Olympics Latest: IOC relaxes mask rules for medalists | Sports

The Newest on the Tokyo Olympics, that are happening underneath heavy restrictions after a yr’s delay due to the coronavirus pandemic:

Olympic medalists can now take away their masks — briefly — on the rostrum after the Worldwide Olympic Committee relaxed its well being guidelines.

Recognizing athletes wish to smile and present emotion, the IOC is now letting them have 30 seconds of maskless time for images.

The IOC says this acknowledges “a novel second of their sporting profession.”

Well being protocols agreed to forward of the Tokyo Olympics to manage COVID-19 infections had required all medalists to maintain masks on for the entire ceremony.

The brand new maskless moments require athletes to remain on their very own podium steps. Masks have to be again on for group photographs on the highest step.

Hifumi Abe has received Japan’s third judo gold medal at its house Olympics with an ippon victory over Georgia’s Vazha Margvelashvili. He joins his youthful sister amongst Japan’s gold medalists within the nation’s beloved homegrown martial artwork.

Hifumi Abe triumphed in males’s 66 kilograms shortly after Uta Abe claimed her personal first gold medal within the girls’s 52-kilogram division on the Budokan.

Hifumi is a two-time world champion who needed to win a grueling, 24-minute bout in opposition to teammate Joshiro Maruyama final December merely for the fitting to signify Japan at these Olympics. He received 4 straight bouts Sunday, together with three by ippon.

Uta beat France’s Amandine Buchard to win her personal first Olympic gold.

Brazil’s Daniel Cargnin and South Korea’s An Baul received bronze at males’s 66kg.

Pope Francis has provided his blessing for the Tokyo Olympic Video games from Vatican Metropolis.

Francis advised the trustworthy gathered in St. Peter’s Sq. for the standard papal blessing that “on this interval of pandemic, these Video games are an indication of hope, an indication of common brotherhood and of a wholesome aggressive spirit.”

He provided his blessing “to the organizers, the athletes and all those that are collaborating for this nice celebration of sport.”

MORE ON THE TOKYO GAMES:

— Powerhouse U.S. swim workforce shines with 6 medals

— U.S. women’s gymnastics team off to a rocky begin

— Japanese skateboarder wins gold and surfers ride modest waves as new sports activities debut

— Iranian refugee fails in gold medal taekwondo bid, could still win bronze

MEDAL ALERT

Uta Abe has received Japan’s second judo gold medal at its house Olympics, beating France’s Amandine Buchard by ippon within the girls’s 52-kilogram ultimate on the Budokan.

Abe’s gold-medal victory follows Naohisa Takato’s on Saturday. She additionally hopes to be joined by her older brother, Hifumi, who fights for gold within the males’s 66-kilogram division later Sunday night time.

The 21-year-old Uta Abe is among the greatest stars in Japan’s homegrown martial artwork, and this Olympic victory will solely improve her stature within the sport. She has received two world championships, together with the 2019 title on the Budokan.

Uta certified for the Tokyo Video games over a yr in the past, whereas Hifumi needed to get by means of a punishing winner-take-all qualifier in opposition to Japanese teammate Joshiro Maruyama final December.

Italy’s Odette Giuffrida and Britain’s Chelsie Giles received the bronze medals at girls’s 52 kg.

Costa Rican gymnast Luciana Alvarado ended her ground routine in Olympic qualifying on one knee, her head again and her proper fist thrust straight into the air.

The 18-year-old mentioned the closing of her routine was choreographed in homage to the Black Lives Matter motion that unfold all over the world after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis final summer time. Alvarado mentioned Friday after she carried out the identical transfer at coaching that she hoped to spotlight the significance of equal rights on a world stage, and champion treating all with respect and dignity.

“As a result of we’re all the identical,” she mentioned, “and we’re all lovely and wonderful.”

The Worldwide Olympic Committee has applied guidelines to attempt to restrict protest actions by athletes. However Alvarado’s gesture, integrated into her creative routine, is unlikely to set off repercussions.

Sunday’s routine shall be her solely activate the Olympic stage: Alvarado scored a 12.166 on the ground and won’t qualify to maneuver ahead to finals.

Johnny Hooper has returned to his mom’s homeland for his Olympic debut and had one in all the biggest U.S. goals in a 15-13 victory over Japan.

The win got here on the primary day of the boys’s water polo match on the Tokyo Video games.

Hooper scored from deep with the U.S. clinging to a one-goal lead within the ultimate minute to assist shut out the win.

Hooper’s mom was born in Kumakura and his grandmother lives in Japan. However they weren’t capable of watch the sport in individual due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Defending gold medalist China has misplaced its opening match of the ladies’s volleyball match for the second straight Olympics.

Turkey jumped out shortly and received the match in Pool B 25-21, 25-14, 25-14.

The Turkish girls are showing within the Olympics for the second time ever, having didn’t make it out of pool play of their different look in London in 2012. They sprinted out to rejoice as a workforce after finishing the upset.

The Chinese language are as soon as once more led by 2016 MVP Zhu Ting and coach Lang Ping. They’re following the same sample to 5 years in the past once they misplaced their opening match to the Netherlands and two others in pool play earlier than discovering a groove within the knockout spherical.

