Tokyo Olympics UpdatesAllyson Felix Wins Record 11th Olympic Medal as U.S. Takes Gold in 4x400 Relay

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Allyson Felix wins her 11th Olympic medal, surpassing Carl Lewis’s American record.

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Allyson Felix taking the baton from Sydney McLaughlin in the women’s 4x400-meter relay on Saturday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

TOKYO — Allyson Felix has won her 11th Olympic medal, making her the most decorated American Olympian in track and field, surpassing the 10 medals won by Carl Lewis.

Track and Field: Women’s 4×400m Relay  ›

Gold

USA flag
United States

Silver

POL flag
Poland

Bronze

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Jamaica

A stacked team of Sydney McLaughlin, Felix, Dalilah Muhammad and Athing Mu won the gold medal on Saturday night in the 4x400-meter relay, continuing an American winning streak in the event that has been unbroken since 1996.

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Felix handing off to Dalilah Muhammad after running the second leg of the relay.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The American team was full of luminaries, present and future. McLaughlin, who turned 22 on Saturday, and Muhammad, 31, joined forces after going head-to-head this week in the final of the 400-meter hurdles, a classic race in which McLaughlin edged Muhammad at the line to break her own world record. Mu, a 19-year-old phenomenon from New Jersey, had won the 800 meters with a dominant performance days before.

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Felix with Muhammad, left, Athing Mu and McLaughlin after their victory.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

And there was Felix, of course, the grande dame of United States track and field, just one day removed from winning the bronze in the 400 meters. Felix, 35, has said that these will be her final Olympics, and she ensured that they were memorable.

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The United States has won gold in the women’s 4x400 in every Olympics since 1996.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Track and Field: Women’s 4×400m Relay Final  ›

Time

Gold

USA flag
United States
3:16.85

Silver

POL flag
Poland
3:20.53

Bronze

JAM flag
Jamaica
3:21.24
4
CAN flag
Canada
3:21.84
5
GBR flag
Britain
3:22.59
6
NED flag
Netherlands
3:23.74
7
BEL flag
Belgium
3:23.96
8
CUB flag
Cuba
3:26.92

Men’s 4x400 relay

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The American men followed suit by winning their 4x400-meter race.

The performance came two days after the Americans failed to make the final of the 4x100 relay race thanks to a flubbed baton pass. A loss in the 4x400 would have been a one-two punch of disappointment, given the unmatched depth that the United States has long had in sprinting.

The Americans were the defending champions in the event and had won it at eight of the last 10 Olympic Games. Saturday night’s win made that nine out of 11.

The U.S. team included two of the top five finishers in the individual 400-meter race, Michael Cherry and Michael Norman, and the second-place finisher in the 400-meter hurdles, Rai Benjamin.

Norman put the Americans in the lead on the second leg. Bryce Deadmon stretched it to five meters, and Benjamin carried it home for a 1.48-second win over the Netherlands. Botswana took the bronze.

Here’s what happened in Tokyo on Saturday.

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TOKYO — The United States men’s basketball team lost to France in the group stages, but beat that team when it counted most, on Saturday in the gold medal game, 87-82. Kevin Durant had 29 points.

A third-inning solo shot by Munetaka Murakami of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows was all Japan ended up needing in its 2-0 victory over the U.S. in the baseball gold medal game.

In track, the United States swept the 4x400-meter relays, with Allyson Felix winning medal No. 11, surpassing Carl Lewis for the American record in the sport.

The U.S. men followed suit by winning their 4x400-meter race, two days after they failed to make the final of the 4x100 relay thanks to a flubbed baton pass.

Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands added the 10,000 meters to her earlier victory in the 5,000. Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won the men’s 1,500.

Nelly Korda, fresh off a win at the Women’s P.G.A. Championship, won the women’s golf event, completing an American sweep of golf at these Games.

Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the women’s marathon, with Molly Seidel of the United States getting a bronze.

The U.S. women’s water polo team won its third straight gold medal, defeating Spain.

Gold medals went to Brazil in men’s soccer and to France in men’s handball and men’s volleyball.

Russia won the artistic (formerly synchronized) swimming group gold.

And Jessica Springsteen and the U.S. show jumping team won a silver medal.

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The U.S. men’s basketball team wins its fourth straight Olympic gold.

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SAITAMA, Japan — It was not always pretty, but in the end, the United States men’s basketball team ascended to the heights they were always expected to reach. Overcoming a slow start to the Olympic tournament, the Americans dispatched France, 87-82, with relative comfort in the final game on Saturday morning at Saitama Super Arena to win their 16th gold medal in the event.

In front of a sizable crowd — not of fans, but of national team staff, Olympic volunteers and journalists — the United States looked far more cohesive and confident than when they lost to France in the opening game of competition.

