Olympics 2021: Live Updates – The New York Times

With two high-flying vaults that made complicated, gravity-defying moves look simple, Rebeca Andrade won the vault final on Sunday at the Tokyo Games, bringing Brazil its first gold medal ever in women’s gymnastics.

Her Olympics just keep getting better.

Last week in the all-around final, Andrade, 22, won the silver medal, finishing just behind the American Sunisa Lee. She dedicated that silver medal, the first Olympic medal of any color for Brazil in women’s gymnastics, to her country, her coaches and her medical staff, which had helped her get to these Games after yet another serious injury to her right knee.

Andrade won with a score of 15.083 points. MyKayla Skinner of the United States, who is retiring after these Olympics, finished second, for the silver medal. Yeo Seo-jeong won bronze for South Korea, and is the first medalist for South Korea in women’s gymnastics.

In 2019, Andrade needed her third surgery in four years to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee and missed the world championships because of it. Without her, her Brazilian team did not qualify for Tokyo. And she only qualified for these Games just in June, as an individual.

That last-minute effort to compete in Tokyo was worth it: Andrade’s best performance at her last Olympics, the 2016 Rio Games, was 11th in the all-around.

Her first of two vaults was a Cheng, which is a roundoff onto the springboard, a half twist onto the vault, and a front layout with 1½ twists. Her second was an Amanar, which is a roundoff onto the springboard, a back handspring onto the vault, and a back layout with 2½ twists. She didn’t stick either landing, but her execution and height helped her get high scores.

With Simone Biles out of the competition with a mental health issue, Andrade’s toughest competition going into the vault were two Americans: Jade Carey and Skinner.

Carey, who finished second in vault qualifying last week, appeared to adjust her run-up to her first vault — which was supposed to be a Cheng, but she ended up bailing out of it and completed only a Yurchenko tuck, which is one somersault with no twists. Stunned and nearly in tears, she kept her composure long enough to perform a second vault, but that landing had one big step to it. Her overall score 12.416 points, left her out of the medals.

Skinner was just as stunned, but in a the opposite way. Last week after qualifying, she thought her Olympics was over — and her career was over — when she finished fourth in the vault. Because only two gymnasts per country advance to the finals in the all-around and each apparatus, she was left out of the finals after Biles and Carey had finished ahead of her in qualifying.

In an Instagram post, Skinner, who is 24 and was an alternate at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, said she was heartbroken at how these Olympics turned out for her.

“This closes the book on my gymnastics career, and my only regrets were things outside of my control. So no regrets,” she wrote. “For now I will just try to fill the hole in my heart.”

But on Saturday, when Biles withdrew from the vault, Skinner, gained the chance to dress in her competition leotard one final time and see if she could win.

She posted on Instagram once again: “Doing this for us @Simone_Biles. … It’s go time baby!”

At last, Skinner — whom Lee called the team’s “grandma” because she has so much experience on the national team — will go home to Arizona with a long-awaited Olympic medal around her neck.

Maggie Astor contributed reporting.

TOKYO — The middle weekend of any Olympics is always a big one. Swimming wraps up, track gets going, and the team events approach their knockout stages. And it seems like the deluge of events at the Tokyo Games hits a peak on Sunday.

It all got started with Caeleb Dressel of the United States winning his fourth gold medal of the Games in the 50-meter freestyle. Emma McKeon of Australia won her third gold in the women’s 50 free. In an uncharacteristically exciting 1,500-meter freestyle, Bobby Finke of the U.S. came from behind in the last 50 meters to win.

The United States has never lost a men’s medley relay in any Olympics it has competed in, and despite a challenge from Britain, the Americans won it again in Tokyo, setting a world record and earning Dressel yet another gold medal, his fifth. Australia won the women’s medley, edging the U.S., and making McKeon only the second woman to collect seven medals in one Olympics.

In golf, Xander Schauffele of the United States won the first gold medal for the United States since 1904 (it should be noted that golf was not held at the Games between 1904 and 2016). Rory Sabbatini, a South African playing for Slovakia, the country of his wife’s birth, was second.