MEDAL ALERT

Li Fabin of China has added Olympic gold to his world title within the males’s 61-kilogram weightlifting class.

Li lifted a complete 313 kilograms and was assured of victory when Eko Yuli Irawan of Indonesia failed twice on what would have been a world file 177kg clear and jerk. Li missed his personal file shot at 178kg.

He earlier added a unusual contact by standing on one leg throughout his 166kg clear and jerk in a rarely-seen fashion generally known as the flamingo stance.

Irawan received the silver with a complete 302kg. Igor Son of Kazakhstan lifted a complete 294kg for bronze.

MEDAL ALERT

Bike owner Anna Kiesenhofer of Austria pulled off one of the biggest upsets within the historical past of the Olympic highway race, making an early breakaway stick because the powerhouse Dutch workforce gave chase to win the gold on the Tokyo Video games on Sunday.

The closely favored Dutch workforce, that includes the previous two Olympic champions, almost introduced again Kiesenhofer on the ultimate circuits at Fuji Worldwide Speedway. However the time distinction proved an excessive amount of and so they had been left racing for silver and bronze.

Annemiek van Vleuten bounced again from an early crash to flee a lowered pack within the closing kilometers to salvage a silver for the Netherlands. Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy received a dash for the bronze medal.

The U.S. girls’s gymnastics workforce’s bid for a 3rd straight Olympic title is off to a rocky start.

The four-woman group led by Olympic champion Simone Biles completed second to Russia throughout qualifying.

That’s the primary time the Individuals have failed to steer on the finish of any main occasion in additional than a decade.

Biles topped the all-round with a complete of 57.731 factors however lacked her ordinary precision. The 24-year-old made vital errors on three occasions. Russia’s workforce rating of 171.629 was greater than a full level forward of the U.S., although each groups will begin from scratch within the finals.

MEDAL ALERT

A contingent led by An San has captured South Korea’s ninth straight girls’s archery workforce gold medal on the Tokyo Video games.

The nation hasn’t misplaced for the reason that girls’s workforce occasion was added to the Olympic program on the 1988 Seoul Video games.

An is recent off a win within the Olympic debut of the combined workforce competitors. She mixed with Kang Chae Younger and Jang Minhee to beat the Russian Olympic Committee by a ultimate rating of 6-0 in tough wind situations at Yumenoshima Park Archery Subject.

Jang secured the win with a “9” on her ultimate arrow. The Russian Olympic Committee was represented by Svetlana Gomboeva, Elena Osipova and Ksenia Perova. Gomboeva suffered a scare within the rating spherical Friday, when she collapsed as a result of excessive warmth.

The bronze medal went to Germany after a 5-1 win over Belarus.

Iranian refugee Kimia Alizadeh has fallen brief in her bid for a historic taekwondo gold medal, dropping within the semifinals after three consecutive stirring victories within the girls’s 57-kilogram division.

Alizadeh misplaced 10-3 to Russian Tatiana Minina, endangering Alizadeh’s bid to win the Refugee Olympic Crew’s first-ever medal. Alizadeh nonetheless might win bronze within the night session on the Makuhari Messe conference middle.

Alizadeh additionally received bronze as an adolescent in Rio de Janeiro, claiming the primary Olympic medal for an Iranian girl. She defected from Iran to Germany early final yr, citing institutional sexism and disappointment at getting used as a propaganda instrument.

Alizadeh appeared to be on a charmed run in Tokyo: She beat fellow Iranian Nahid Kiyani Chandeh in her opening bout earlier than stunning Britain’s two-time Olympic champion, Jade Jones. Alizadeh knocked off China’s Zhou Lijun to achieve her first Olympic semifinal, however she fought tentatively and struggled to attain on Minina, a three-time European champion.

Spanish golfer Jon Rahm has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time in two months and been knocked out of the Olympics only some hours after American golfer Bryson DeChambeau met the identical destiny.

The back-to-back coronavirus shockers got here on the second full day of motion in Tokyo and put a damper on the golf match. The game is scheduled to start Thursday and shall be with out the final two U.S. Open champions.

DeChambeau received in 2020 at Winged Foot. Rahm took the title final month at Torrey Pines in a comeback of kinds. He was solely two weeks faraway from constructing a six-shot lead after the third spherical of the Memorial solely to be advised he had examined constructive for COVID-19 and needed to withdraw.

A volunteer has collapsed through the medal ceremony at Asaka Taking pictures Vary on the Tokyo Olympics.

The girl went down shortly after the Star Spangled Banner performed for 10-meter air rifle gold medalist William Shaner. He and the opposite medalists had been posing for photos.

The Olympic music saved enjoying as employees and medical personnel raced to the lady’s facet. One volunteer waved papers to chill her off and she or he was positioned on a stretcher after a couple of minutes.

Paramedics arrived on the venue’s medical middle with a stretcher, however left after a couple of minutes as staff inside turned the lady on her facet and talked to her.

Intense warmth and humidity have taken a toll already through the Tokyo Olympics, significantly at outdoors venues. The Asaka Taking pictures Vary is air conditioned, however nonetheless muggy inside.