Basketball: Men’s Gold Medal Game

Final
T
USA flag
United States
22 22 27 16 87
FRA flag
France
18 21 24 19 82

That contest had exposed some of their early issues as a team — namely, a lack of familiarity as a group. But they had none of those problems on Saturday morning.

Kevin Durant, once again, was the focal point and main driving force of the team, scoring 29 points to go with six rebounds. Jayson Tatum contributed a strong performance of his own, finishing with 19 points.

The Americans built an 8-point lead heading into the final quarter and withstood a number of runs from the French to close the game. France cut the lead to 85-82 with 10.2 seconds remaining, giving them a glimmer of hope. But Kevin Durant sank two free throws to effectively seal the result.

Rudy Gobert finished with 16 points and eight rebounds for France before fouling out in the final seconds of the game.

Japan gets its first baseball gold, a highlight for the host country.

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The Japanese celebrating after their win against the United States.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Back after a 13-year absence from the Olympics, the baseball gold medal came down to a showdown between the two biggest baseball countries in the world: the United States and Japan.

And in a close contest on Saturday night, top-ranked Japan prevailed, 2-0, to claim an award that was curiously missing from its list of accomplishments. It was the baseball-mad archipelago’s first gold medal in the six trips to the Olympics since 1992, when the sport was first officially played in the Summer Games.

Baseball Gold Medal Game

Final
R H E
USA flag
United States
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 1
JPN flag
Japan
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 - 2 8 0

Before now, Japan had come close just once — winning a silver medal in 1996 — and claiming bronze medals in 1992 and 2004.

On a humid Saturday night at Yokohama Baseball Stadium, Japan outlasted the United States on the strength of its pitching, led by Masato Morishita. The 23-year-old right-hander tossed five scoreless innings and struck out five, vexing his opponents with a low 90s fastball and an array of darting breaking balls.

The cadre of Japanese relievers that followed did much of the same.

Nick Martinez, 31, the United States’ starting pitcher, held his own. But his lone mistake loomed large: a third-inning solo home run surrendered to third baseman Munetaka Murakami. After Murakami made contact, Martinez spun around and grimaced when the ball landed in the center-field seats.

Beyond the blast, the game was a pitchers’ duel. The United States threatened in multiple innings, but Japan’s pitchers wriggled out unscathed each time.

Japan, finally, added some breathing room in the eighth inning, taking a 2-0 lead when Masataka Yoshida singled and Tetsuto Yamada scored from second base following a wild throw home from center fielder Jack Lopez. Before Yamada had sneaked his hand across home plate past a futile tag attempt, Japanese players were bouncing up and down in front of the dugout.

During the Olympics, the Japanese national baseball team was one of the host country’s most followed squads.

Although no fans were allowed inside the stadium, a sizable crowd of national team staff, Olympic volunteers and media members sat in the stands Saturday night to watch the baseball powerhouses play. And much like they had on other game days, a smattering of fans stood outside the stadium to welcome and snap photos of the Japanese players as they arrived by bus in the afternoon.

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Munetaka Murakami of Japan celebrated his solo home run during the gold medal game against the United States.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

Olympic baseball is taken seriously here. The country’s top professional league, the Nippon Professional Baseball league, paused its season so that its best players could play in the Summer Games. Yokohama Stadium is home to the BayStars.

Major League Baseball, unlike its Japanese counterpart, carried on and didn’t allow players on its 40-man rosters to compete in the Olympics. Still, the United States squad — made up of unemployed veterans in their late 30s and young prospects still a few steps from reaching the big leagues — was one of the best in the Olympic tournament.

The silver medal in baseball was the first for the United States. It won the gold in 2000 and bronze in 1996 and 2008.

Saturday was the last chance for baseball players across the world to compete on the Olympic stage. Booted from the permanent Olympic program following the 2008 Games, the sport had returned to the program because of host Japan’s ardent love of the sport.

Neither baseball nor softball will return for the 2024 Games in Paris. They are, though, widely expected to return for in 2028 in Los Angeles.

Earlier in the day, the Dominican Republic defeated the 2008 gold medal winners, South Korea, 10-6, to win a bronze medal, the first baseball medal in the country’s history.

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Brazil beats Spain in extra time to repeat as the Olympic men’s soccer champion.

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Brazil won its second straight men’s soccer gold on Saturday.Credit...Emily Rhyne/The New York Times

It took Brazil 64 years to win its first Olympic gold medal in soccer. Five years later, it has its second.

Playing in the same stadium in Yokohama where its national team won the 2002 World Cup final, Brazil repeated as Olympic champion on Saturday by beating Spain, 2-1, in extra time.

Malcom, a 24-year-old forward who plays for the Russian club Zenit St. Petersburg, delivered the winner as a fresh-legged substitute, scoring off a long lead pass in the 108th minute.

The Olympic men’s tournament is an under-23 championship, an accommodation with FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, to maintain the primacy of the World Cup as the sport’s showcase event. But it remains an important barometer of a country’s ability to produce young talent.

