Tokyo Olympics UpdatesAndre De Grasse of Canada Wins the Men’s 200 Meters

Follow our live coverage of the Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony.

Here’s what happened in Tokyo on Wednesday.

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TOKYO — Sydney McLaughlin needed a world record of 51.46 seconds to beat her fellow American and rival Dalilah Muhammad in the 400 hurdles.

Andre de Grasse of Canada raced to the men’s 200-meter gold, with Americans placing 2-3-4 behind him, and Emmanuel Korir of Kenya won the men’s 800.

Sakura Yosozumi, 19, of Japan won the park skateboarding event, defeating two of the youngest competitors at the Games, Kokona Hiraki, 12, of Japan and Sky Brown, 13, of Britain.

The U.S. women’s basketball team had no problem in its semifinal, cruising past Australia, 79-55. Breanna Stewart led the team with 23 points. The U.S. baseball team defeated the Dominican Republic, 3-1, and is two wins away from a gold medal.

Ana Marcela Cunha of Brazil won the women’s marathon open-water swimming competition.

And Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia lifted the most weight in the men’s super heavyweight division and set a couple of world records in the process — 491 pounds in the snatch and a massive 584 pounds in the clean and jerk.

Andre De Grasse wins the 200 meters, his second medal at these Games.

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Andre De Grasse of Canada claimed the gold in the men’s 200 meters in 19.62 seconds.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

TOKYO — Andre De Grasse of Canada claimed his second medal of the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, sprinting to gold in the men’s 200 meters in 19.62 seconds, a national record.

Men’s 200 Meters

x x x x x x

By Rich Harris, Eden Weingart, Alice Fang, Nikolas Diamant and Ashley Wu

He was followed by three athletes from the United States: Kenny Bednarek won the silver (19.68) and Noah Lyles was third for the bronze (19.74). Erriyon Knighton, the 17-year-old high school student from Tampa, Fla., was fourth.

De Grasse, 26, won bronze in the 100 meters this week. He is now a five-time Olympic medalist.

Track and Field: Men’s 200m Final  ›

Time

Gold

Andre de Grasse

CAN flag
Canada
19.62

Silver

Kenneth Bednarek

USA flag
United States
19.68

Bronze

Noah Lyles

USA flag
United States
19.74
4

Erriyon Knighton

USA flag
United States
19.93
5

Joseph Fahnbulleh

LBR flag
Liberia
19.98
6

Aaron Brown

CAN flag
Canada
20.20
7

Rasheed Dwyer

JAM flag
Jamaica
20.21
8

Jereem Richards

TTO flag
Trinidad and Tobago
20.39

Here’s what else happened Wednesday evening in Tokyo.

Men’s 800 meters

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Kenyans finished one-two in the 800 meters: Emmanuel Korir, right, won gold and Ferguson Rotich took silver.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Taking the torch from their countryman David Rudisha, Kenyans finished one-two in the men’s 800 meters. Emmanuel Korir won the gold in 1 minute 45.06 seconds, and Ferguson Rotich finished behind him for silver. Rudisha was the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion in the event, and last raced competitively in 2017. Patryk Dobek of Poland finished third.

Clayton Murphy of the United States, the bronze medalist in 2016, finished ninth on Wednesday.

Women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase

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Courtney Frerichs of the United States, at front, won silver in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

With about four laps remaining in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, Courtney Frerichs decided to push the pace. She was rewarded with a silver medal.

Frerichs, the American record-holder in the event and the silver medalist at the 2017 world championships, broke down in tears as she crossed the line in 9:04.79. Peruth Chemutai of Uganda won the gold, and Hyvin Kiyeng of Kenya finished in third.

Emma Coburn of the United States, the bronze medalist at the 2016 Olympics, was laboring when she tumbled after hurdling a barrier. She finished in 14th place but was later disqualified because she had fallen inside the track.

Women’s 400-meter semifinals

Allyson Felix of the United States advanced to Friday’s final, finishing second in her heat. Felix, competing in her fifth Olympic Games, needs one more medal for 10 in her career, which would match her with Carl Lewis as the United States’ most decorated track and field Olympian. Now 35, Felix has said that these are her final Olympics.

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The U.S. women’s basketball team routed Australia to reach the semifinals.

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Sylvia Fowles and the United States had little trouble with Australia.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

Breanna Stewart scored 23 points to lead the United States to a 79-55 rout of Australia in the women’s basketball quarterfinals in Saitama, Japan, moving one step closer to the team’s seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal.

The Americans, who avenged a surprising loss to Australia in a pre-Olympic exhibition game, will face Serbia, the reigning European champion, in the semifinals on Friday. Serbia beat China on Wednesday.

55

AUS flag
Australia

Women’s Quarterfinal

Final

79

USA flag
United States

“I think our players had a look in their eyes that they didn’t want to go home,” U.S. Coach Dawn Staley said.

The United States opened a 14-point lead after the first quarter, extended it to 21 points by halftime, pushed it to 30 in the third quarter and never looked back. Brittney Griner added 15 points and 8 rebounds and A’ja Wilson had 10 points against Australia, the world’s second-ranked team.

The United States ran its Olympic winning streak to 53 straight games. This year’s team leads the Olympic tournament in scoring, shooting percentage, rebounds, assists and blocks. But it may have been motivated more by a 70-67 defeat against Australia in a warmup game last month in Las Vegas.

“We didn’t talk much about it,” center Sylvia Fowles said. “We watched film yesterday before practice and pretty much that was the last of it. We try not to harp on it, what happened in Vegas, but I think everybody got the memo and we knew exactly what happened.”

After earning a bronze medal, Noah Lyles opens up about mental health and the challenges of the past year.

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Noah Lyles, left, finished third in the men’s 200 meters, while his teammate Kenny Bednarek finished second. Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

TOKYO — Noah Lyles, the American sprinting star, was less than an hour removed from racing to a bronze medal in the men’s 200 meters at the Tokyo Games on Wednesday when he opened up about his mental health and the challenges he had faced over the past year.

He spoke about dealing with depression. He spoke about seeking help in therapy. He spoke about the pressures of his profession. And he cried as he spoke about his younger brother, Josephus, whose own Olympic dream as a professional runner currently lives through Noah because he didn’t make the Olympic team.

“Sometimes I think to myself, this should be him,” Noah Lyles said through tears.

For Lyles and many others competing in Tokyo, the Olympics have doubled as a sort of catharsis. In fact, Lyles’s raw display of emotion was hardly unusual: Many athletes here have been outspoken about the burdens of performing in the wake of the most daunting 18 months of their lives, a period shadowed by the pandemic and racial strife — and a yearlong postponement of the Games themselves.

Simone Biles, the world’s greatest gymnast, withdrew from multiple competitions, citing the stress of the past year as one of the reasons she had lost the ability to control her body as she tumbled through the air.

Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked tennis player who had dominated his sport for months, cracked in his semifinal match, hurling his racket into the stands and smacking a replacement against a fence post. After that loss, and then after missing out on the bronze medal, he was as distraught as he had been in years.

Members of the U.S. women’s soccer team, a fairly indomitable force entering the Olympics, fell in the semifinals and spoke of losing the joy they usually feel when they step onto the field.

Lyles, 24, has been one of the most celebrated stars in American track and field since he won a pair of gold medals at the 2019 world championships. But he has also routinely used his platform to share his struggles with anxiety and depression, and it was no different for him in the wake of winning his first Olympic medal.