In gymnastics event finals, Rebeca Andrade, the all-around silver medalist, won the women’s vault, while Mykayla Skinner of the United States won the silver. Artem Dolgopyat of Israel won the men’s floor exercise.

You already saw the BMX riders race; on Sunday, they did tricks on their bikes in the freestyle competition, which is new to these Games. Charlotte Worthington of Britain won the women’s competition, with Hannah Roberts of the United States second. Logan Martin of Australia won the men’s event.

The first track final of the day was women’s shot put. Gong Lijiao of China won gold, and Raven Saunders of the United States took silver.

In tennis, Alexander Zverev of Germany defeated Karen Khachanov of Russia, 6-3, 6-1, to win the men’s singles. The Czech team of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova defeated Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland in women’s doubles.

Duke Ragan of the United States clinched a men’s featherweight boxing medal with a 3-2 win in his quarterfinal.

In yachting, the Laser events concluded with Australia winning the men’s gold and Denmark the women’s. The Chinese divers Shi Tingmao and Wang Han went 1-2 in women’s springboard diving, with the American Krysta Palmer in third.

In the Tokyo evening, early Sunday morning U.S. time, track finals include the men’s high jump with Ju’Vaughn Harrison of the United States starting a high jump-long jump double, and the always glamorous men’s 100 meters to round out a stellar day at the Games.

Alexander Zverev of Germany won the gold medal in the Olympic tennis tournament Sunday, defeating Karen Khachanov of Russia in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.

The tournament victory was arguably the most significant of Zverev’s career, especially considering he upset Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1, in the semifinal. Djokovic, the winner of the year’s first three Grand Slam tournaments, was seeking a Golden Slam and needed the Olympic gold medal and the U.S. Open title later this summer to achieve it.

Zverev called the win over Djokovic the proudest moment of his career, but he did himself one better Sunday in beating Khachanov, 25, a powerful Russian whose game lately has shown signs of the promise that characterized his first years on the tour.

But midway through the second set against Djokovic, Zverev experienced a revelation — that he needed to stop rallying and start swinging through the ball. He reeled of 10 of 11 games to send Djokovic packing and picked up Sunday right where he left off.

Zverev broke Khachanov’s serve in the third game of the first set then once more in the ninth game to take the first set, forcing Khachanov into a sloppy volley that sailed wide of the open court.

Zverev never looked back from there, bullying Khachanov with big serves and searing backhands and even sprinkling in the occasional drop shot and topspin lob.

A huge soccer fan, Zverev played in a white shirt with black trim on the sleeves — and a hint of tennis ball yellow — that was awfully similar to the uniform that Germany’s six-time World Cup champion soccer teams wear.

He looked every bit the worldbeater Sunday against Khachanov. By the middle of the second set, Khachanov had lost the zip in his legs. Down 0-5 and in danger of an embarrassing end, he whacked a ball high into the empty stadium seats.

How different a player Zverev seems now from 11 months ago when, in the late stages of the U.S. Open final, his game devolved into a series of slices and soft second serves.

Zverev blasted a 130 m.p.h. ace to get to within two points of the gold medal, pushed perfect backhand volley for match point then clinched the gold medal with a blast off his forehand from the middle of the court. When Khachanov’s last swing sent the ball into the bottom of the net, he collapsed to his knees and buried his face on the pavement.

Xander Schauffele of the United States won the gold medal in men’s golf at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday, edging a crowded group of pursuers to win by a single stroke.

Schauffele came into the 18th hole with a one-shot lead over his closest rival but, after a poor tee shot, he was forced to lay up. He then landed a beautiful short-iron shot four feet from the cup. When he made his putt for par, the gold medal was his.

It was the first American gold medal in golf since 1904, a yawning gap explained by the sport being dropped after those Games and returning only in 2016.

Schauffele held off Rory Sabbatini, a South African playing for Slovakia, his wife’s native country, who blistered the course with a final round 10-under 61 that was good enough for the silver.

The battle for the bronze was an unusual seven-way playoff. Several major champions were in that group, including Rory McIlroy of Ireland, Hideki Matsuyama of Japan and Collin Morikawa of the United States.