Men’s Soccer  ›

  • KOR flag
    South Korea
    3
    MEX flag
    Mexico
    6
  • BRA flag
    Brazil
    1
    EGY flag
    Egypt
    0
  • JPN flag
    Japan
    0
    NZL flag
    New Zealand
    0
  • ESP flag
    Spain
    5
    CIV flag
    Ivory Coast
    2
  • MEX flag
    Mexico
    0
    BRA flag
    Brazil
    0
  • JPN flag
    Japan
    0
    ESP flag
    Spain
    1
  • BRA flag
    Brazil
    2
    ESP flag
    Spain
    1
  • Bronze
    MEX flag
    Mexico
    3
    JPN flag
    Japan
    1

Matheus Cunha had given Brazil the lead in first-half injury time. After controlling a ball between two Spanish defenders in the penalty area, he inexplicably found himself alone only yards in front of goalkeeper Unai Simón and slotted home a low shot.

Spain answered in the 61st minute off a crisp finish at the back post by Mikel Oyarzabal, one of a handful of young players called in to the Olympic squad only weeks after helping Spain’s senior team reach the semifinals of the European Championship.

Oyarzabal’s goal extended their long, hot summer to extra time, where Malcom and Brazil had the last word. By then, Spain’s best players may have simply run their race: Pedri, the team’s wondrously talented 18-year-old midfielder, was playing his 71st match for club and country since the start of last year’s La Liga campaign, a staggering workload that had brought complaints from his club coach, Ronald Koeman of Barcelona.

“It’s too much,” Koeman said. Yet go he did, despite playing a grueling, compressed league schedule and then all but one minute of Spain’s run to the European Championship semifinals.

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Pedri’s season, which began with Barcelona and included a trip to the Euros with Spain’s senior team, ended with a silver medal.Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters

The medal was Brazil’s seventh in the Olympic tournament, and came five years after a team led by Neymar won the country’s first gold on home soil in Rio de Janeiro.

Its victory also came on familiar ground: Brazil had defeated Germany at Yokohama International Stadium 19 years earlier, in the final of the 2002 World Cup. Ronaldo scored twice that day for Brazil.

Four years later, Brazil introduced Dani Alves, a young defender who would go on to become one of the most decorated players in soccer history. Alves’s glittering career includes league championships in Spain, Italy and France and three Champions League titles with Barcelona.

On Saturday, he added an honor that he had been missing: an Olympic gold medal.

Sifan Hassan wins her third Olympic medal, this time another gold in the 10,000 meters.

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That Sifan Hassan was even competing for a medal in three taxing events was a unique feat of endurance — something no athlete has accomplishedCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

TOKYO — At the end of 24,500 meters of hard running in six races over nine days, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands stood alone before tumbling to the track, disbelief etched across her face.

On Saturday, Hassan won the women’s 10,000 meters at the Tokyo games to pull off an extraordinary feat, winning medals in three grueling events: the 1,500, the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters.

Track and Field: Women’s 10,000m  ›

Gold

Sifan Hassan

NED flag
Netherlands

Silver

Kalkidan Gezahegne

BRN flag
Bahrain

Bronze

Letesenbet Gidey

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Ethiopia

In her final event of the Olympics, Hassan outkicked Kalkidan Gezahegne of Bahrain, who was second, and Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia, who drifted to third. Gidey holds the world record in the event, but even she was no match for Hassan, who finished in 29 minutes 55.32 seconds.

Hassan, 28, was about 24 hours removed from winning the bronze in the women’s 1,500 meters on Friday night. She had tried to push the pace in that race before faltering late as Faith Kipyegon of Kenya defended her title from the 2016 Olympics. Afterward, Hassan said she was pleased.

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Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands on her way to victory in the women’s 10,000-meter race.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

“I tried my best,” she said, “but I couldn’t do more than this.”

That she was even striving for a medal in three taxing events was a unique feat of endurance — something no athlete has accomplished. Consider, too, that she had fallen in her semifinal heat of the 1,500 meters on Monday — on the final lap, no less.

She bounced back up and methodically worked her way past the pack to win. Later that day, she raced away from the field of the 5,000 meters to claim her first gold of the Games.

On Friday, after her third-place finish in the 1,500, Hassan acknowledged that she was “stressed every day.” And tired. So very tired. She was relieved, she said, that she had only one race left to focus on. In a way, her mind was uncluttered for the 10,000 meters. It showed.

The race quickly turned into a battle of attrition in hot and muggy conditions. Three runners dropped out before the race was halfway over. With 13 laps remaining, just seven runners out of a field of 29 remained in the lead pack.

Then five. Then four. As the carnage played out, Hassan tucked herself behind Gidey and Hellen Obiri of Kenya, just ahead of Gezahegne in fourth. Eventually, Obiri succumbed to the elements and the tempo, and dropped off the back, too.