“I knew there was a lot of people out there like me who’s scared to say something or to even start that journey,” he said. “I want you to know that it’s OK to not feel good, and you can go out and talk to somebody professionally, or even get on medication, because this is a serious issue and you don’t want to wake up one day and just think, you know, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’”

For a long time, he said, track was a sort of oasis for him. School was difficult for him when he was young, and running was an outlet. But over the course of the pandemic, some of that enjoyment disappeared. He took anti-depressants on and off, and he was also profoundly affected by the police killings of unarmed Black people.

Before leaving for Tokyo, he broke down crying in front of his girlfriend, he said, “just talking about how hard it was to get through this year.”

Lyles had always told himself that he would leave the sport behind if he ever lost his passion for it, he said. But while he ultimately chose to continue to train and compete, he was determined not to let track control his life. In the process, he said, he sought more balance. He pointed to his interests in music, art and fashion.

“Even if this doesn’t go right in track, I still have a life outside of it,” he said. “I have places that I can go. I am not defined by being an Olympic bronze medalist, or a gold medal world champion, or the high schooler who went pro. That’s not who I am; I’m Noah Lyles.”

He was at his most emotional, though, when he addressed his relationship with his brother, Josephus, a sprinter who fell short of making the U.S. Olympic team this summer. When they were children, Noah Lyles said, it was actually his brother’s dream to compete at the Games.

“This wasn’t even my dream,” Lyles said as he sobbed. “I just wanted to tag along because I loved my brother, and I wanted to do this together. And it’s taken us so far, and I feel like he should be here.”

In the 200-meter final, staged in an empty stadium, Lyles finished behind Andre De Grasse of Canada and Kenny Bednarek, Lyles’s American teammate. Lyles called his bronze medal “boring.”

“I didn’t win,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s a great achievement.”

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The U.S. baseball team beats the Dominican Republic, keeping its gold medal hopes alive.

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The United States beat the Dominican Republic, 3-1, on Wednesday to advance to the semifinals.Credit...Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Behind one of its oldest and one of its youngest players, the United States toppled the Dominican Republic, 3-1, on Wednesday to advance to the semifinals and preserve its gold medal hopes. The U.S., which last won the Olympics’ top prize in 2000, will face South Korea on Thursday, with the chance to face unbeaten Japan in the final on the line.

On Wednesday, Scott Kazmir, 37, who returned to the major leagues this season after five years away, allowed only two hits over five scoreless innings while striking out five batters.

1

DOM flag
Dominican Republic

Baseball Round 2 Repechage

Final

3

USA flag
United States

An All-Star with the Tampa Bay Rays in his early 20s, Kazmir made a comeback this major-league season, appearing in three games with the San Francisco Giants. When he was let go by the Giants, Team U.S.A. pounced, and the unemployed Kazmir seized the opportunity to pitch in the Olympics.

“I felt like I still had a lot in me, and I felt like the time off really did me well,” he said.

First baseman Triston Casas, 21, a top prospect for the Boston Red Sox, smashed a two-run home run in the first inning off Denyi Reyes, another player in the Red Sox farm system. It was Casas’s third home run of the Olympics. Designated hitter Tyler Austin added a solo blast in the fifth inning.

In the later game on Wednesday, Japan held off South Korea, 5-2, using a bases-clearing double by Tetsuto Yamada in the eighth inning to pull ahead. Japan is the only undefeated team in the Olympic tournament, and handed the United States its only loss earlier in the week.

Despite the loss on Wednesday, the Dominican Republic advanced to the bronze medal game, where it could claim its first Olympic medal in baseball. The Dominicans will play the loser of the United States-South Korea matchup.

Janja Garnbret of Slovenia leads the qualifiers in women’s sport climbing.

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Sport climbing, to the chagrin of climbers and fans, was granted only one medal each for men and women.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

TOKYO — Janja Garnbret of Slovenia, the most dominating competition climber of recent years and the gold medal favorite in the first Olympic women’s sport climbing competition, cruised into the eight-woman final with a typically strong performance on Wednesday night.

Garnbret, 22, is a double threat in bouldering and lead climbing, two of the three disciplines that have been combined into one event as sport climbing makes its Olympics debut.

She will be tested in Friday’s final by a veteran group that includes Akiyo Noguchi and Miho Nonaka of Japan, plus the 20-year-old Brooke Raboutou of the United States and the 17-year-old Chaehyun Seo of Korea.

Sport climbing, to the chagrin of climbers and fans, was granted only one medal each for men and women. That forced organizers to smash three distinct climbing disciplines — speed, bouldering and lead — into one combination event.

At the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, speed will have its own medal, and lead and bouldering — which have more skills and athletes in common — will partner as another medal event.

But in Tokyo, each athlete’s ranking in the three individual disciplines is multiplied together to produce a single score. Garnbret was 14th in speed, first in bouldering and fourth in lead. That total of 56 points — 14x1x4 — put her in first place, ahead of Seo, Nonaka and Noguchi, who rounded out the top four.

All of the Olympic finalists but two are adept at bouldering and lead climbing. One exception was Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland, who had the fastest time up the 15-meter speed wall. That first-place finish was enough to get her into the final despite a last-place result in bouldering and a second-to-last place showing in lead.

Anouck Jaubert of France used a second-place finish in speed to squeak into the final, too.

Kyra Condie of the United States was 11th among the 20 competitors. Her hopes for making the final were undone by a pair of boulder problems that left nearly everyone but Garnbret vexed. Condie then endured an early slip in lead climbing.

The men’s final is scheduled for Thursday, and got some unexpected intrigue after the qualifying round on Tuesday when Bassa Mawem of France dropped out of the final with a biceps injury, leaving only seven competitors.

Mawem, the fastest speed climber in the final, was scheduled to race against Adam Ondra, likely the slowest, in the first round of a head-to-head speed bracket. Now Ondra will receive a bye and an automatic slot in the speed semifinals.

That means that a likely eighth-place finish in speed — a ranking number that can be hard to overcome in the multiplication of the combined format — will now be no worse than fourth for Ondra, a dominating boulderer and lead climber.

A correction was made on 
Aug. 4, 2021

An earlier version of this article misidentified the country Janja Garnbret represents. It is Slovenia, not Slovakia.

How we handle corrections

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Sydney McLaughlin won the 400-meter hurdles, defeating the 2016 Olympic champion, Dalilah Muhammad of the U.S.

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Sydney McLaughlin broke her own world record in winning the women’s 400-meter hurdles on Wednesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

TOKYO — Sydney McLaughlin recently said that “iron sharpens iron” when it comes to her relationship with Dalilah Muhammad. They are the pre-eminent practitioners of their craft, the two fastest women ever to run the 400-meter hurdles.

Few events were more highly anticipated at the Tokyo Games than the renewal of their rivalry on Wednesday at Olympic Stadium.

It was safe to assume that something extraordinary would happen, and McLaughlin delivered, breaking her own world record to win her first Olympic gold.

Women’s 400 Meters Hurdles

x x x x x x

Race visualization is shown at 2x speed.

By Rich Harris, Eden Weingart, Alice Fang, Nikolas Diamant and Ashley Wu

McLaughlin, 21, finished in 51.46 seconds. Muhammad ran the fastest time of her life to take the silver medal in 51.58 seconds, and Femke Bol of the Netherlands was third.

