly in the top 10.”
In terms of producing Olympians, he added, California’s universities are at the top of the list. As of about 2012, Stanford had sent 289 American athletes to the Games, the most of any school, Mallon said. It is followed by 277 from U.C.L.A., 251 from the University of Southern California and 212 from U.C. Berkeley.
In other words, even before skateboarding and surfing were added to the Games, the Golden State was a robust presence at the Olympics — a testament, Mallon said, to the state’s ideal weather for year-round training, its large population and the existence of a kind of snowball effect for athletes at top universities. (Athletic success begets more success.)
Maria Taylor’s NBC career began with a surprise appearance from Tokyo before the rebroadcast of the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday evening in the United States.
“We are thrilled to welcome a new member to our NBC sports and Olympic family: Maria Taylor,” Mike Tirico, one of the hosts of the opening ceremony, told viewers. “Maria, welcome to Tokyo and the team.” Taylor then introduced a short feature about the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, which she also narrated.
It has been a whirlwind few days for Taylor. On Tuesday, she hosted coverage of the N.B.A. finals in Milwaukee as an ESPN employee. On Wednesday, ESPN announced that it could not agree on a contract extension with her. On Friday, she was working for NBC at the Olympics.
According to a news release announcing her new roles, Taylor will join Tirico in hosting NBC’s late-night Olympic coverage and serve as a correspondent. After the Olympics, she will host coverage of the biggest events NBC has rights to.
“Literally, hosting the Olympics, ‘Football Night in America,’ and the Super Bowl is what I dreamed of when I started in television,” she said in the release. Taylor will be especially essential to NBC next February, when the Super Bowl takes place in Los Angeles during the middle of the Winter Games in Beijing.
Taylor departed ESPN after a tumultuous year. One of her colleagues, Rachel Nichols, made disparaging comments about Taylor last July. In a conversation with an adviser to LeBron James that Nichols was unaware was being recorded, Nichols, who is white, said that she had lost the N.B.A. finals hosting duties to Taylor, who is Black, because ESPN executives were “feeling pressure” on diversity.
The comments, and the way ESPN executives handled them, contributed to long-running tension among employees who cover the N.B.A. The controversy overshadowed the beginning of the N.B.A. finals, and Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., said he thought that “ESPN would have found a way to be able to work through it.”
They did not, and as soon as she had the opportunity, Taylor left for another television company.
TOKYO — An Olympic opening ceremony with all the usual pomp and tradition played out Friday night in Tokyo in front of a nearly empty stadium.
Athletes paraded in, waving at empty seats. Dancers in pastel costumes and hats provided the only live encouragement during what is normally an exuberant parade before a wildly cheering audience. Oaths were taken, speeches were made, all of it for the entertainment of millions of television viewers, but perhaps only 1,000 people in attendance, most of them news media members, dignitaries or volunteers.
Usually it is the Olympians who face considerable odds, but this time it was also the organizers who waged an uphill battle to get to this moment. What was meant to be a showcase of Japan’s gleaming efficiency, superior service culture and appeal as a tourist destination has instead been swamped by infection fears and host committee scandals.
The opening ceremony is often the host nation’s chance to show itself off — think of Beijing’s regimented drummers in 2008 or London’s dancing National Health Service nurses four years later.
Tokyo organizers put on a simpler show, but the big moments were still all there: the lighting of the cauldron by the tennis star Naomi Osaka; an appearance by Emperor Naruhito; a parade of athletes in native costumes from 206 nations; a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” sung on Jumbotrons by performers like Angélique Kidjo, John Legend and Keith Urban; and confetti doves falling from the sky.
The evening included a pause to remember the millions of lives lost, a moment of silence in a mostly deserted stadium that was already silent.
Although some competitions started earlier this week, the ceremony on Friday represented the official start of the Olympics, with more than 11,000 athletes from 205 countries expected to participate in 33 sports over the next two weeks.
Next up, 16 days of world-class sports in the same vein, with triumph and defeat set to a backdrop of near silence.
I walked all the way around the main concourse ahead of the show and what did I see? Virtually nothing!
The news media was consigned to one corner of the stadium, with print reporters working at tables and television reporters doing their live shots in the adjacent sections. Security guards milled around, looking bored. Photographers gathered in a few areas, chilling in the seats while they waited for the ceremony to begin. Ticket turnstiles, which would have ushered in more than 60,000 spectators in prepandemic times, sat unused.
From my seat, the stands did not appear completely empty, though, because the arena’s seating is a motley collection of dark green, white and light green, presumably a design decision to make it look as if empty seats were occupied by people. Trust me: They were not.
