[ad_1]
After Simone Biles withdrew from the person all-around to deal with her psychological well being, she left the occasion broad open. Sunisa Lee, 18 years previous and the primary Hmong member of Workforce USA, rose to the event and brought home her first Olympic gold medal.
Lee went forwards and backwards with Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade all through the competitors, however Lee pulled forward after the steadiness beam and by no means seemed again. She is the the fifth consecutive American gymnast to win Olympic gold within the particular person all-around. Andrade, who took silver, is the primary Brazilian gymnast to win an Olympic medal.
Lee will compete subsequent week within the uneven bars occasion last, however the query now could be whether or not Biles will compete in any of the four individual event finals she qualified for.
Within the pool, Bobby Finke got the USA off to a strong start when he got here from far behind to win an sudden gold within the males’s 800-meter freestyle. Caeleb Dressel set an Olympic document to win gold within the males’s 100 free last. Additionally, Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger claimed silver and bronze the ladies’s 200-meter butterfly. And the ladies’s 4×200 freestyle relay crew, anchored by Katie Ledecky, gained silver.
Elsewhere, the men’s individual golf competition will get underway with opening spherical play. Males’s singles tennis strikes into the quarterfinal spherical, whereas the ladies have their semifinals.
WEDNESDAY RECAP: Katie Ledecky, USA women’s 3×3 basketball win gold
LATEST FROM TOKYO: Sign up for our Olympic newsletter to get exclusive insight
OLYMPIC TEXT ALERTS: We’ll be your guide to the Games with the inside scoop sent directly to your phone
Sunisa Lee wins all-around gold medal
TOKYO – America can have the Olympic all-around gold once more.
Sunisa Lee won the competition at the Tokyo Games on Thursday, turning into the fifth consecutive American to win within the occasion.
Lee used a sleek, floating bar routine to steer her to a medal, however had clear routines on ground and vault to beat out Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade by .135 to earn the highest spot on the rostrum. Russia’s Angelina Melnikova claimed bronze.
Lee follows Simone Biles (2016), Gabby Douglas (2012), Nastia Liukin (2008) and Carly Patterson (2004) in extending the People’ streak of Olympic golds.
Lee certified for the ultimate in third, however she and the opposite gymnasts had a uncommon opening after Simone Biles pulled out of the all-around competitors. Biles, who has not misplaced an all-around competitors since 2013, didn’t end the crew last on Tuesday, citing psychological well being points.
American Jade Carey took Biles’ spot after qualifying ninth, and she or he completed eighth within the all-around last.
–Rachel Axon
Sunisa Lee was with a tenth of some extent out of first going into the third rotation, however moved into first regardless of a pair wobbles on steadiness beam.
Lee saved herself from falling off a triple wolf flip — a talent that requires her to spin 3 times crouched on one leg with the opposite prolonged — and took out a double wolf flip that usually follows it. She wobbled later in her routine, however her beam rating moved her into first by simply greater than a tenth of some extent.
Rebeca Andrade was managed in hear beam routine, however scored under Lee and dropped from first to second.
Russian teammates Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova nailed their routines after they each fell off the equipment in crew last. Urazova moved into third going into the ultimate equipment, whereas Melnikova was fourth.
Going into ground, the highest 4 gymnasts are separated by .5 factors.
Jade Carey, who discovered on Wednesday she would take Simone Biles’ spot within the all-around last, noticed her outdoors possibilities of a medal evaporate on beam. Sitting in sixth getting into that rotation, she fell off and scored an 11.533. Although ground is one among her finest occasions, she would want errors by a number of of the leaders forward of her to even be in rivalry for bronze.
— Nancy Armour
TOKYO – The uneven bars helped present some separation on the prime of the leaderboard.
Sunisa Lee tried the more durable of her two routines, gracefully floating above the bars earlier than sticking her dismount. Her rating of 15.300 tied her with Rebeca Andrade for the best equipment rating of the night time.
Andrade led Lee by .066 midway by means of the competitors. The Brazilian gymnast benefited from the pandemic delay after tearing her ACL in June 2019. She solely discovered she would compete right here final month after she was the highest all-arounder on the Pan Am championships, securing one other Olympic spot for Brazil.
Russians Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova have been third and fourth, respectively. Jade Carey fell to sixth place.
–Rachel Axon
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade leads the ladies’s all-around last after the primary of 4 rotations, because of a stunning vault.
