Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Powerlifting: Another Chinese gold with Liu Lei lifting 198kg in the men’s -65kg division. Amir Jafari Arangeh (Iran) takes silver, Hocine Better (Algeria) bronze.
Men’s 100 metres: The T47 category follows immediately, with a Brazilian gold-bronze double. Petrucio Ferreira dos Santos wins, outside his own world record time of 10.53, with Washington Junior third. Between them is Michal Derus of Poland.
Some handy background reading on Australia’s early gold medal hopes who are due to compete in not too long:
Australia has the chance to snare the first two gold medals of the Tokyo Paralympics after Paige Greco and Emily Petricola posted new cycling world records to qualify for their respective finals.
Thanks Geoff. I will indeed travel with you. To the track, for sure. But first, to other destinations yonder in the Paralympics field of dreams. But before that, and because Tokyo 2020 isn’t really Tokyo 2020 without a Covid scare, this from the Guardian’s man on the ground Paul MacInnes:
Two more athletes have tested positive for Covid 19 in the Paralympic village, with officials awaiting information to confirm if a cluster of infection has broken out.
The news comes as ParalympicsGB confirmed a member of their coaching staff, part of the wheelchair tennis team, has been confirmed as having the virus and is now in isolation.
Daily results published by the Tokyo Paralympics organising committee found that 16 positive cases had been recorded amongst the extensive testing programme. Five of those individuals were in the Village, where athletes, coaching and support staff are supposed to be within a Covid secure bubble.
The rest of the positive results were found amongst contractors and games personnel, while one member of the media tested positive.
Tokyo 2020 spokesperson Masa Takaya said the results would now be referred to specialists.
“It seems that those with the positive cases come from different sports and different countries”, he told Inside the Games. “Whether or not there is a cluster should come from the advice from the specialists. We will continue to listen to the advice and try to provide accurate information to the media.”
ParalympicsGB said that a staff member had tested positive for the virus before arriving at the village after testing negative upon arrival in Japan and at a training camp.
The GB chef de mission, Penny Briscoe, said “we fully respect and continue to adhere” to the Tokyo 2020 Covid protocols. British officials are now tracing the individual’s recent contacts.
ParalympicsGB also confirmed that a member of the table tennis team, David Wetherill, has been deselected for breaching his team’s code of conduct. The organising body said they would be providing no further information while an arbitration process was conducted.
Men’s keirin - Kenny (GBR) rode a superb race to nick the semi on the line. Glaetzer (AUS) defended his place well throughout to come second. Both progress into the final. Carlin (GBR) misses out in fourth.
Men’s keirin - Semi-final time for the men’s keirin. Up first we have Glaetzer (AUS), Carlin (GBR), and Kenny (GBR) gunning for a spot in the top three in a field of six.
Madison gold: Great Britain drop to third. Denmark 25, France 24, Great Britain 23. We have 77 laps to go.
Madison gold: France wins the sprint with 90 laps to go, taking five points. Denmark second with three, Great Britain third with two. The latter two teams share the lead on 22 points, France on 19.
Wellbrock is well away from the field and seems to be following the racing line well, with the rest of the pack well behind him. They probably think they know better than going off like that. This is a heroic choice of tactics.
Early doors in Tokyo, and off they go in the swimming marathon. A couple of swimmers stay back on the pontoon, and away they go. Germany’s Florian Wellbrock takes up the early pace around the red buoy with German colleague Rob Muffels for company. The water is still, like a millpond.
Tubthumping is one of my favourite songs! Well done. Just curious why female track athletes are required to wear singlets that expose their midriffs. But males wear full length ones.
Women’s basketball:USA, unbeaten after two games in Group B, have started a little slowly and trail France 35-30 early in the second quarter. The French are on fire from the perimeter, hitting three after three.
Earlier today, Japan beat Nigeria 102-83 to lead Group B but the winner of USA-France will overtake the host nation.
Gymnastics: Max Whitlock tells BBC he’s “lost for words”, “completely overwhelmed,” and it’s “totally surreal”. It’s been an incredible journey, he says, and retaining the gold is “a million times harder”, noting “the most pressured environment I’ve ever been in”. He’s only getting older, but “experience pays a lot” and he “can’t quite believe it”.