NBC and its sibling networks are covering a full slate of Olympic competitions on Saturday morning, in the early hours in the United States. All times are Eastern.
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Softball: The U.S. team will try to keep its unbeaten streak going against Mexico, airing at 2:10 a.m. on NBCSN.
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Soccer: Women’s group play continues, with Sweden facing Australia at 4:30 a.m. and the United States playing New Zealand at 7:30 a.m., on NBCSN.
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Swimming: Action in the Olympic pool airs at 6 a.m. on USA. Coverage includes heats in the men’s and women’s 400-meter individual medley, and the women’s 100-meter butterfly.
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Tennis: The first round of men’s and women’s singles and doubles airs live until 10 a.m. on the Olympic Channel.
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Opening ceremony: NBC will rebroadcast the opening ceremony — which was capped off by the Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka lighting the cauldron — several times on Saturday morning.
The opening ceremony was held Friday in Tokyo, but Team U.S.A., led by the flag-bearers Sue Bird and Eddy Alvarez, was missing some famous American faces.
Among those who did not march in the ceremony’s parade of nations was Simone Biles and her gymnastics teammates.
The women’s team decided not to walk because it was “focused on preparation,” said Meredith Yeoman, a spokeswoman for U.S.A. Gymnastics.
The women were so focused on Friday, in fact, that after practicing at the Olympic venue earlier that afternoon, they took no questions from reporters, as other athletes did. Instead, they walked right by single file, with Biles in the lead.
They also aren’t staying in the athletes’ village, opting to stay at a nearby hotel instead.
“It was also a decision that we all made together,” Biles’s coach, Cecile Landi, wrote Sunday on Twitter. “We know it isn’t ideal during a pandemic. We feel like we can control the athletes and our safety better in a hotel setting!”
Other major stars who skipped Friday’s opening ceremony included Megan Rapinoe and the rest of the U.S. women’s national soccer team. But rather than miss out on all the fun, the team got creative and turned its hotel into an Olympic Stadium of its own.
“So excited for 2020 Olympics #openingceremony tonight!” Alex Morgan tweeted on Friday. “We won’t be there in person but we WILL be parading around the hotel in our opening ceremony outfits while prepping for game 2 tomorrow!”
After losing, 3-0, against Sweden earlier this week, the team will have its second match of the Games on Saturday night in Saitama (7:30 a.m. Eastern) against New Zealand.
Is some of the music during the parade of nations reminding you of a climactic battle you once fought, or perhaps a title screen you clicked through a hundred times?
You’re not wrong: The athletes are marching around Tokyo Stadium to songs from video games, which the organizers describe as “a quintessential part of Japanese culture that is loved around the world.” Songs from popular games like Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic the Hedgehog and the Final Fantasy series have been featured. All were developed by video game studios in Japan.
Curiously, songs from Japan’s best-known video game studio, Nintendo, seem to be missing. No Zelda, no Mario, no Pokemon, despite the fact that, five years ago in Brazil, Japan’s then-prime minister transformed into Mario, red hat and all, as part of the closing ceremony for the symbolic handoff of the Summer Games from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo.
For those who need their fix of Mario and friends, Nintendo released a game called Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games in 2019. You can choose from 20 characters — including Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Wario — to play 30 sports.
The Olympic torch has had a lonely journey to the opening ceremony.
After arriving in Japan from Greece in March 2020, it was mothballed for a year as the pandemic delayed the Games.
Things only got worse from there. Even before the relay started, more than 30 runners, including a number of celebrities, had pulled out over concerns that they would be running with not only the flame but also the coronavirus.
Despite those concerns, the torch began its journey in March at a small, socially distanced ceremony in Fukushima, the site of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to a nuclear meltdown. The choice of location was intended to illustrate Japan’s recovery from the disaster, but the modest event was short on celebration.
At the time, Japan’s vaccination program had barely begun. Still, coronavirus cases counts were low, and, as members of the World Cup-winning Japanese women’s soccer team carried the torch on the first leg of its 121-day journey, there was a sense of cautious, albeit premature, optimism among the participants that the rest of the trip might go smoothly.
That was not to be. Within weeks, the country had entered a state of emergency. Spectators were asked to stay home, and the torch’s planned route experienced disruption after disruption as localities in 20 prefectures barred it from public roads.
When the flame finally arrived in Tokyo in early July, officials hustled it from venue to venue with a minimum of pageantry and no actual running, its journey across the city marked by a series of modest ceremonies.
It made its next-to-last stop earlier Friday at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where the Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, presided over a small celebration of its trip.