On the first turn of the final lap, Hassan pulled herself onto the right shoulder of Gidey, and sprinted away — straight toward history.

Women’s High Jump

Mariya Lasitskene

ROC flag
Russian Olympic Committee
Women’s 10,000m

Sifan Hassan

NED flag
Netherlands
Men’s Javelin

Neeraj Chopra

IND flag
India
Men’s 1,500m

Jakob Ingebrigtsen

NOR flag
Norway
Women’s 4×400m Relay
USA flag
United States
Men’s 4×400m Relay
USA flag
United States
Men’s Marathon

Eliud Kipchoge

KEN flag
Kenya

Women’s high jump

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Mariya Lasitskene of Russia won gold with a jump of 2.04 meters.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Vashti Cunningham had one goal coming into the Tokyo Games.

At 23, she had won national championships and an indoor world title. An Olympic medal, preferably gold, was next in sight for the athlete whose father and coach, Randall Cunningham, was an N.F.L. quarterback for 16 seasons. Her mother, Felicity Cunningham, was a ballerina with the Dance Theater of Harlem.

But Cunningham could not get higher than 1.96 meters, six centimeters below her personal best. She hit the bar on her final attempt at two meters and that was that.

Cunningham could do no better than sixth.

The gold medal came down to a three-way battle between Nicola McDermott, an Australian who screamed at the top her lungs before making each attempt in the final rounds; Mariya Lasitskene of Russia, a former world champion; and Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine, the reigning world champion.

Lasitskene prevailed with a jump of 2.04 meters, with McDermott in second and Mahuchikh in third.

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U.S. women’s water polo wins its third straight gold medal.

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Ashleigh Johnson, the U.S. goalkeeper who is often considered the best in the world, saved 11 of 15 shots.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

TOKYO — The U.S. women’s water polo team won its third consecutive Olympic gold medal on Saturday, routing Spain, 14-5.

The United States took a 6-1 lead, and after a brief Spain flurry, led by 7-4 at the half. But with Spain failing to score at all in the third quarter, the game was essentially over.

Maddie Musselman led the balanced scoring attack with three goals. There was also a goal for Maggie Steffens, the captain and for years the best player in the women’s game, who along with Melissa Seidemann captured her third gold.

5

ESP flag
Spain

Women’s Gold Medal Match

Final

14

USA flag
United States

“It wasn’t just one player,” Steffens said. “It wasn’t two players. You look up on there and we had different people getting blocks, different people getting huge goals here, different people guarding.”

The United States played lockdown defense, getting bodies in front of many of Spain’s shots before they even reached the goal. Ashleigh Johnson, widely considered the world’s best goalkeeper, played nearly all of the game and saved 11 of the 15 shots that reached her.

“Her presence, you can feel it, even when you’re on offense,” Musselman said of Johnson. “You hear her voice everywhere you are.”

The path to the title was not as easy as expected.

Coming into the Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. team looked close to unstoppable: Between the 2016 and 2020 Games, it amassed a record of 128-3. Spain was also the Americans’ opponent in the last two world championship finals. The United States won those games, 11-6 and 13-6.

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The U.S. women’s water polo team routed Spain on Saturday to win its third consecutive Olympic gold medal.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

But the Americans suffered an unexpected group play loss to the eventual bronze medalists, Hungary, 10-9. The team shot just 29 percent that day; in the final, that figure was a more characteristic 54 percent.

The team expressed concern going into the Olympics, because the pandemic had limited its games against top opposition.

Coach Adam Krikorian said before the Games that it was “tough when you’re just competing against each other,” and that he sometimes had trouble motivating the players.

“We’ve had so much success,” he said, “and it’s natural for us to relax a little bit.”

If the players relaxed a bit against Hungary, it was out of their systems for the final, which looked like the kind of romps followers of the team had been seeing for years.

Nelly Korda of the U.S. captures the gold in women’s golf.

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Nelly Korda won the gold medal in women’s golf by one shot.Credit...Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Nelly Korda of the United States held off a final-round challenge from Japan’s Mone Inami and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko to claim the gold medal in women’s golf at Kasumigaseki Country Club.

Her victory, six days after Xander Schauffele won the gold in men’s golf, gave the United States a sweep of the tournaments at the Tokyo Olympics.

Golf: Women’s Individual Stroke Play  ›

Gold

Nelly Korda

USA flag
United States

Silver

Mone Inami

JPN flag
Japan

Bronze

Lydia Ko

NZL flag
New Zealand

Korda, the world’s top-ranked women’s golfer, had led after the second and third rounds, and closed with a two-under-par 69.

But Inami and Ko both shot six-under 65s on Saturday, methodically slicing into the 23-year-old Korda’s advantage and taking the race for the gold to the day’s final holes.