The highest contenders began on vault, the place scores are typically highest. Andrade scored a 15.3 for her Cheng — a roundoff onto the takeoff board, half-twist onto the vault adopted by a somersault with 1½ twists. Her solely flaw was a step on the road on the touchdown mat, a 0.1 deduction.
Andrade was 0.1 factors forward of American Jade Carey, who did the identical vault however took a hop again on her touchdown.
Russia’s Angelina Melnikova, the bronze medalist on the 2019 world championships, was third and American Sunisa Lee was fourth. Vladislava Urazova of Russia was fifth.
The withdrawal of Simone Biles means the ladies know they’ve a professional shot on the Olympic gold. Biles has not misplaced an all-around competitors since 2013, and had been closely favored to grow to be the primary lady in 53 years to repeat because the Olympic champion earlier than she withdrew from the crew and all-around competitions due to psychological well being points.
–Nancy Armour
Simone Biles is on the all-around last, in spite of everything.
Simply as she did for the lads’s last an evening earlier, Biles joined her U.S. teammates Thursday night time to cheer on Sunisa Lee and Jade Carey. Carrying a gray U.S. crew hoodie, she and the remainder of the U.S. girls arrived about quarter-hour earlier than competitors started. They took seats within the entrance row behind uneven bars, Biles sitting between Jordan Chiles and MyKayla Skinner.
Biles had been closely favored to grow to be the primary lady in 53 years to repeat because the Olympic all-around champion, having not misplaced an all-around competitors since 2013. However she withdrew from Tuesday night time’s crew last after one occasion, citing psychological well being issues. She withdrew from the all-around on Wednesday and was changed by Carey, who completed ninth in qualifying however missed out initially due to the rule limiting international locations to 2 gymnasts in every last.
Biles had certified first and Lee third.
Biles has not but stated if she’ll compete within the occasion finals, which start Sunday. She has certified for all 4 of them, the primary lady since 1992 to take action.
— Nancy Armour
Simone Biles opened an unlimited dialogue round elite athletes’ psychological well being when she determined to withdraw from the crew and particular person all-around gymnastics competitions, and U.S. monitor and subject stars Noah Lyles and Tianna Bartoletta joined in on the dialog.
Lyles advised British information outlet The Sunday Occasions he has beforehand taken anti-depressants, however he determined to wean himself off of the remedy in preparation for the Olympics.
“If I wasn’t working I’d keep on the anti-depressants, however I have to really feel that spark,” Lyles stated.
Bartoletta, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and world document holder within the 4×100-meter relay, shared on Twitter that she had an analogous expertise with anti-depressants earlier than the 2016 Olympics.
“Was on [medication] indoor 2016, didn’t make the indoor world crew within the 60,” she wrote. “Couldn’t react to the gun, couldn’t rise up for the competitors, gambled with my despair and suicidal ideas with the hopes that profitable once more would maintain these two at bay.”
Weaning off of anti-depressants is usually a sophisticated course of that’s speculated to be overseen by a psychiatrist or different medical skilled.
— Emily Adams
TOKYO – For years, gymnasts around the globe have identified they’re competing for silver within the all-around.
Now, they get an opportunity at gold.
With Simone Biles withdrawing from the Olympic all-around competition, another person will win the title because the world’s prime gymnast. Save for 2017, when Biles wasn’t competing, no different gymnast has gained an Olympic or worlds all-around since 2013.
People Suni Lee and Jade Carey are anticipated to be within the combine. Lee completed third in qualifying behind Biles, who certified first, and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade.
Carey, in the meantime, will get her shot due to Biles’ resolution to not compete after she pulled out of the crew last because of mental health concerns. She had certified ninth however only two gymnasts per country advance to the ultimate.
A number of different gymnasts are anticipated to contend for the title, together with Andrade, Russia’s Angelina Melnikova and Japan’s Mai Murakami. Melnikova gained bronze within the all-around at world championships in 2019, whereas Murakami took silver in 2018.
For the primary time in a very long time, with out Biles within the competitors, the gold is there for the taking.
— Rachel Axon
Xander Schauffele’s resort is about 20 minutes from the Kasumigaseki Nation Membership, the place the lads’s Olympic golf event is being held.
So he actually felt the thunderstorms that rolled by means of Wednesday night time earlier than the event began the subsequent morning (related climate delayed play in the midst of the day) – after which some.