Eighty-five years after basketball’s debut in the Olympics, at the 1936 Berlin Games, a twist on the sport makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo. Three-on-three basketball, or 3×3 as the sport’s world governing body refers to it, promises a faster version than the traditional form.
What is three-on-three basketball?
Three on three is basketball reimagined for the TikTok generation, with fast-paced choreography and a hip-hop soundtrack. “If you have a short attention span, this is your sport,” said Kara Lawson, the coach of the U.S. women’s team.
The half-court game is played outdoors with a 12-second shot clock, no breaks and four-player rosters. The game ends after 10 minutes or when a team reaches 21 points, whichever comes first. Baskets scored outside the arc are worth two points; buckets inside it are worth one. The play is physical and fouls are rarely called.
“It’s like the X Games,” said U.S. guard Kelsey Plum. “There’s music going on, there’s a commentator making jokes about people’s play, about people getting crossed over, about someone shooting in someone’s face, saying someone is quicker than a Kardashian marriage.” (That omnipresent play-by-play announcer, Kyle Montgomery, peppers his commentary with Meek Mill and Drake lyrics and one liners like: “She’s all business like the front of the plane.”)
Why was 3×3 created?
FIBA decided to experiment with an alternative form of the sport at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, where the first official three-on-three game was played. To expose more of the world to basketball, FIBA wanted to promote a game with a street ball vibe and small rosters.
The Olympics, in its quest to be cutting-edge, quickly added three-on-three basketball to its lineup, joining skateboarding, surfing, karate and climbing as newcomers to the Tokyo Games.
Why aren’t the U.S. men in Tokyo?
The United States, birthplace of basketball, has only one team in Tokyo. The men, winner of 15 of 19 men’s gold medals in the traditional five-on-five game, did not qualify. The squad was made up of former college players.
Are the U.S. women favored to win gold?
Yes, behind its roster of young W.N.B.A. standouts — Plum of the Las Vegas Aces, Chicago Sky center Stefanie Dolson, Dallas Wings guard Allisha Gray and Las Vegas guard Jackie Young. Earlier this week, Young replaced Katie Lou Samuelson, who tested positive for the coronavirus while training with the team in Las Vegas.
Given there’s no timeouts or coaches on the bench, the pressure falls on the players to adjust on the fly. “You have to be more prepared,” said Lawson, who has been involved with the three-on-three team the past five years. “You have to be sure the players are equipped to coach themselves because I can’t save them and call a timeout and say you need to change this.”
Who can stop the women?
Though the Americans are considered the most talented squad in the eight-team women’s event, they have limited experience playing together against veteran teams such as France, China and Russia. Even so, there’s a sense that anything can happen given the game is much more unpredictable than five on five.
Lawson said the short length of each game raises the stakes.
“You don’t have time in three on three,’’ she said. “If you’re down at the end of the first quarter you’re out of the tournament.”
The American men will not win the 3×3 gold medal, but Serbia or Latvia might. It’s also significant that the women’s tournament includes Mongolia, which has excelled in individual sports such as wrestling, boxing and judo in previous Olympics, but not team sports. This will be the first time the country has entered a team sport in the Summer Games. Mongolia’s Khulan Onolbaatar became her country’s first female flag-bearer.
“Mongolia is basketball crazy. I had no idea,” said Lawson, who took a three-on-three team there in 2019. “I’ve been to countries over the last five years that I would never guess I would go to for basketball.”
TOKYO — There are plenty of words to describe the usual mood of the U.S. women’s soccer team: competitive, demanding, confident, fun.
Less common ones: frustrated, disappointed, angry. But after a 3-0 loss to Sweden on Wednesday in the team’s opening game at the Tokyo Olympics, those were probably a more accurate reflection of the vibe in the team’s camp.
“Nobody’s happy,” Coach Vlatko Andonovski said on Friday. “When you win a game and don’t play well, you’re not happy. When you lose one, it’s not an environment you want to see.”
It is one he had not seen in almost two years as the U.S. coach. The loss to Sweden was the first for the United States in 24 games under Andonovski, and only the second match that the team did not win since he was hired.
The Americans played 12 games in 2021 before departing for Tokyo and won 11 of them by shutout. The other was a 1-1 tie against Sweden in April, a game that featured — until Wednesday — the first thing resembling a misstep under Andonovski’s leadership.
It is not one he and his players want any part of repeating in their second game, against New Zealand on Saturday in Saitama.
“It’s a wake-up call,” Andonovski said of the opening defeat. “And you want a chance to make it right.”
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