Inami, 22, birdied the 17th hole to pull even with Korda with a hole to play, but she then bogeyed the final hole, dropping her one shot off the lead. That left Ko, 24, who was also a shot behind, as the only challenger for the gold medal, but she finished with a par that was promptly matched by Korda.

Korda, who won her first professional major at the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in June, left the 18th green with a broad smile, but for Inami and Ko, the day was not over: They immediately headed for a playoff to determine who would claim the silver medal, and who would get the bronze. That second competition lasted a single hole: Inami made par and finished second when Ko recorded a bogey.

Korda’s older sister, Jessica, also played for the United States at the Tokyo Games. Jessica Korda finished in a tie for 15th, then returned to the 18th hole to embrace Nelly after her victory.

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India won its first gold in track and field.

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Neeraj Chopra won the men’s javelin on Saturday.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

India has at last won gold in track and field at the Olympics.

Neeraj Chopra won the men’s javelin on Saturday with a throw of 87.58 meters, nearly a foot farther than the silver medalist, Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic.

Track and Field: Men’s Javelin  ›

Gold

Neeraj Chopra

IND flag
India

Silver

Jakub Vadlejch

CZE flag
Czech Republic

Bronze

Vitezslav Vesely

CZE flag
Czech Republic

“It feels unbelievable,” Chopra said, according to Reuters. “This is our first Olympic medal for a very long time, and in athletics it is the first time we have gold, so it’s a proud moment for me and my country.”

The gold medal is India’s first at the Tokyo Games and only its second ever at a Summer Games. Abhinav Bindra, who won the 10-meter air rifle competition in Beijing in 2008, was India’s only other Olympic gold medalist in an individual competition.

In 2018, Chopra won gold at the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, but an elbow injury that required surgery caused him to miss nearly a year of competition. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted his comeback.

“Take a bow, young man! You have fulfilled a nation’s dream. Thank you!” Bindra wrote on Twitter. “Also, welcome to the club — a much needed addition!”

India, the world’s second-most-populous country, has been trying to improve its underwhelming Olympic game, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been keen to use sports to raise its global profile.

Modi has been tweeting congratulations to several Indian athletes during the Games, including Chopra. “History has been scripted at Tokyo!” Modi wrote. “The young Neeraj has done exceptionally well. He played with remarkable passion and showed unparalleled grit.”

After India’s substandard performance at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro — one silver and one bronze — the government began funneling money to a sports bureaucracy that was underfunded for decades and stained by corruption. Private ventures stepped in, training elite athletes whose upward trajectory they might be able to harness. And state money has started to trickle to grass-roots sports, too.

There has been some jubilation in India during these Games, where it has won seven medals. It defeated Germany to win bronze in men’s field hockey, the team’s first medal in that sport in more than 40 years. The women’s hockey team came close, falling to Britain for bronze.

The badminton star P.V. Sindhu won a bronze medal in women’s singles badminton, becoming the first Indian woman and only the second Indian athlete to win two individual Olympic medals after winning a silver in Rio.

Aditi Ashok narrowly missed a medal in women’s golf, losing out on a bronze by a single shot.

India’s other medals came in weight lifting, wrestling and boxing.

Jessica Springsteen wins a silver medal with the U.S. show jumping team.

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Jessica Springsteen riding Don Juan van de Donkhoeve in the show jumping team final at Equestrian Park in Tokyo.Credit...Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

TOKYO — For all the accolades he has won over the years, an Olympic medal has always eluded Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps that’s because rocking out still isn’t an Olympic event.

But another Springsteen has now accomplished the feat: Jessica Springsteen, Bruce’s daughter, and the rest of the U.S. equestrian show jumping team won the silver medal on Saturday night.

Equestrian: Team Jumping  ›

Gold

SWE flag
Sweden

Silver

USA flag
United States

Bronze

BEL flag
Belgium

Laura Kraut went first for the United States and had a clear ride with no faults. Springsteen was next, and had four faults after her horse, Don Juan van de Donkhoeve, knocked down a rail. The anchorman, McLain Ward, had four faults as well.

The team’s total of eight faults was good for a tie for first with Sweden, which also had eight faults. That meant there would be a jumpoff for gold.

Each team sent its three riders over an abbreviated course. All six jumped it without a fault, but Sweden’s total time was faster by 1.3 seconds.

“I was disappointed to have the four faults,” Springsteen said before the jumpoff. “But I thought my horse jumped the rest of the course absolutely beautifully.”

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Peres Jepchirchir leads a 1-2 Kenyan finish, just ahead of Molly Seidel, in the marathon.

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Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the women’s marathon by 16 seconds.Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya broke away late in the race to sprint to the gold medal in the women’s marathon.

Jepchirchir was among a large pack of runners that held together on Saturday morning until the late going. She went on to defeat another Kenyan runner, Brigid Kosgei, the world-record holder, who earned the silver medal, and Molly Seidel of the United States, who claimed the bronze.