With tropical climate forecast to method Tokyo inside days, Olympics organizers say they’re speaking with particular person sports activities about altering occasion packages.

Tokyo Olympics sports activities director Mikako Kotani says they’re “intently discussing” points across the extreme climate forecast.

Rowing already cleared its schedule for Monday and Tuesday, shifting some occasions ahead to the weekend and others again to Wednesday.

Kotani says in translated feedback if different sports activities governing our bodies “suggest to us that we must always change the schedule prematurely then we are going to think about that choice.”

Kotani says organizers are getting minute-by-minute updates from their climate data middle.

Athletes in some sports activities are at the moment coping with excessive temperatures and humidity.

Tokyo Olympic organizers say there have been early transport issues getting athletes to their venues on time.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams acknowledged: “There are all the time teething issues and this can be a very severe (one).”

Officers from the IOC and Tokyo’s native organizing committee had been requested Sunday about athletes taking a taxi to their coaching web site due to a late bus.

Tokyo spokesman Masa Takaya they’re “conscious that transport is experiencing some points together with delays” and that buses ought to all the time be on standby to satisfy demand.

Takaya says: “We are attempting to do every little thing we are able to.”

MEDAL ALERT

William Shaner has received gold males’s 10-meter air rifle, including to america’ second-day haul on the Tokyo Olympics.

The Individuals had been shut out on the primary day, however received six medals in swimming on Day 2.

The 20-year-old Shaner qualified third and was regular within the finals at his first Olympics, ending with an Olympic-record 251.6 factors. Sheng Lihao, a Chinese language 16-year-old with little worldwide expertise, took silver and countryman Yang Haoran earned bronze.

Shaner was one of many prime youth shooters within the nation and has already had a adorned profession on the College of Kentucky, ending second on the NCAA particular person championships and workforce gold in consecutive seasons. He additionally was a first-team All-American as a freshman.

MEDAL ALERT

China has captured the first diving gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics.

Shi Tingmao and Wang Han romped to victory within the girls’s 3-meter synchronized springboard occasion with 326.40 factors, beginning what is anticipated to be one other dominating efficiency by Chinese language divers at these video games. They’ve received 37 of 48 gold medals on the final seven Olympics.

Jennifer Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu of Canada took the silver at 300.78. The bronze went to Germany’s Lena Hentschel and Tina Punzel with 284.97.

The Chinese language girls haven’t misplaced an Olympic diving occasion since 2004. That is their fifth straight victory within the synchronized springboard, their solely loss coming when the occasion debuted on the 2000 Sydney Video games.

Shi received her second straight gold within the synchro. She teamed with Wu Minxia to seize gold in Rio de Janeiro 5 years in the past.

The US duo of Alison Gibson and Krysta Palmer completed final within the eight-team subject.

The IOC is urging Olympic medalists to curb their hugs and hold masks on whereas on the rostrum.

Medalists in some swimming occasions Sunday morning had been hugging, sharing the rostrum prime step for images and taking their masks off for a time.

These are potential breaches of guidelines defending the Olympics from COVID-19 infections.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says “we really feel for the athletes (however) there are issues that sadly we’ve got needed to make stricter.”

Adams provides “we’d urge and ask everybody to obey the foundations.”

Tokyo organizers have reported 127 games-related COVID-19 instances, together with 14 athletes, in Japan this month.

Olympic rowing faces extra delays and schedule modifications as climate forecasts predict excessive winds and robust gusts on the Sea Forest Waterway.

Officers say the anticipated climate might create unrowable situations and have rescheduled a number of occasions to Wednesday or later. An analogous forecast for Monday had pressured the Video games to maneuver that day’s occasions to Sunday.

Delayed occasions embrace the finals for the boys’s and ladies’s 4. They may now race on Wednesday. The semifinals for males’s and ladies’s single sculls have been moved from Wednesday to Thursday.

Naomi Osaka made fast work of her first match in nearly two months.

The Japanese celebrity who lit the Olympic cauldron eased previous 52nd-ranked Zheng Saisai of China 6-1, 6-4 within the first spherical of the tennis match on the Tokyo Video games.

It was Osaka’s first match since she withdrew from the French Open and sat out Wimbledon to take a psychological well being break whereas revealing she has handled melancholy.

Osaka’s match was initially scheduled to open the match on Saturday however then was moved to Sunday earlier than her starring position in Friday’s opening ceremony.

MEDAL ALERT

Japan’s Yuto Horigome has won the first-ever skateboarding competition on the Olympic Video games, taking gold in males’s road within the metropolis the place he discovered to skate as a child and the place his sport is commonly frowned upon.

The primary ever skateboarding silver went to Brazilian Kelvin Hoefler, who used to sleep together with his board when he fell in love with skating as a child.

American skater Jagger Eaton took bronze, the Arizonan adapting greatest among the many Individuals to the warmth on the Ariake City Sports activities Park in Tokyo.

One in all skateboarding’s greatest stars, Nyjah Huston from the U.S., fell repeatedly attempting to land methods and positioned seventh within the eight-man ultimate.

— Extra AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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