There have been various high-profile chapters between McLaughlin and Muhammad. At the 2019 world championships, Muhammad dipped under her own world record by 0.04 of a second to edge McLaughlin for the win at 52.16 seconds.

But at the U.S. Olympic trials in June, McLaughlin — so often considered the prodigy — met the outsize expectations that had shadowed her since she was a teenager by breaking Muhammad’s world record with a time of 51.90 seconds. Muhammad, after dealing with injuries and illness during the pandemic, finished second at the trials.

Those two races, though, were preludes to what played out on Wednesday, the fastest women’s 400-meter hurdles race in history — one day after Karsten Warholm of Norway had won gold with a time of 45.94 seconds in the fastest men’s 400-meter hurdles race in history.

Muhammad, 31, who had come to Tokyo as the reigning Olympic champion, went out hard to take an early lead. But McLaughlin was gaining on her coming off the final turn and outsprinted her in the final meters.

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McLaughlin crossing the finish line just ahead of her teammate Dalilah Muhammad.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

McLaughlin was a teenager when she competed at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where she fell short of advancing to the final. It was a learning experience, and she leaned on some of those lessons in Tokyo. The Olympics were not new to her. She seemed utterly unfazed by it all.

She had spent the early part of the year refining her technique by running the 100-meter hurdles at the behest of her coach, Bob Kersee. The idea, McLaughlin said, was to “feel the rhythm of running faster.”

On Wednesday, she was the fastest in the world.

Track and Field: Women’s 400m Hurdles Final  ›

Time

Gold

Sydney McLaughlin

USA flag
United States
51.46
WR

Silver

Dalilah Muhammad

USA flag
United States
51.58

Bronze

Femke Bol

NED flag
Netherlands
52.03
4

Janieve Russell

JAM flag
Jamaica
53.08
5

Anna Ryzhykova

UKR flag
Ukraine
53.48
6

Viktoriya Tkachuk

UKR flag
Ukraine
53.79
7

Gianna Woodruff

PAN flag
Panama
55.84

Anna Cockrell

USA flag
United States
DQ

Japan wins its third skateboarding gold medal of the Games, in women’s park.

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Sakura Yosozumi of Japan won gold in the women's park skateboarding finals.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

TOKYO — The formidable team of skateboarders from Japan continued its stellar performance at the Olympics and on Wednesday took the gold and silver medals in the women’s park competition, ending the gold medal hopes of the 13-year-old Sky Brown.

Sakura Yosozumi, 19, won the event under the blistering midday sun at Ariake Urban Sports Park. Her winning score of 60.09 put her a point ahead of the 12-year-old Kokona Hiraki.

Brown, who grew up in Japan, lives in California and competed for Britain, finished third to earn the bronze medal.

A victory by Hiraki or Brown would have made either one the youngest gold medalist in Olympics history. The official distinction remains with Marjorie Gestring, a diver who won at age 13 years 268 days at the 1936 Berlin Games.

Brown stumbled in her first two runs of the final but skated flawlessly on the pressure-packed third. She raised her arms in the air, climbed out of the bowl and knelt on the deck and then got hugs from her competitors.

The judges were less impressed and gave her a score of 56.47.

Misugu Okamoto, 15 and a favorite for the gold medal, came off the board on all of her final runs but still scored well enough to finish fourth.

The women’s park discipline in skateboarding had the youngest set of teenagers (and one preteen) in the Olympics. One by one, they dropped into the concrete bowl and buzzed over its ramps and hips and up its walls, flying up and over the lip to twist and turn and drop back in again.

Runs lasted 45 seconds. Brown, Hiraki and Okamoto were among those who stood out from the beginning with bigger airs, more nuanced tricks and bursts of speed and confidence.

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Park skateboarders navigate the bowl in a single nonstop stretch for 45 seconds, or until they fall.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Hiraki, who will turn 13 in about three weeks, was the second-youngest athlete among the 11,000 at these Olympics. She wore white Nike coveralls, like someone about to go painting. (The youngest Olympian competing in Tokyo was Hend Zaza of Syria, a table-tennis player.)

Brown turned 13 last month. The effervescent daughter of a British father and a Japanese mother, she grew up mostly in Japan and now lives mostly in Southern California.

“All three of them feel like home,” she said.

She competed in baggy pants and a tank top featuring the Union Jack. She gained attention in Britain by winning a juniors version of “Dancing With the Stars” in 2018. Her smile and her Instagram posts have earned her fans in at least three countries. She has a younger brother named Ocean who has gained attention, too.

She was severely injured last year in an accident at Tony Hawk’s indoor skatepark when she flew through a gap between two high ramps, crashing at least 15 feet to the concrete. She was unconscious with a skull fracture and broke a wrist and a hand.

She was back on a board a few weeks later and appeared to be flying higher and skating harder than ever at the Olympics.

“Falling is part of skateboarding,” she said in an interview in May. “It’s part of life. I was honestly excited to get back on the board.”

Brown’s main rival at the Olympics was expected to be Okamoto, a quiet and straight-faced competitor, the best park skater of the past couple of years. She is part of a deep Japanese contingent that has captured more medals in skateboarding than any other country — including all three of the Olympic gold medals awarded so far.

Skateboarding: Women’s Park Final  ›

Score

Gold

Sakura Yosozumi

JPN flag
Japan
60.09

Silver

Kokona Hiraki

JPN flag
Japan
59.04

Bronze

Sky Brown

GBR flag
Britain
56.47
4

Misugu Okamoto

JPN flag
Japan
53.58
5

Poppy Olsen

AUS flag
Australia
46.04
6

Bryce Wettstein

USA flag
United States
44.50
7

Dora Varella

BRA flag
Brazil
40.42
8

Yndiara Asp

BRA flag
Brazil
37.34

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The record for the youngest gold medalist stays intact. But who exactly holds that record remains a mystery.

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Sky Brown, a 13-year-old from Britain, during park skateboard qualifications.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Kokona Hiraki of Japan, 12, and Sky Brown of Britain, 13, won the silver and bronze medals in the park skateboard competition on Wednesday. Because they didn’t win, they failed to claim the title of youngest-ever Olympic gold medalist.

Not that we really know who that is.

The current accepted youngest gold medalist is Marjorie Gestring, a 13-year-old American diver who won the springboard competition in 1936. Her record was threatened by Momiji Nishiya of Japan, a 13-year-old who won the street skateboard competition last week. But Nishiya was about two months older than Gestring was at the time of her gold.

Either Hiraki or Brown would have broken the record.

The youngest winner of any medal was Dimitrios Loundras of Greece, who at age 10 in 1896 won a bronze medal in team gymnastics.

But there’s one possible twist to Gestring’s record.

At the Paris Games of 1900, a Dutch rowing pair recruited a local French boy to be their coxswain. After they won, and a picture was taken, he disappeared into the crowd. Though several candidates have been put forward, his identity has never been discovered, and it remains one of the greatest mysteries in Olympic history.

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The winning Dutch rowing team at the 1900 Paris Games, with their mystery coxswain.Credit...Courtesy Bill Mallon

The consensus is that he was 10 or younger, but despite the avid interest of Olympics researchers, that simply isn’t known for sure.

Japan’s big hope in karate is from the home of the sport.

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Ryo Kiyuna competing at the karate world championships in Madrid in 2018.Credit...Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

TOKYO — Every city that hosts the Olympics pushes for events popular in its country to be included in the program, and Tokyo is no different. The Japanese organizers successfully lobbied for baseball to return after an absence of a dozen years and for surfing to make its debut.