Jepchirchir won by 16 seconds, in 2 hours 27 minutes 20 seconds.

Officials moved the race in 2019 to Sapporo, 500 miles north of Tokyo, in a futile attempt to escape the sapping heat and humidity that have smothered the Summer Games.

Seidel, running only her third marathon, won a surprise bronze in 2:27:36. She became the third American woman to win a medal in the Olympic marathon. Joan Benoit Samuelson won the inaugural race at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and Deena Kastor took bronze at the 2004 Athens Games.

Hours before the start, the marathon was moved up an hour, to 6 a.m., to slightly moderate the effects of a record heat wave on Hokkaido, the northern Japanese island that is home to Sapporo. But it was swampy at 78 degrees Fahrenheit, with 82 percent humidity.

The race began with many of the runners wearing hats and sunglasses and trying to find narrow areas of shade at a cautious pace. Fifteen of the 88 entrants dropped out.

Track and Field: Women’s Marathon Final  ›

Time

Gold

Peres Jepchirchir

KEN flag
Kenya
2:27:20

Silver

Brigid Kosgei

KEN flag
Kenya
2:27:36

+0:16

Bronze

Molly Seidel

USA flag
United States
2:27:46

+0:26

4

Roza Dereje

ETH flag
Ethiopia
2:28:38

+1:18

5

Volha Mazuronak

BLR flag
Belarus
2:29:06

+1:46

6

Melat Yisak Kejeta

GER flag
Germany
2:29:16

+1:56

7

Eunice Chebichii Chumba

BRN flag
Bahrain
2:29:36

+2:16

8

Mao Ichiyama

JPN flag
Japan
2:30:13

+2:53

9

Malindi Elmore

CAN flag
Canada
2:30:59

+3:39

10

Sinead Diver

AUS flag
Australia
2:31:14

+3:54

The winning time was the second slowest of the 10 women’s Olympic marathons, but time did not matter on Saturday. Survival mattered. Winning mattered.

Ice baths for the Olympic runners were set up in first aid and recovery areas inside Odori Park in Sapporo, where the marathon began and ended, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Fourteen water supply tables were available along the course, nine of them supplied with bags of crushed ice. Ambulances were to follow the runners during the race, the newspaper reported.

France wins its first Olympic medal in men’s indoor volleyball, a gold.

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Jean Patry of France serving against Russia on Saturday.Credit...Antonin Thuillier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

France routed Russia 3-2 in a dramatic five-set match on Saturday to win its first ever Olympic gold in men’s volleyball.

The French had never even won a medal in the men’s volleyball tournament: In four previous appearances, they got knocked out in the group stage. Their best showing was at the 1988 Seoul Games with eighth place.

“History!!” Team France said on Twitter after the match. “Win or nothing.”

France did not get off to a great start in Tokyo. It won only two of its five matches in the preliminary rounds of the games, though that included a 3-1 victory against Russia.

France opened strong in the final, winning the first two sets to take a lead that was short-lived: Russia stepped up to win the third and fourth set, sending the teams into a thrilling fifth set to determine the champion.

Jenia Grebennikov, a French player, called the tiebreaker “crazy” and “unbelievable.”

The last time two European teams faced off in the men’s final was at the 2000 Sydney Games, when Yugoslavia beat Russia.

France won another gold medal on Saturday with a 25-23 win against Denmark in men’s handball.

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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.”

The U.S. Olympic team is in danger of losing the gold medal race.

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Michael Cherry came in fourth in the 400 meters.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

TOKYO — The Americans’ efforts at the Tokyo Games have produced results that might be the envy of the world but have fallen short of their recent lofty standards. The U.S. Olympic team is in danger of losing the gold medal race in a Summer Olympics for the first time since 2008.

Poised to win about 106 medals based on the final rounds of competition through Sunday, it will slip back to roughly on par with the London Games in 2012, when it won 104 medals. The team won a record 121 medals in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, and 46 of them were gold, two fewer than the mark the Chinese set for gold medals in 2008 in Beijing.

The blame for the shortfall can be spread around. The track team won 32 medals in Rio but had just 22 heading into the final night. American men have not won a gold medal in the speed events that have long been their bread and butter.

The U.S. women’s soccer team, the two-time defending World Cup champion, settled for a bronze medal. Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast ever, missed the bulk of the meet as she battled mental stress. American rowers failed to make the Olympic podium for the first time since 2008.

With the slip in American dominance, several other countries, notably Japan and China, have surged.

Japan, with 51 medals through Friday night, surged past its tally of 41 medals, including 12 gold, won in Rio. In these Games, it has 24 gold. After eight years of backtracking, China’s Olympic sports machine has returned: With 36 golds compared with 31 for the United States, the Chinese have a shot at winning the gold medal race for the first time since 2008.