He doesn’t know if it helped going first. It’s easy to say with the gold around his neck now, but every gymnast knows it’s hard to go first and he had to lay down a big routine, he couldn’t wait to see what others did. He can’t believe he’s done it, but he’s done the job, scored near his target score, and knew that if someone beat it, he’d still done his job. He now has six Olympic medals and when he was younger, he only did the sport because he enjoyed it – he wasn’t aiming for or expecting medals. It “feels very, very surreal” and he thinks he’s almost going round in circles trying to make sense of it.
Women’s 200m breaststroke final: this is all about Tatjana Schoenmaker, who starts well but is trailing USA’s Lily King at the halfway mark.
Men’s 100m butterfly semi-final 2: Dressel dominates, not in world record time but the American obliterates Milak’s semi-final winning time of 50.31 to clock in with a blistering 49.71 ahead of Noe Ponti (SUI) and Jakub Majerski (POL). Milak held the Olympic record for all of three minutes. The USA’s Tom Shields touched home in last place.
Australia’s Matthew Temple qualifies for the final sixth fastest.
Four-time champion: ‘There’s more to life than gymnastics’
American pulls out after vault early in Tuesday’s competition
ROC team wins gold with USA second and Britain in bronze
Simone Biles was forced to withdraw from the women’s team final at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday, citing mental health concerns after a difficult opening vault.
The four-times Olympic champion said that she had been struggling mentally in recent days and after the vault, she decided that she wanted to “take a back seat” in the team final and she had full faith in her teammates to win a medal.
Swimming: We’re in for a blockbuster 200m freestyle final. Katie Ledecky saw what Ariarne Titmus accomplished in her first semi and laid down a marker, leading from the front to win in 1.55.34. Barbora Seemanová (CZE) finished second, Italy’s incredible champion Federica Pellegrini powered home at the death to snatch third, beating out Maddy Wilson (AUS) and 14-year-old Summer McIntosh (CAN).
Wilson’s time was good enough to sneak into the final in eighth spot, but all eyes will be on another Titmus v Ledecky duel in the pool.
An update from the hockey stadium: Team GB have secured their second win the tournament, running out 3-1 winners over underdogs Canada after a nervous start. “You have to understand when you’re playing teams that rank lower than you, they have nothing to lose. It’s a win-win for them,” said the team’s head coach Danny Kerry.
Not strictly speaking to do with the Olympics, but very much related given Paralympian Olivia Breen’s recent experience of being told what to wear, but remember the Norwegian beach handball team that was fined in a “case of improper clothing” for refusing to wear bikini bottoms during a tournament in Europe? The protest against what the team described as “very sexist” uniform rules cost them $1,500. But they might not have to fork out themselves after pop star P!nk showed her support for their cause.
I’m VERY proud of the Norwegian female beach handball team FOR PROTESTING THE VERY SEXIST RULES ABOUT THEIR “uniform”. The European handball federation SHOULD BE FINED FOR SEXISM. Good on ya, ladies. I’ll be happy to pay your fines for you. Keep it up.
The gold medallist for women’s taekwondo, the American Anastasija Zolotic said she hoped her historic win would give taekwondo a boost in her home country, where it has struggled to gain traction in a par with boxing or mixed martial arts. The 18-year-old sprung a surprise to win the USA’s first gold medal for women in taekwondo since it became a full-medal Olympic sport in 2000.
“I work my butt off for it, and I hope taekwondo [becomes] as popular as it can be in the US,” Zolotic said. “Hopefully in 2024 if I make it over there and win another gold medal and just keep grinding to LA [in 2028], by then taekwondo will be all over the map. Hopefully [my win] will give it a better image than it has and bring it back up to where USA taekwondo deserves to be - one of the best sports that you can watch,” she said.
And another, from Bradly Sinden’s nearly-but-not-quite performance in that dramatic taekwondo final
A South Korean broadcaster has apologised after using offensive images to depict several countries during the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday.
MBC displayed photos and facts about each country as athletes walked out during the parade of nations. Most of them varied from inane to odd: Great Britain’s athletes were accompanied by a photo of the Queen, and El Salvador, where the cryptocurrency is legal tender, was summed up by a bitcoin symbol.
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 England hold them at bay in the women’s football. Still no score as we tick past 27 minutes at the Sapporo Dome.
Some cycling news: the men’s road race takes place at 3am BST, 11am local time on Saturday, but one man who won’t be at the start line is Simon Geschke, after the German rider tested positive for Covid-19.
Geschke, who was set to be part of a four-man German team, had been staying away from the Olympic village with a group of other cyclists, all of who have initially tested negative for Covid.