The International Olympic Committee also signed off on the Japanese organizers’ request to include karate as a medal sport, an upgrade from the cameo it made as a demonstration sport at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Thanks in part to Hollywood movies, karate is perhaps the best known of the martial arts. It forms the basis of numerous other martial arts, including taekwondo, and has a wide following across the globe.

Karate has its roots in the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa, where it was developed centuries ago. It is fitting, then, that one of the gold medal favorites in the three-day tournament that begins Thursday is Ryo Kiyuna, an Okinawan. A three-time individual world champion, Kiyuna will compete in the men’s kata portion on Friday, and if he meets expectations, he will be the first Okinawan to win an Olympic gold medal.

“Since karate has finally been selected as an official event at the Tokyo Olympics, I would like to show the world what karate is all about, both as a representative of Japan and as a representative of Okinawa,” he told Jiji Press last year.

Casual observers of the sport are probably familiar with kumite, where two fighters face off and try to hit and kick their opponents to score points.

Kata, by contrast, includes the building blocks of karate performed against an imaginary opponent, traditional aspects of the martial art that purists relish. In kata, athletes perform alone, demonstrating a series of offensive and defensive moves. Karateka choose from among 102 katas, or techniques, that are approved by the World Karate Federation.

The seven judges base 70 percent of a score on technical proficiency, which includes focus, breathing, timing and stances. The other 30 percent is based on athletics, including strength and speed.

Kiyuna has dominated the kata world in recent years, the only karateka to receive a perfect score, something he did in 2019. Now 31, he began practicing karate at 5, inspired to join a friend from kindergarten. He started winning competitions, and studied under Tsuguo Sakumoto, a karate master from Okinawa. By 2014, Kiyuna overtook his biggest rival, Antonio Díaz of Venezuela. His main competition at the Tokyo Games is Damián Quintero of Spain, who was runner-up to Kiyuna at the past two world championships.

According to Masahiro Ide, who runs a karate fan newsletter, Kiyuna has exceptional speed, sharpness and strength and accurate techniques.

“His moves are so strong that the judges can feel his power just from his appearance, which allows him to get high scores,” said Ide, who expects Kiyuna to win a gold medal. “He is also good at pulling power from within himself.”

Unfortunately for karate fans, the sport will not be on the program at the Paris Games in 2024. Supporters of karate hoped its inclusion in Tokyo would boost the sport’s popularity much the way taekwondo benefited from being added to the Olympic program at the Sydney Games in 2000.

For now, the sport will get plenty of exposure in Tokyo this week, with Kiyuna and Okinawa as two of the main attractions.

“The Japanese feel that karate is theirs, and they want to regain dominance,” said Sherman Nelson Jr., a karate analyst for NBC Sports. “The world caught up. The sport is a melting pot. Everyone has to adapt.”

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An I.O.C. expert says the Games showed how to ‘keep the pandemic at bay.’

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Officials say that Tokyo’s expansive testing regimen for athletes and others, combined with mask-wearing and social distancing, kept the Games “safe and secure.”Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

On the eve of the Olympic closing ceremony, Tokyo 2020 organizers claimed victory against a virus that delayed and almost derailed the Games, calling their measures a model for other major international events.

Brian McCloskey, a leading health adviser to the Games, said that Tokyo’s expansive testing regimen for athletes and others, combined with mask-wearing and social distancing, kept the Games “safe and secure” and prevented transmission of the coronavirus between international arrivals and the Japanese public.

“By following basic public health measures and by layering on top of that the testing program, we have shown that it is possible to keep the pandemic at bay,” McCloskey, the chairman of the Tokyo 2020 Independent Expert Panel, said at a news conference on Saturday. “And that is a very important lesson from Tokyo to the rest of the world.”

New Reported Coronavirus Cases at the Olympics

So far, at least 547 people with Olympic credentials, including 32 athletes, have tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan. Others have tested positive before their departure to the Games and are not included in the chart below.

Athletes who have tested positive for the coronavirus

Scientists say that positive tests are expected with daily testing programs, even among the vaccinated. Some athletes who have tested positive have not been publicly identified, and some who tested positive were later cleared to participate in the Games.

Date

Name

Sport

Country

Aug. 4

Anna Chernysheva

Russian Olympic Committee

Karate

Russian Olympic Committee

Aug. 3

Walid Bidani

Algeria

Weightlifting

Algeria

July 30

Sparkle McKnight

Trinidad and Tobago

Track and field

Trinidad and Tobago

Paula Reto

South Africa

Golf

South Africa

Andwuelle Wright

Trinidad and Tobago

Track and field

Trinidad and Tobago

July 29

Germán Chiaraviglio

Argentina

Track and field

Argentina

Sam Kendricks

United States

Track and field

United States

July 28

Bruno Rosetti

Italy

Rowing

Italy

July 27

Mohammed Fardj

Algeria

Wrestling

Algeria

Evangelia Platanioti

Greece

Artistic swimming

Greece

July 26

Jean-Julien Rojer

Netherlands

Tennis

Netherlands

July 25

Samy Colman

Morocco

Equestrian

Morocco

Jon Rahm

Spain

Golf

Spain

Djamel Sedjati

Algeria

Track and field

Algeria

Bilal Tabti

Algeria

Track and field

Algeria

July 24

Bryson DeChambeau

United States

Golf

United States

July 23

Finn Florijn

Netherlands

Rowing

Netherlands

Jelle Geens

Belgium

Triathlon

Belgium

Simon Geschke

Germany

Road cycling

Germany

Frederico Morais

Portugal

Surfing

Portugal

July 22

Taylor Crabb

United States

Beach volleyball

United States

Reshmie Oogink

Netherlands

Taekwondo

Netherlands

Michal Schlegel

Czech Republic

Road cycling

Czech Republic

Marketa Slukova

Czech Republic

Beach volleyball

Czech Republic

July 21

Fernanda Aguirre

Chile

Taekwondo

Chile

Ilya Borodin

Russian Olympic Committee

Swimming

Russian Olympic Committee

Amber Hill

Britain

Shooting

Britain

Candy Jacobs

Netherlands

Skateboarding

Netherlands

Youcef Reguigui

Algeria

Road cycling

Algeria

Pavel Sirucek

Czech Republic

Table tennis

Czech Republic

July 20

Sammy Solís

Mexico

Baseball

Mexico

Sonja Vasic

Serbia

Basketball

Serbia

Hector Velazquez

Mexico

Baseball

Mexico

July 19

Kara Eaker

United States

Gymnastics

United States

Ondrej Perusic

Czech Republic

Beach volleyball

Czech Republic

Katie Lou Samuelson

United States

Three-on-three basketball

United States

July 18

Coco Gauff

United States

Tennis

United States

Kamohelo Mahlatsi

South Africa

Soccer

South Africa

Thabiso Monyane

South Africa

Soccer

South Africa

July 16

Dan Craven

Namibia

Road cycling

Namibia

Alex de Minaur

Australia

Tennis

Australia

July 14

Dan Evans

Britain

Tennis

Britain

July 13

Johanna Konta

Britain

Tennis

Britain

July 3

Milos Vasic

Serbia

Rowing

Serbia

July 2

Hideki Matsuyama

Japan

Golf

Japan

Note: Data is shown by the date in Tokyo when a case was announced. Some athletes tested positive before arriving in Japan. Table includes athletes who tested positive since July 1, 2021.