After taking pictures a 3-under 68 to presently sit tied for thirteenth, Schauffele stated his lodging misplaced energy for what he estimates was a interval of 5 hours.
“(Air con) went out final night time, which was a pleasant feeling,” he stated.
“The emergency gentle got here on,” the fifth-ranked golfer on the planet added. “I really needed to unscrew the lightbulb, or else I’d have slept with the lights on. My caddie (Austin Kaiser) slept with the lights on in his resort room.”
The climate in Japan has been scorching and humid because the starting of the Video games. Right here, northwest of the Tokyo metropolis and farther from the ocean, the climate seems extra excessive. Simply ask Schauffele.
— Chris Bumbaca
It has been a robust Olympics for USA Taking pictures.
After sweeping gold in the skeet shooting competitions, the People added to their medal haul with Kayle Browning taking the silver medal within the girls’s lure taking pictures competitors.
Browning hit 42 of fifty targets within the last, however Slovakia’s Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova hit 43, an Olympic document ithe last.
Thunderstorms within the space compelled the suspension of play in the course of the opening spherical of the lads’s golf event. The motion stopped at 1:55 p.m. native time. Play was set to renew round 4 p.m. native time.
Sepp Straka of Austria maintained his lead of 8-under at the stoppage. Eleven of the 20 teams had not but completed their spherical, though all had moved to the back-nine.
— Chris Bumbaca
TOKYO – Some athletes get images and movies from again house of their spouses or kids.
USWNT defender Crystal Dunn will get them of her chickens.
When a lot of the US shut down final yr due to COVID-19, Dunn and husband Pierre Soubrier acquired 5 chickens: Rocky, Toulouse, Quinn, Juke and Chelsea. They reside in a coop in Dunn and Soubrier’s yard, and make occasional appearances on Dunn’s social media feed.
Requested how the chickens are faring within the excessive warmth the Pacific Northwest is experiencing, Dunn stated they’re “doing high-quality.”
“I get my proof-of-life movies each morning,” Dunn stated.
Dunn and Soubrier even have three cats.
“I really feel unhealthy for my husband. He has to maintain eight residing issues,” Dunn stated.
— Nancy Armour
TOKYO – China upset the favored Australians to win the ladies’s 4×200 freestyle relay, whereas a robust last leg by Katie Ledecky allowed the US to overhaul Australia for the silver medal.
China broke the world document in 7:40.33, with the People .40 of a second behind.
It was Ledecky’s third medal of those Video games, coming a day after her historic 1,500 victory. She has gained one gold and two silvers in Tokyo, with the 800 freestyle approaching Saturday.
U.S. swimmers closed the morning with 5 medals.
— Christine Brennan
TOKYO — American pole vaulter and reigning world champion Sam Kendricks will miss the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee confirmed in an announcement Thursday.
“In alignment with native guidelines and protocols, he has been transferred to a resort to be positioned in isolation and is being supported by the USATF and USOPC employees,” the group wrote on social media. “Sam is an unbelievable and completed member of Workforce USA and his presence will likely be missed. Out of respect for his privateness, we can not present extra data at the moment.”
Kendricks, 28, gained bronze within the pole vault on the 2016 Olympics in Rio and was anticipated to contend for one more medal in Tokyo.
— Tom Schad
Two American seaside volleyball groups each scored victories Thursday. The ladies’s duo of Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil secured a spot within the playoffs with a 21-8, 21-6 win over Gaudencia Makokha and Brackcides Khadambi of Kenya. In the meantime, Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena survived a three-set battle with Argentina’s Nicolas Capogrosso and Julian Amado Azaad — 21-19, 18-21, 15-6 — to complete males’s pool play with a 2-1 document, placing themselves in place to make knockout spherical.
SAYAMA, Japan – Former College of Georgia golfer Sepp Straka, taking part in within the first group out in the course of the males’s golf competitors on the Tokyo Olympics, carded an 8-under-par 63 Thursday to tempo the remainder of the 60-person subject at Kasumigaseki Nation Membership.
Representing Austria, Straka performed bogey-free golf and hit 16 of 18 greens to leap to the highest of the leaderboard, which featured 53 golfers at or underneath par 71.
Straka, the son of an Austrian father and American mom who moved to Valdosta, Georgia, in highschool, has his twin brother Sam on the bag as his caddy on the Olympics.
— Chris Bumbaca
TOKYO – The Olympics set a single-day excessive for coronavirus circumstances with organizers asserting 24 new positives on Thursday.