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A British BMX racer’s historic gold required a little financial help from her friends.

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Bethany Shriever, left, and Kye Whyte celebrated after winning gold and silver in their Olympic events.Credit...Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

When Bethany Shriever secured the gold medal in the women’s BMX racing final, it was in an event in which she was not even projected to be a finalist. The win last week was Britain’s first Olympic gold in the event.

But it wasn’t just that Shriever, who was racing against the two-time defending Olympic champion Mariana Pajon of Colombia, was an unlikely contender to make the final, let alone claim gold. It’s that without some help from a GoFundMe page she set up in 2017, Shriever might not have even made it to Tokyo.

“The chances would be very, very, slim,” she said.

Shriever, 22, grew up participating in the British Cycling program, honing her skills in a sport where she was often the only girl at the track — something she took note of almost instantly, she said.

“I would just be training with boys pretty much,” she said. The number of competitors participating in boys’ races, particularly as she joined bigger events, always greatly outnumbered those in the girls’ races.

Shriever’s breakout moment came when she captured the junior world title at the 2017 UCI BMX World Championships in Rock Hill, S. C. But within months, Shriever was questioning her future in BMX. In a budget review after the 2016 Rio Games, UK Sport, the government body that invests in Olympic and Paralympic sports in Britain, cut funding to the women’s BMX program and announced it would finance only the men’s program in its journey to Tokyo.

“It was questioning things like, ‘Why haven’t we got the same chances as the men?’” Shriever recalled feeling at the time. “I wanted to get to the top and be able to earn a living from doing this.”

So Shriever decided to stay home in Essex with her family and take a second job as a teaching assistant helping children. She worked three days a week, and headed straight to the track or the gym afterward. “There were nights when I couldn’t put everything into training because I was just so knackered from work,” she said, adding that her employer was flexible with her schedule, giving her half days or allowing her time off for competitions. Her parents ferried her to races.

As the Olympic cycle began in 2019, Shriever knew that to earn enough points to get to Tokyo, she needed a better solution. She calculated what it might cost to hire a coach and to compete in various races before setting up a GoFundMe page for 50,000 pounds, or just about $70,000. She managed to raise nearly 20,000 pounds, which she said was used up almost immediately because of two events in Australia.

“That decision opened a lot of eyes that I did need help and I did have the potential to compete in the Games,” she said about launching a GoFundMe.

By midsummer 2019, Shriever had rejoined the British Cycling program. She did so with the help of a coach from British Cycling and a push by the program to get UK Sport to reinvest in disciplines whose budgets had been cut.

Shriever won all three of her heats in Tokyo and then the final, screaming on her bike as she crossed the finish line. In two weeks, Shriever will be competing for another first-place finish at the 2021 UCI BMX World Championships in Papendal, Holland.

Shriever is still the only woman on her six-member racing team, which includes Kye Whyte, who won the silver medal in the men’s event and was cheering from the sidelines as she made history. In addition to Shriever’s and Whyte’s medals, Charlotte Worthington won gold in the BMX women’s freestyle, an event that made its debut in Tokyo.

Women have come a long way in BMX, Shriever said, with more getting involved despite the obstacles they have to overcome to get the same opportunities as men. There is still work to do, she said, but she feels hopeful about the future.

“We are going in the right direction, for sure,” Shriever said.

Some Olympians get a little something extra to go with their medals.

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Some countries provide cash rewards to Olympians who earn medals.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

TOKYO — After winning a gold medal at the Summer Olympics, the U.S. wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock had big plans for the bonus money that comes with it: buying her mother a $30,000 food truck.

Tamerlan Bashaev, 25, a Russian judoka who claimed a bronze medal, wants to use his money to get married and go on a honeymoon. Andrea Proske, a rower who helped Canada win its first gold medal in the women’s eight since 1992, can’t wait to take her mother on vacation to London.

“I haven’t been able to see her,” said Proske, 35, who will get $20,000 Canadian dollars, roughly $16,000 U.S. dollars. “We’ve all been really in our own bubble. So just to be able to hug my mom for the first time since we return post Covid is going to be special.”

Winning an Olympic medal is often the crowning achievement of an athlete’s career. Most Olympians, though, aren’t multimillionaire athletes like Naomi Osaka, Rory McIlroy or Kevin Durant, so competing at this elite level can be a financial struggle.

But many Olympic medalists are leaving Tokyo with more than just prizes dangling from their necks. They are given an extra behind-the-scenes boost in the form of bonuses. Winning pads the wallet nicely in certain countries — a fact that sparks some awe and even a little envy among the medalists.

Some of the bonuses are substantial: Singapore’s $1 million in local currency (roughly $740,000 in the United States) for a gold medal is the largest known reward. Some are more modest: A United States medalist receives $37,500 for gold, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze. Other bonuses are nonexistent, such as those for medalists from Britain, New Zealand and Norway.