Sources: Tokyo 2020 organizing committee and staff reports.

By Jasmine C. Lee and John Yoon

Olympic organizers on Saturday reported 22 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infections in the Olympic bubble to slightly more than 400. McCloskey said that organizers had tested more than 600,000 people.

No athletes were among the new cases, reflecting organizers’ relative success in walling off competitors from the outbreak raging in the rest of Japan, which on Friday reached a milestone of one million coronavirus cases.

At least 409 people connected to the Games have tested positive since July 1, including 32 athletes, according to organizers. Most of the infections have occurred among Japanese nationals, including contractors and others working at Olympic venues.

McCloskey said that organizers were in talks with national teams and Japanese officials to develop a system for testing athletes and personnel after the Games concluded to monitor potential infections in the coming weeks.

The pandemic caused the Games to be postponed from last year. Weeks before the opening ceremony, an outbreak fueled by the highly infectious Delta variant prompted emergency restrictions in Tokyo and other parts of Japan. The measures have done little to slow the spread of the virus, as Tokyo and Japan as a whole have had record numbers of daily cases in recent days and officials warned that the outbreak was severely straining the health system.

Some experts say that the Games, despite their near-total lack of spectators, have contributed to a feeling of pandemic fatigue in Japan and encouraged people to let down their guard, allowing the virus to spread. McCloskey disputed that idea, saying there was no evidence of a link “between the Games and the way in which the Japanese people are or are not behaving.”

I.O.C. seeks answers after two Chinese athletes wore Mao pins during the medal ceremony.

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Bao Shanju, left, and Zhong Tianshi wore pins bearing the silhouette of Mao Zedong during their medal ceremony on Monday.Credit...Christophe Ena/Associated Press

The International Olympic Committee said it was investigating a potential breach of Olympic regulations after two cyclists from China wore pins bearing the silhouette of Mao Zedong in a medal ceremony.

The small red and gold pins — once ubiquitous symbols representing Mao’s three-decade rule over China — were attached to the track suits of the cyclists, Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi, when they received gold medals in the women’s sprint on Monday.

The cyclists’ badges are a potential violation of Rule 50 of the Olympic charter, which bans “political, religious or racial propaganda” at Olympic venues.

In a news briefing on Wednesday, Mark Adams, an I.O.C. spokesman, said that the committee had asked China’s Olympic delegation to submit a report explaining the incident, and that it had been promised a “full formal answer soon.”

“They have also assured us already that this will not happen again,” Mr. Adams said.

Separately, the Korea Badminton Association said on Wednesday that it had filed a complaint with the World Badminton Federation after a Chinese player was captured on video swearing in a doubles match against South Korean players.

The Chinese badminton player, Chen Qingchen, repeatedly shouted what has been interpreted as a common Chinese obscenity. She apologized, saying that she was merely celebrating points scored and that she would adjust her “bad pronunciation.” But she did not say what she had intended to shout.

The incident was widely reported in South Korea — where nationalists sometimes chafe at China’s assertions of power — but lauded as a spirited and refreshing performance on Chinese social media.

The Chinese team ended up defeating the South Koreans.

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The mother of Raven Saunders, shot-put silver medalist, dies.

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Raven Saunders during her silver-medal-winning competition in Tokyo.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

On Sunday, Raven Saunders won a silver medal in the shot-put at the Tokyo Games. On Tuesday, NBC reported that her mother had died in Orlando, Fla., where she had gone to attend an Olympic watch party for her daughter.

Saunders called her mother, Clarissa Saunders, her “number one guardian angel” in a message on Twitter.

Herbert Johnson, Raven Saunders’s longtime coach, confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post. He said that Clarissa Saunders and Raven’s sister, Tanzy, had gone from Charleston, S.C., the Saunders family’s hometown, to Orlando to watch Raven compete in the Olympics.

Raven Saunders did not disappoint. Sporting hair dyed green on the right and purple on the left and a mask that was a nod to the Hulk (her nickname), she defeated all competitors but Gong Lijiao of China.

Saunders, 25, brought attention to her feat, dancing and singing “Celebration” afterward and later, on the medals podium, crossing her arms in the shape of an X, a gesture she said was “for oppressed people.”

“Not being there is a bummer,” Clarissa Saunders said of not being able to be with her daughter in Tokyo, The State, a newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported. “But hey, we’re cheering from here … and she knows we’re here cheering for her.”

Saunders, who finished fifth in the shot-put in the 2016 Rio Games, has publicly praised her mother for her support. In an Instagram post on Mother’s Day, Saunders said of her mother: “You’ve shown me what strength is and for that I can push through anything. You’ve shown me relentlessness and for that I’ve learned determination.”

Mayor John Tecklenburg of Charleston called Clarissa Saunders “Raven’s strongest supporter.”

“On behalf of the citizens of Charleston, we pray for Raven and her family, and join them in grieving this unimaginable loss,” Mr. Tecklenburg said in a statement.

Tamyra Mensah-Stock becomes the first Black woman to win a wrestling gold.

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Tamyra Mensah-Stock became the second American woman to win a wrestling gold medal.Credit...Leah Millis/Reuters

CHIBA, Japan — Either way on Tuesday night, Tamyra Mensah-Stock knew there would be a first.

Since women’s wrestling was added to the Summer Olympics in 2004, a Black woman had never won the top prize. But in the light heavyweight gold medal match at Makuhari Messe Hall, Mensah-Stock, a Texas native whose father came to the United States from Ghana at 30, was going up against Blessing Oborududu of Nigeria.

“Oooooh, it was awesome,” Mensah-Stock said afterward with her usual zeal and earnestness.

“Oh my gosh, look at us representing,” she added later. “And I’m like, if one of us wins, we’re making history. You’re making history, I’m making history, we’re making history. It’s fantastic. It meant a lot. I’m so proud of Blessing. I was looking at her, ‘Dang, she’s killing it.’ But I can kill it, too.”

And Mensah-Stock, 28, certainly did, dominating her opponents throughout the Tokyo Games and beating Oborududu, 32, by a score of 4-1 to become the second American woman to win a wrestling gold medal after Helen Maroulis in 2016.

Wrestling: Women’s Freestyle 150 lbs.  ›

Gold

Tamyra Mariama Mensah Stock

United States

Silver

Blessing Oborududu

Nigeria

Bronze

Alla Cherkasova

Ukraine

Bronze

Meerim Zhumanazarova

Kyrgyzstan

Asked about the feat after the match, she said: “Young women are going to see themselves in a number of ways. And they’re going to look up there and go: ‘I can do that. I can see myself.’”

Then Mensah-Stock signaled toward her head, saying: “Look at this natural hair. Come on, man! I made sure I brought my puffballs out so they could know that you can do it, too.”

Serving as a symbol to others has long been on Mensah-Stock’s mind. Back home in Katy, Texas, she started wrestling in 10th grade after she was bullied in track and field, her sport of choice. She reluctantly switched to wrestling at the behest of her twin sister, a wrestler, but soon found that the sport not only unlocked her athletic ability but also helped her develop confidence.

Mensah-Stock said she wanted other young women, perhaps those who felt as she once did, to see that “you can be silly, you can have fun, and you can be strong, you can be tough and you can be a wrestler.”