Three athletes have been among the many new circumstances, and 15 Olympic contractors examined constructive. The remaining positives have been different Video games-concerned personnel. 4 of the brand new circumstances have been individuals contained in the Olympic Village.
Since July 1, 193 individuals – together with 20 athletes – have examined constructive, in line with organizers’ testing figures.
— Rachel Axon
TOKYO – Caeleb Dressel gained his first particular person Olympic gold, profitable the lads’s 100-meter freestyle on Thursday.
Dressel gained in 47.02 seconds, a brand new Olympic document, beating Aussie Kyle Chalmers by .06 of a second.
Dressel has already gained gold as a part of the 4×100 free relay on Monday right here on the Tokyo Aquatics Heart.
Dressel, 24, has become one of the most dominant swimmers in the world since he made his Olympic debut as a university pupil 5 years in the past. He’s favored to win the 50 free and 100 fly right here after swimming the quickest instances on the planet this yr in the course of the Olympic Trials in June.
Along with his remaining particular person occasions, he’s anticipated to be a part of the USA’s combined medley and 4×100 medley relays.
— Rachel Axon
TOKYO — One other two medals for Workforce USA.
And this pair ended a 21-year drought.
Regan Smith gained silver and Hali Flickinger took bronze Thursday within the 200-meter butterfly, turning into the primary American girls to medal within the occasion since 2000, when Misty Hyman broke the Olympic document en path to gold.
China’s Yufei Zhang gained Thursday’s race in a time of two:03.86, a brand new Olympic document.
The silver and bronze within the 200 fly mark the second medals every for Smith and Flickinger in Tokyo. Smith, 19, has now gained two medals in three days after taking bronze within the 100-meter backstroke Tuesday. Flickinger, 27, gained bronze within the 400-meter particular person medley Sunday.
The pair of butterfly medals gave the U.S. three on the day, with Caeleb Dressel including a fourth and the ladies’s 4×200 relay nonetheless to race. Workforce USA has now gained 35 medals complete, together with 20 in swimming occasions.
— Tom Schad
TOKYO – Simone Biles feels the love.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist took to Twitter on Thursday to express her gratitude for the support she’s received since withdrawing from the crew and all-around competitions.
“(T)he outpouring love & help I’ve acquired has made me understand I’m greater than my accomplishments and gymnastics which I by no means actually believed earlier than,” Biles stated, including a silver coronary heart emoji to the submit.
Biles has been broadly praised by fellow Olympians, different athletes and psychological well being consultants for her resolution to withdraw from Tuesday night time’s crew competitors after one occasion, saying she wasn’t in a very good headspace and was involved for her bodily security.
Psychological well being points have affected Biles’ efficiency earlier than, together with within the leadup to the 2016 Olympics. However the expectations on her for Tokyo, the place she was projected to win a document 5 gold medals, and the accompanying highlight have exacerbated her unease.
— Nancy Armour
TOKYO – Two extra U.S. boats got here up brief with out medals of their respective races on the Olympic regatta.
The ladies’s light-weight double of Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford completed fifth of their A last. The united stateshas hasn’t medaled within the occasion because the 2000 Olympics.
Of their semifinal on Wednesday, Sechser and Reckford eclipsed the earlier world-best time set by Nice Britain (6:41.99) within the previous semifinal. The Italians completed first within the semifinal to set the brand new document of 6:41.36 and the U.S. completed .18 of a second behind them.
In the meantime, U.S. girls’s single sculler Kara Kohler completed fourth in her semifinal, failing to qualify for the A last. The defending bronze medalist on the 2019 World Rowing Championships will compete within the B last on Friday and is out of medal rivalry. One other upset occurred within the different girls’s single semifinal – reigning world champion Sanita Puspure of Eire completed fifth and also will race within the B last.
Solely two U.S. boats stay within the hunt for a medal on the Tokyo Olympics – the lads’s eight and the ladies’s eight. They may compete Friday on the ultimate day of medal races.
— Olivia Reiner
TOKYO — Workforce USA continued so as to add to its medal complete within the pool Thursday, as 21-year-old underdog Bobby Finke took gold in the men’s 800-meter freestyle.
Finke, a rising senior on the College of Florida, was in the midst of the pack for many of the race earlier than utilizing a livid last surge to tug forward. He completed with a time of 7:41.87.
Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy took silver, and Ukraine’s Mykhailo Romanchuk completed third for bronze.
A Florida native, Finke comes from a diehard swimming household. His mom, Jeanne, swam collegiately at Ball State. His dad, Joe, is a swim coach. And his two older sisters, Autumn and Ariel, each swam at Division I colleges.
The U.S. has now gained 17 medals within the pool in four-plus days. Getting into Thursday, swimmers had accounted for greater than half of Workforce USA’s total medal rely.
— Tom Schad
Former Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu shared help for Simone Biles on Wednesday after Biles withdrew from a number of competitions on the Tokyo Video games to deal with her well being.
Moceanu shared a video on social media of her when she was 14 and fell in the course of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, hitting her head on a steadiness beam. The second got here after she had already suffered a stress fracture in her tibia.
“I used to be 14 y/o w/ a tibial stress fracture, left alone w/ no cervical backbone examination after this fall,” Moceanu shared on a number of social media platforms. “I competed within the Olympic ground last minutes later.”
“In our sport, we primarily dive right into a pool w/ no water. Whenever you lose your means to seek out the bottom — which seems to be a part of @Simone_Biles resolution — the results will be catastrophic,” Moceanu added.
“She made the fitting resolution for the crew & herself.”
— Marina Pitofsky
TOKYO — Anticipating Simone Biles to provide medals on command, or not seeing her for something past her athletic achievements, is dehumanizing, teammate Sam Mikulak said. It’s no surprise Biles reached some extent the place her psychological well being was precarious sufficient that she felt she had no selection however to withdraw from the crew and all-around competitions.
“You go on Twitter and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, I’m actually anticipating this. I would like this from this individual.’ And, ‘Oh, Simone goes to be the medal manufacturing facility of the world,’” Mikulak stated Wednesday night time after the lads’s all-around, the place he completed twelfth.
Biles got here to Tokyo as the most important star of the Video games, projected to win a document 5 gold medals. However she pulled out of Tuesday night time’s crew competitors after the primary occasion and has since withdrawn from Thursday’s all-around.
A six-time U.S. champion and three-time Olympian, Mikulak understands what Biles is experiencing. Simply earlier than he left for Tokyo, in truth, he was feeling a number of the previous anxiousness, however was capable of acknowledge it and handle it.
“Everybody actually wants to start out specializing in their psychological well being much more, actually ask the exhausting questions to your private self, as a result of these are the questions which are going to eat you up once you get out in these massive stress conditions and you are feeling these expectations from the entire world,” Mikulak stated. “Having the ability to sort out it early on goes to be the answer sooner or later.”
— Nancy Armour and Rachel Axon
Olympic golf an ‘unbelievable’ expertise for PGA Tour’s Thomas
TOKYO – Even earlier than Justin Thomas teed it up for his first shot Thursday at Kasumigaseki Nation Membership, he’s already made his mind up about playing golf in the Olympics.
“That is the good factor I’ve ever been part of,” the 28-year-old Louisville native stated on the eve of golf’s second run since rejoining the Olympics in 2016. “Going to the village and trying out the USA constructing. It’s so exhausting to elucidate. It’s unbelievable.”
Thomas is No. 4 on the planet with a win on the Gamers Championship in Might that helped to place him on the hard-to-make U.S. Olympic crew. Different People within the 60-man subject are world No. 3 Collin Morikawa, No. 5 Xander Schauffele and No. 12 Patrick Reed (changing No. 6 Bryson DeChambeau, out as a result of a constructive COVID take a look at).
— Jeff Metcalfe
TOKYO — Not one to take lengthy holidays, Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Younger figured a three- or four-day journey to Florida in the course of the WNBA’s Olympics layoff was an acceptable respite.
She did not keep lengthy.
The WNBA’s 2019 No. 1 total decide acquired a name from the USA Basketball choice committee letting her know {that a} member of the U.S. 3-on-3 crew had examined constructive for COVID-19 and so they needed her to hitch the squad.
Younger, who performed school ball at Notre Dame, flew from trip to Las Vegas to start the testing protocol. She met her new teammates in Tokyo. And on Wednesday, they defeated the Russian Olympic Committee in the championship game.
“It’s loopy to consider,” Younger stated. “Ten days in the past, I used to be on trip. My life modified like that. Now I’m a gold-medalist. It’s loopy how issues work out.”
— Chris Bumbaca
[ad_2]
Source link