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The next Summer Games are less than 3 years away. How prepared is Paris?

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Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

The first task for Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee, is to figure out how to plan an event for which preparations are likely to be affected by a pandemic now well into its second year.

Estanguet brought dozens of staff members to Japan to shadow organizers of the Tokyo Games — perhaps the most complicated, strangest Olympics in history — and to learn how to take a layered plan years in the making and rewrite it on the fly.

“Nobody knows what will happen with this pandemic,” said Estanguet, a three-time Olympic champion in canoe slalom, “so we have to be ready for any kind of scenario.”

At the Tokyo Games, he and his colleagues have visited stadiums and arenas where some of the world’s finest athletes have performed without spectators. He has met with some officials to discuss the finer points of biosecurity, and then sat down with others to learn about the successes — and failures — of bubble environments.

“The learnings of here is that it’s feasible to organize the Games even with this kind of situation,” Estanguet said. “So we are here to learn.”

Estanguet said the Paris officials would remain in Tokyo for further talks after the Games end on Sunday, and then do the same sort of shadowing program with organizers of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where restrictions on movement and health protocols are likely to be even more stringent than they have been in Tokyo.

Yet Estanguet remains hopeful that the pandemic will be something for the history books by the time the Summer Games arrive in France.

“We will look at all the measures they put in place here, but we are still working on our Plan A,” he said. “I want my team first to be at the best level with Plan A.”

That plan is firmly underway. A sponsorship target of one billion euros has just passed the halfway mark, and the keen interest of both France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has already helped clear administrative hurdles.

Estanguet pointed out that the government had adopted a strategy — built around the Olympics — that for the first time requires every primary school in France to set aside 30 minutes a day for physical activity. That, Estanguet said, was an example of the benefits of the Games, already in place three years before the opening ceremony.

Such legacies have been promised by hosts before, of course, only to fizzle out. Instead, the Games have often been followed by recriminations over costs and stories of expensive venues fallen into disuse. Estanguet refused to predict whether Paris would meet its own set of lofty promises, but said the conditions were in place to do so.

“I will not guarantee you,” he said, “but everything is put in place for this new model.”

On the final day of the Tokyo Games, gold medal matches and the men’s marathon.

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Breanna Stewart of the U.S. during the second half of the women’s basketball gold medal game between Japan and the United States.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

TOKYO — The final day of the Tokyo Olympics began early, with the men’s marathon at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Tokyo time (Saturday at 6 p.m. Eastern time). The race was held in the northern city of Sapporo in an effort to avoid the worst of Tokyo’s summer heat.

The U.S. women’s basketball team cruised to victory, routing Japan, 90-75, for its seventh consecutive gold medal.

In the afternoon, the U.S. women’s indoor volleyball team will play for gold against Brazil.

Two American boxers will also fight for gold: Keyshawn Davis at lightweight and Richard Torrez Jr. at super heavyweight.

And when it’s all wrapped up, the closing ceremony, again without fans, starts at 8 p.m. in Tokyo, 7 a.m. Eastern time.

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U.S. broadcast coverage on Saturday night includes women’s basketball, boxing and water polo.

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Richard Torrez Jr., right, has a chance to win gold.Credit...Alexandra Garcia/The New York Times

Here are some highlights of the U.S. broadcast schedule on Saturday evening and overnight. All times are Eastern and subject to network changes.

TRACK AND FIELD Replays of a flurry of finals begin airing at 8 p.m. on NBC. Events include the women’s high jump; the women’s 10,000 meters, with Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands pulling off an extraordinary feat; and the men’s javelin throw, which gave India its first track and field gold medal.

SOCCER Brazil beat Spain in extra time to repeat as the Olympic men’s soccer champion. The gold medal match gets a replay on CNBC at 8 p.m.

VOLLEYBALL Serbia’s women’s volleyball team faces South Korea in the bronze medal match airing live at 8 p.m. on USA.

On the American team, players range in age from 24 to 34 and have a mix of experience. Only four of them have played at an Olympics, while eight of them are new to the Summer Games. They will reach for gold as the U.S. takes on Brazil on Sunday; the game airs live on USA at 12:30 a.m.

WATER POLO The U.S. women’s team grabbed its third consecutive Olympic gold medal in a 14-5 rout of Spain. You can watch the action in a replay at 9:30 p.m. on NBCSN.

RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS Live coverage of the women’s group all-around finals is on USA at 10 p.m.

BASKETBALL Brittney Griner, Sue Bird and the rest of the U.S. women’s team will make their 11th appearance in a gold medal game on Saturday night when they take on Japan in the final. The game will be broadcast live at 10:30 p.m. on NBC.

BOXING CNBC will carry a series of gold medal bouts in a range of weight classes. Coverage begins at 1 a.m. and includes fights featuring two Americans: the lightweight Keyshawn Davis and the super heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr.

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