U.S., India finally get athletics gold, Japan win baseball By Reuters

By Sudipto Ganguly and Amy Tennery

TOKYO (Reuters) – The USA ended a drought https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/athletics-united-states-win-gold-mens-4x400m-relay-tokyo-2021-08-07 and India seized their first ever gold medal https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/athletics-neeraj-chopra-wins-historic-gold-india-mens-javelin-2021-08-07 in athletics on the Olympics on Saturday, whereas baseball-mad Japan gained their maiden gold https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/baseball-dominican-republic-take-bronze-first-ever-team-medal-2021-08-07 within the sport.

India’s Neeraj Chopra hurled the lads’s javelin 87.58 metres and launched himself into the historical past books as his overjoyed crew mates and coaches watched from the stands devoid of followers due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“It feels unbelievable,” Chopra mentioned. “That is our first Olympic medal for a really very long time, and in athletics it’s the first time we’ve got gold, so it is a proud second for me and my nation.”

Group USA, thirsting for gold, claimed the 4×400 metres relay title with a decisive win, sparing them the ignominy of failing to get a title on the monitor for the primary time in any Olympics they’ve entered within the Video games’ 125-year historical past.

The People gained their Sixteenth Olympic gold https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/basketball-us-beat-france-win-Sixteenth-mens-gold-2021-08-07 medal in males’s basketball, however the Olympic hosts foiled their try and convey the title residence to baseball’s birthplace.

Japan’s 2-0 win disadvantaged the People of what would have been solely their second gold https://www.reuters.com/article/olympics-2020-bsb/olympics-baseball-us-coach-who-won-gold-in-2000-wants-to-tell-old-mates-ive-got-two-idUSL1N2PD1DE of their nationwide pastime.

FAMILY DYNASTIES

A late burst within the girls’s marathon https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/athletics-kenyas-jepchirchir-wins-womens-marathon-gold-2021-08-06 propelled Peres Jepchirchir previous compatriot and world document holder Brigid Kosgei as she secured Kenya’s second consecutive gold medal within the occasion.

Nelly Korda maintained a household sporting dynasty https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/golf-korda-stumbles-with-gold-reach-ko-closes-2021-08-07 to take the ladies’s golf gold for Group USA, whereas New Zealand’s most-decorated Olympian https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/canoe-sprint-hungarys-csizmadia-briton-heath-ease-into-final-2021-08-05, Lisa Carrington, needed to accept fourth within the girls’s kayak 4 500m.

In one other well-known household, Jessica Springsteen, daughter of rock star Bruce Springsteen, loved the glory days with a silver medal in equestrian crew present leaping.

“It was wild,” she mentioned. The American referred to as her household, who had been “all screaming. I do not suppose we understood a phrase that anybody was saying, a lot of yelling. All smiles, I simply noticed their Group USA gear. There was a lot of shouting.”

A flurry of boxing finals on the second-to-last day of the Tokyo Video games featured unheralded Brazilian Hebert Sousa taking the middleweight gold with a surprising third-round knockout https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/boxing-yafai-wins-britains-first-boxing-gold-tokyo-games-2021-08-07.

The U.S.’s basketball victory over France, their fourth straight gold, was a comeback from two straight exhibition sport losses and a shock defeat within the preliminary spherical.

Kevin Durant led the People with 29 factors earlier than the largest crowd of the Video games, that are bereft of followers at virtually all occasions due to a COVID-19 surge that’s prompting widening states of emergency in Japan.

Athletes, officers, media and volunteers, instead of followers, crammed half of the underside bowl of seats.

Preliminary numbers recommend strict coronavirus curbs within the Olympic “bubble” have saved the virus largely contained https://www.reuters.com/life-style/sports activities/tokyo-has-shown-pandemic-can-be-beaten-games-health-adviser-says-2021-08-07, stopping a feared unfold out into Tokyo.

‘LIFTED THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD’

In Sapporo in Japan’s far north, the place the warmth was solely barely much less oppressive, Jepchirchir broke away from Kosgei, one of many favourites, at round 40km to win in 2:27:20.

“I mentioned, wow, I’ll make it. So I pushed the tempo as a result of I knew I used to be going to win,” Jepchirchir mentioned. “I am comfortable for my household, comfortable for my nation Kenya for supporting us.”

In golf, Korda’s tense, one-stroke victory accomplished a U.S. sweep after Xander Schauffele gained the lads’s occasion, and secured one other glittering prize for a royal household of sport.

Korda’s sister Jessica, who tied for fifteenth, gave the winner a hug on the inexperienced. The gold provides to father Petr’s Australian Open tennis trophy, whereas youthful brother Sebastian is a title-winner on the ATP tennis tour on the age of 21.

Japan’s Mone Inami took silver in a playoff towards New Zealander Lydia Ko at Kasumigaseki Nation Membership northwest of Tokyo.

Ko’s countrywoman Carrington couldn’t add to her six medals over the previous two Video games or turn into the primary athlete to win 4 canoe dash medals at a single Olympics.

The lads’s canoe single 1,000m at Tokyo’s Sea Forest Waterway was dominated by Brazil’s Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos, the silver medallist in Rio. He beat China’s Liu Hao and Moldova’s Serghei Tarnovschi, after defending champion Sebastian Brendel failed to succeed in the ultimate.

“I really feel I’ve lastly lifted the load of the world from my again,” Queiroz dos Santos mentioned. “I felt an obligation to sports activities lovers of Brazil to symbolize our nation. Now I really feel method lighter.”

Within the boxing ring, his countryman Sousa burst into wild celebration after knocking out Ukrainian Oleksandr Khyzhniak with a fierce left, turning round a battle he had all however misplaced to win Brazil’s second-ever Video games gold within the sport.

Sousa fell to his knees, screaming, and his crew rejoiced as Khyzhniak staggered to his toes and demanded the battle proceed.

Britain’s Galal Yafai and Bulgaria’s Stoyka Zhelyazkova Krasteva gained the primary boxing golds on the Tokyo Video games for his or her nations after dominant shows of their flyweight finals.