In her first year wrestling, Mensah-Stock finished second in the state championships but knew more was to come. She told a friend that they would be Olympians one day. In 2016, she made it to the Rio Games, but only as a practice partner for her teammates when she failed to secure a spot in the competition.

“From the very beginning, I knew I could get here,” she said.

Although a Black woman hadn’t won an Olympic gold in wrestling before, Mensah-Stock rattled off the names of Black wrestlers who had achieved so much before her. Among them: Toccara Montgomery, who finished seventh in the 2004 Games, and Randi Miller, who won a bronze medal in the 63-kilogram weight class in 2008.

“They paved the way for me, and I was like, ‘I know you guys could have done it, so I’m going out there and I’m going to accomplish this,’” Mensah-Stock said.

Before the gold medal match, Mensah-Stock struggled to sleep because of nerves. She said her coach, Izzy Izboinikov, made sure she ate something. Watching other wrestlers from the United States compete earlier on Tuesday made her anxiety worse.

“It wasn’t pretty,” she said.

But after the clock ran out and Mensah-Stock was the winner, she formed a heart sign with her hands and showed it to both sides of the arena. The television broadcast showed her family, watching from the United States, making the same gesture in response. From the stands, her training partner Maya Nelson clapped and shouted with so much glee that her mask couldn’t stay on.

The heart sign, she later said, was a tribute to her loved ones: her father who died in a car crash after leaving one of her high school tournaments, a tragedy that nearly led her to quit wrestling; her uncle, a former professional boxer, who died of cancer; her grandfather who also died of cancer; a late friend who was also a wrestler; her husband, her mother, her aunt, her sister and the entire country.

“I’m trying to send love to everyone,” she said.

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Semifinal matches loom for U.S. women’s soccer and beach volleyball.

TOKYO — After a comprehensive victory over Spain, the American men’s basketball team took the court on Thursday afternoon against Australia in a semifinal game. The winner will play for the gold medal.

A victory for the U.S. team, laden with N.B.A. stars, was far from assured: Australia beat the Americans in an exhibition game last month, before the Olympics.

In other action on Day 13 of the Games, the U.S. women’s soccer team can’t be happy to have lost its own semifinal, but a consolation bronze is still available if the Americans can beat Australia in Kashima in a match that begins at 5 p.m. in Japan, 4 a.m. Eastern.

April Ross and Alix Klineman have advanced again in beach volleyball and will now play in the semifinal.

Also on Thursday, the first golds in climbing and karate will be awarded.

Elaine Thompson-Herah was temporarily blocked from posting to Instagram after sharing videos of her races.

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Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah after winning the women’s 100-meter final on Saturday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, who made history in Tokyo by becoming the first woman to win gold in the 100 and 200 meters in consecutive Games, was temporarily blocked from posting to Instagram on Tuesday afternoon after sharing a video of her Olympic races.

“I was blocked on Instagram for posting the races of the Olympic because I did not own the right to do so. So see y’all in 2 days,” she said on Twitter on Tuesday.

However, she regained permission to post hours after her tweet. “My block is cleared,” she posted on an Instagram story on Tuesday night, along with two hugging face emoji.

The International Olympic Committee owns the intellectual property associated with the Olympic Games, restricting what athletes and other credentialed personnel can share to their social media accounts, including some images or videos from the Games.

A spokesperson for Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, confirmed that it removed a video but that Thompson-Herah’s access was mistakenly suspended.

Instagram removes content when it is reported by the person or organization who owns the rights, the spokesperson said.

Thompson-Herah set a Jamaican record for the women’s 200 meters with a time of 21.53 seconds and an Olympic record in the women’s 100 meters with a time of 10.61 seconds, breaking the American Florence Griffith Joyner’s mark of 10.62 from 1988.

Her next race will be Thursday when she competes in the women’s 4x100-meter relay.

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To prepare for Tokyo’s weather, Belgium’s field hockey team trained in a heat chamber.

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Belgium playing India in the field hockey semifinals. The Belgians now face Australia, in a game they are thankful will be played at night.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

TOKYO — The hottest athletes at the entire Tokyo Olympics may be the goalies in field hockey.

Consider the conditions during Tuesday’s semifinal between Belgium and India: a heat index of 100 degrees, an artificial turf field, little to no cloud cover or wind, and a 10:30 a.m. start. Woof.

Now listen to what Belgium’s goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch was wearing during the 5-2 win at Oi Hockey Stadium: a helmet, a black long-sleeved jersey, shorts, and pads over his hands, shoulders, chest, knees, shins and feet — helpful with a rocketing ball but not for Tokyo summers.

“Inside it feels like 50 degrees,” said Vanasch, 33. From Celsius, that translates to roughly a million degrees Fahrenheit. (Actually 122.) He continued, “But you just cope with that.”

The many things done by the second-ranked Belgian team to cope with the Tokyo heat have it one win away from its first Olympic gold. And it all began in what is essentially a heat chamber at a university back home.

Mick Beunen, a former Belgian national player who has overseen the team’s training since 2010, studied physical education and training science at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. There he met Peter Hespel, a professor of exercise physiology and sports nutrition.

Beunen, 49, had previously sent players to the university’s Athletic Performance Center, led by Hespel, for evaluations. But in planning for Tokyo’s oppressive humidity and heat, he sent all potential national team players last year.

In an “environmental facility,” Hespel said in an email, they can simulate conditions between 12 and 40 degrees Celsius (roughly 54 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit) and altitudes from sea level to about 7,000 meters. They set the conditions to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and 70 percent relative humidity, a typical summer day in Tokyo, and had players exercise to mimic the strain of a game.

Experts measured sweat rate, sweat composition, body core and skin temperatures, and players’ perceptions of fatigue and overheating, Hespel said. From that, he said, they created a ranking of all players based on their risk of heat-related fatigue, illness or injury, and trainers created “heat acclimation plans” specific to each player.

The data, Beunen said, was not used to weed out players but rather to identify which ones were most affected by the heat and to help them improve.

“We just want to be the fittest team, so there’s been a lot of work done over the years to make everybody better,” he said in a phone interview.

Belgium’s team trainers have also amassed useful data in other ways. They check players’ temperatures before, during and after practice. And since the start of Beunen’s tenure, he said, the team has used wearable technology to measure players’ heart rates, sprint speeds, distances covered and other metrics that help coaches and trainers identify who is at a higher risk of injury or who is getting fatigued.

Beunen said the data, accessible in real time on a smartphone or tablet, allows him to help head coach Shane McLeod fine-tune his substitution plan during games.

“If you see the figures during hot conditions, then you can adapt to that and you can help the players to overcome it,” Beunen said.

The Belgian team, used to much cooler summers back home, also came to Japan early and trained in Hiroshima for a week to get acclimated.

At the Olympics, Beunen said, players drink what he called slurries — essentially electrolyte-rich drinks mixed with crushed ice — during games and before they start running around, to lower body temperatures even slightly. Beyond that, Vanasch said, he has been drinking nothing but water nonstop from morning to evening.

Luckily he doesn’t have to race around the field like his teammates, but Vanasch, the goalkeeper, has to carry a lot of gear, so he wears a cooling vest under it all and also applies a cooling spray. During Tuesday’s game, he changed into clean gear at halftime.

Belgium’s training really shined late in that game. Tied at 2 with fifth-ranked India through three quarters, Belgium convincingly pulled ahead in the final frame despite playing in its seventh game in 11 days.

“We knew the conditions would be difficult,” said forward Cedric Charlier, 33, while coated in sweat after the victory. “We trained harder, did lots of double training sessions, and are ready to go really deep into what we have inside.”

Thursday brings the stiffest test: Belgium, which won silver at the 2016 Olympics, faces top-ranked Australia. Beunen said the team’s success so far was proof that its preparations for the Olympics and heat were working. But even though Belgian players have competed in warm places like Australia and India, he said, the Tokyo Games were the “hardest tournament that they ever played.”

Thankfully, Vanasch said, the final game is at night in Tokyo, away from the punishing daytime sun. “We are ready to push another gear,” he said.

Nevin Harrison, 19, can win a rare American medal in canoeing.

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Nevin Harrison began her Games on Wednesday, winning her qualifying heat in 44.94 seconds. She won her semifinal on Thursday morning.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

TOKYO — When Nevin Harrison first tried canoe racing at age 12, becoming an Olympian was not the first thing on her mind. Staying out of the water was.

By age 17, she was going fast enough to be a world champion.

There are sports the United States excels at and sports where it does not. It is pretty safe to say that canoeing and kayaking fit in the second category.

At the last world championships in 2019, out of 30 events only one American even advanced to a final. That paddler was Harrison, who won the gold medal in the 200-meter canoe race. Suddenly the United States, of all places, had canoeing’s brightest young star.

Harrison is by far the biggest American name in the sport, and the only canoe or kayak sprinter of either gender to qualify for these Games.

She began competition on Wednesday, winning her qualifying heat in 44.94 seconds and then advanced to the final by breezing through her semifinal on Thursday morning with the fastest qualifying time. That made her the favorite in the eight-woman final later in the day, scheduled to begin at 10:57 p.m. Eastern. All races will be streamed live on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com, and the finals will be broadcast on CNBC at 1:15 a.m.

Harrison, now 19, was a standout in soccer, softball and track while growing up — sports more typical for a young American with athletic talent. But misfortune made her turn her focus to canoeing. She began feeling hip pain at age 14. Hip dysplasia was diagnosed, a condition in which the hip socket does not connect correctly with the thighbone. “A doctor said there was no way I was going to compete in sports again,” she said. “That was super devastating for me. I had only ever hoped to be an athlete.”

Running and sports that involved running were hard on her hip, so she turned her focus to canoeing. Once she mastered staying in the canoe, she started getting better. Her upward trajectory to world champion at 17 was dizzying.

“It was nothing short of crazy,” she said. “I couldn’t really believe it; things were happening so fast.”

Women’s canoeing was added to the Games for the first time in Tokyo, and Harrison’s event, the 200 meters, is the individual race that is being contested.

The race, the shortest in canoe/kayak, lasts about 45 seconds. But it isn’t an all-out dash. “It’s similar to the 400 meters in track,” she said, another event that takes roughly 45 seconds. “It’s a sprint, but there’s a little bit of strategy because you can’t quite go 100 percent for 45 seconds.”

“People have different strategies,” Harrison said. “I tend to go really hard for the first 50, the second 50 just try to keep it up and try to stay ahead (if I am ahead), and then in the last 100 build up to top speed.”

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The comedian Amber Ruffin asks athletes: ‘Do you know you did an amazing job?’

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Amber Ruffin on the set of her show earlier this year.Credit...Heidi Gutman/Peacock

Amber Ruffin, a comedian and the host of “The Amber Ruffin Show” on Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform, added a twist to post-match interviews with athletes as part of her on-the-ground coverage of the Games from Tokyo.

“The interviewers ask stressful questions like, ‘Do you know that everyone’s counting on you?’” she said in a gruff voice in one video, wagging her finger at the camera.

But not Ruffin. Her style hit a slightly lighter note.

“Question No. 1: Do you know you did an amazing job?” she asked athletes such as Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Cales, two U.S. beach volleyball players, as they left competition venues.

Ruffin also spoke with players from Canada, Kenya and Switzerland, injecting her questions with some feel-good comedic relief that elicited laughs from all the athletes.

Ruffin, a former writer and performer on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” is covering her first Olympics. In addition to her exit interviews, she also featured segments like “Athletes Tell Jokes” and competed in her own Olympic event, which she called “artistic weight lifting.”

Ruffin is not the only one making the Games funnier. The comedian Leslie Jones is using Twitter and Instagram to share her real-time reactions to nearly every event, infused with the same enthusiasm and passion she brought to previous Olympics and to “Game of Thrones.” And the comedian and actor Kevin Hart and the rapper Snoop Dogg, who are co-hosting a highlights show on Peacock, recently went viral for their commentary on one of the Olympic equestrian events, in which they described a horse doing a crip walk through its routine.

The defection of a Belarus sprinter sheds light on a dictator’s control.

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The Belarusian athlete Kristina Timanovskaya at the airport in Tokyo. She flew to Poland, which offered her and her husband asylum.Credit...Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images

When Belarusian Olympic officials went to the sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya’s room after she complained publicly about her coaches, the head of the national team made it clear they had an order for her to return home — and it came from the top.

That’s because, like much else in Belarus, sports is a family-run business. That family belongs to President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who has held sway with authoritarian power in the Eastern European country for 27 years.

Timanovskaya refused and defected in an Olympic scandal reminiscent of the Cold War. On Wednesday, she arrived in Poland, which had offered her and her husband political asylum.

Her situation, though, has shed light on an anachronistic dictatorship where no sphere of life can evade politics, and the ruling family increasingly cracks down ruthlessly on any whiff of dissent.

If not for the drama, it’s likely that few interested in the Olympics would have paid much attention to Belarus, which, unlike the old Soviet Union to which it once belonged, is hardly a gold medal powerhouse. But the defection has drawn global attention to yet another of the many ways the Lukashenko family wields its power: sports.

“For Mr. Lukashenko, sports is a propaganda tool just as it is for any dictator in any totalitarian system,” said Alexander Opeikin, the executive director of the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Fund, a group that opposes the government.

“Lukashenko always perceived the awards of athletes, medals of athletes at the Olympics, as his own medals.”

But if the use of sports as a propaganda tool has a long history, so do the embarrassing defections that have punctured the aura of invincibility carefully cultivated by authoritarian governments.

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The steeplechase, like the horse race it’s named after, requires stamina, agility and grit.

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Runners navigating the water pit, which is 12 feet square and 70 centimeters, or more than two feet, at its deepest, in the women's 3,000-meter steeplechase on Wednesday.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

One of the most entertaining — and difficult — events in track and field is the steeplechase, with its barriers and water jumps that are not unlike the ones in the horse race it is named after.

Starting in the 18th century in Ireland, horses and riders raced from one town’s steeple to the next because of their visibility over long distances, with competitors navigating various obstacles in the countryside along the way. Now contested on a track, the most famous steeplechase race in the world is the Grand National, run in Liverpool, England, since 1839.

The track and field event can be traced to the two-mile cross-country races run at Oxford University in the mid-19th century. It was made a track event, with barriers, at the 1879 English Championships. The men’s steeplechase has been an Olympic event since 1920, although with varying distances before being standardized at 3,000 meters. The women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase appeared for the first time at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

On the track, competitors have to navigate 28 fixed barriers and seven water jumps. Besides strength and endurance, top steeplechasers, not unlike horses, also require superior agility.

The barriers in steeplechase are wider and more stable than those in hurdle races in track and field. In contrast to those races, athletes can step on the barriers. The height of each barrier is 36 inches in the men’s event and 30 inches in the women’s.

The water jump includes a hurdle and a water pit that is 12 feet square and 70 centimeters, or more than two feet, at its deepest. Athletes try to jump farther to avoid water to maintain their speed. The water jump is not a part of the oval track; it is situated inside or outside the track’s second bend (in Tokyo it’s on the inside).

Unlike some other track events, the steeplechase does not require athletes to stay in their lanes. Instead, they can break immediately for the inside lane after a bunched standing start.

One of the most famous mishaps in the history of the Olympics happened in the steeplechase event in the 1932 Los Angeles Games. The officials lost count of the number of laps, and the athletes ran about 3,460 meters.

While they might not have been quite as dramatic, the events at the Tokyo Games did not disappoint.

On Wednesday, Peruth Chemutai of Uganda won gold in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, with a time of 9 minutes 1.45 seconds. Courtney Frerichs, a 28-year-old from Nixa, Mo., earned silver in 9:04.79, and Hyvin Kiyeng of Kenya took bronze in 9:05.39.

Two days earlier, Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco secured gold in 8:08.90 to become the first non-Kenyan to win Olympic gold in the men’s event since Bronislaw Malinowski of Poland won the title in Moscow in 1980. Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia finished second with a time of 8:10.38, and Benjamin Kigen of Kenya was third in 8:11.45.

Since the 1968 Olympics, men’s steeplechase has been dominated by Kenyan athletes, who won gold in every Games except those in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980, which they boycotted, and earned a clean sweep of the medals at the 1992 and 2004 Games.

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Peruth Chemutai, left, and Hyvin Kiyeng after winning gold and bronze in the women’s event. Courtney Frerichs of the U.S., leading below left, earned silver.Credit...Pool photo by Ben Stansall
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Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
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Credit...Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
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The steeplechase is named after the horse race, the most famous of which is the Grand National, shown here in 1997. Genevieve Gregson of Australia, below left, sustained an Achilles’ tendon injury in a crash at the last water jump on Wednesday.Credit...Dennis Owen/Reuters
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Credit...Hannah McKay/Reuters
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Credit...James Hill for The New York Times
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In an upset, the men’s steeplechase in Tokyo was won by Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco. He is the first non-Kenyan to win Olympic gold in the men’s event since Bronislaw Malinowski of Poland in 1980.Credit...Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

The artistic swimming world knows it has a concussion problem.

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Mexico’s artistic swimming duet performing on Wednesday in Tokyo.Credit...Tom Pennington/Getty Images

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — When the artistic swimming team competition begins on Friday at the Tokyo Games, the goal of the swimmers will be to make their movements appear effortless. But while viewers will see smiling performers, sparkly suits and gelatin-slicked hair, a risk lurks beneath the surface: the potential for concussions.

Artistic swimming, formerly known as synchronized swimming, combines elements of gymnastics and ballet in the water. Teams of up to eight athletes swim quickly, closely and precisely together, coordinating with one another and the music. Often described as beautiful above the water, the sport requires constant furious activity below. It’s not unusual for teammates to kick or land on each other during their routines.

The artistic swimming world has long known it has a brain injury problem, but nobody knew how extensive it was. So in 2019, as a student researcher at Stanford, I conducted research into how common concussions are in the sport in which I once took part.

The answer surprised me: In a survey of 430 athletes, about one in four who have competed in the United States reported having at least one concussion.

Over the past 20 years, artistic swimming has required athletes to move faster and swim closer together, as performances are judged on the difficulty of the routine and technical merit.

But the sport has in recent years begun to reckon with its concussion problem. The United States is not a powerhouse in the sport — it sent only a pair of artistic swimmers to the Olympics — but U.S.A. Artistic Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, has taken steps to promote concussion safety.

The long-term effects of head injuries have been studied in many sports over the years, from football to sliding sports, inspiring leagues and federations to adopt protocols to mitigate effects or prevalence. But studies of concussions within artistic swimming have been limited.

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The U.S. broadcast schedule for Wednesday evening includes track and field, basketball and skateboarding.

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Max Irving of the U.S. water polo team during a match against Greece in the preliminary round.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Here are some highlights of U.S. broadcast coverage on Wednesday evening and overnight. All times are Eastern.

TRACK AND FIELD A range of running finals airs tonight on USA Network, including the women’s pole vault, the men’s shot put, the men’s triple jump and the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Look out for Grant Holloway, the American who dominated the 110-meter hurdles to secure his Olympic berth in Tokyo. The action begins at 8 p.m.

SKATEBOARDING Japan has won all three gold medals so far in skateboarding. Fans can catch the fourth and final event, men’s park, at 11:30 p.m. on CNBC. The preliminary round in the event airs at 8 p.m. on the network.

WATER POLO The young U.S. men’s team, which includes several first-time Olympians, fell to Spain in the quarterfinal. NBCSN has the replay starting at 8 p.m.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL Norway takes on Russia in this replay of the men’s quarterfinal, which airs at 9 p.m. on NBCSN.

BASKETBALL Breanna Stewart scored 23 points in the United States’ 79-55 rout of Australia in the women’s quarterfinals, helping to bring the Americans one step closer to their seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal. A replay of the game begins at 10 p.m. on NBCSN. The U.S. men’s team is hitting its stride after a defeat of Spain on Tuesday. With Kevin Durant leading the way, the team faces Australia in a semifinal; the game streams live at 12:15 a.m. on Peacock and NBCOlymics.com.

CANOE/KAYAK Coverage of the final races begins at 1:15 a.m. on CNBC.

U.S. broadcast coverage on Tuesday night includes track, women’s golf and baseball.

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Workers cleaned the balance beam before Tuesday’s event final.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Here are some highlights of U.S. broadcast coverage on Tuesday evening. All times are Eastern.

GOLF NBC Golf airs the first round of play in the women’s tournament live at 6:30 p.m.

TRACK AND FIELD Coverage begins at 8 p.m. on USA Network, with highlights including a replay of the women’s 200-meter and 800-meter races. The men’s 110-meter hurdles semifinals will be broadcast live starting at 10 p.m., and the highly anticipated women’s 400-meter hurdles final starts at 10:30 p.m. Heats for the decathlon, heptathlon and men’s javelin will be held.

WATER POLO The U.S. women’s team faces Canada in a quarterfinal match that will be replayed on NBCSN at 8 p.m. The U.S. men play Spain in a quarterfinal game at 2 a.m. on CNBC.

GYMNASTICS NBC will air replays of the men’s horizontal bar final and the women’s beam final starting at 9 p.m.

SOCCER The men’s teams from Mexico and Brazil face off in a semifinal game replayed at 9 p.m. on NBCSN.

SKATEBOARDING The women’s park competition kicks off at 9 p.m. on CNBC, with the finals airing live at 11:30 p.m.

WRESTLING Men compete in the round of 16 and quarterfinal matches for freestyle in the 57-kilogram and 86-kilogram weight classes. Women face off in the 57-kilogram class for freestyle. Coverage starts at 10 p.m. on the Olympic Channel.

BASKETBALL The N.B.A. superstar Kevin Durant leads the United States men’s team against Spain, with Pau Gasol, at 10:45 p.m. on USA Network. The women’s team, featuring Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, plays Australia at 12:40 a.m. on USA Network in a live broadcast.

BASEBALL The U.S. team faces the Dominican Republic in an elimination game airing live at 12:15 a.m. on CNBC.

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