Two players were knocked out with bogeys at the first playoff hole, and three more after Morikawa and C.T. Pan of Taiwan birdied the third.

It was the relatively unheralded Pan who won the bronze, though, with a par on the fourth playoff hole after Morikawa found the sand.

TOKYO — The medals, dozens of them, arrived in singles and in bunches, in short races and long ones, in medleys and relays. But every day, it seemed, the United States and Australia tossed a few more on the pile. Sunday was no different.

Emma McKeon of Australia became the second woman to win seven medals in a single Olympics, and Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke of the United States added more gold medals to the American haul on a frantic final day of the swimming competition at the Tokyo Aquatics Center.

The United States finished the meet by winning the men’s 4×100-meter medley relay in world-record time, extending an American unbeaten streak in the event. The victory also gave Dressel, who won the men’s 50 freestyle in Sunday’s opening race, his fifth gold medal of the Games.

Dressel, 24, became only the fifth American to win five golds in a single Games, joining a list that includes some of the greatest Olympians in the country’s history: the speedskater Eric Heiden and the swimmers Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi and Michael Phelps. (Phelps accomplished the feat three times.)

“I’m proud of myself,” Dressel said afterward. “I feel like I reached what my potential was at these Games, and it was really fun racing.”

The American swimmers finished the Olympic meet with 30 total medals, down from the 33 they won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. And their final total of 11 gold medals fell short of the 16 they took home from the last Games.

In some ways, then, the team has looked like a group in transition. Afterward, the coaches said they hoped their young athletes had gained valuable experience for the next Olympics, now only three years away.

“Of course we’d love to have more golds here, just like we’d love to have more medals in general,” said Greg Meehan, the women’s team coach. “I think we had four fourth places.”

McKeon, 27, had started the day knowing that a top-three finish in her two races — the 50 free and the 4×100 medley relay — would make her only the second woman, after the Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya in 1952, to win seven medals at a single Olympics. By day’s end, she had won gold in both.

In her first race, McKeon emerged from a highly competitive field to take gold in the women’s 50 freestyle, finishing with a time of 23.81 seconds, an Olympic record. Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden was second (24.07 seconds) and Pernille Blume of Denmark, who won gold in 2016, took third (24.21). Abbey Weitzeil, the only American in the final, finished last.

Later, in the women’s 4×100 medley relay, Australia won the gold medal with a time of 3:51.60. The American women, who won gold in the event at the 2016 Games, settled for the silver. Canada took the bronze.

McKeon erased a small U.S. lead with her butterfly leg, and Cate Campbell delivered the final touch after a powerful closing freestyle. While McKeon picked up her seventh medal — and her fourth gold — in the race, Campbell collected her fourth. She finished the Games with three golds and a bronze.

McKeon said the day had felt surreal. “To be in that kind of company, it’s an honor,” she said of tying a record for medals at a single Games. “And I know I’ve worked hard for it.”

Her total ran Australia’s medal count to 20, with nine golds, meaning that the Aussies and the Americans together had won nearly half of the medals available (50, of 105) and more than half the golds.

Wedged between some of the superstars of the sport, Finke, 21, had been a relative unknown before this month. On Sunday, he won his second gold medal by prevailing in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle after an intense three-man showdown with Mykhailo Romanchuk of Ukraine and Florian Wellbrock of Germany.

Finke hung close for most of the race and then propelled himself into the lead with his final turn. Finding a new gear after 29 relentlessly steady laps, he beat his rivals to the wall. He finished in 14 minutes 39.65 seconds, a body length ahead of Romanchuk (14:40.66) and Wellbrock (14:40.91).

His victory, and Katie Ledecky’s in the women’s event, gave the United States a sweep of the grueling 30-lap swimming marathons, the longest races in the competition.

“I don’t know how I’m going to be able to process things,” Finke said afterward. “I came into to this meet not really expecting to medal for anything.”

Dressel had entered the meet with much higher expectations. He opened the session by winning his fourth gold medal of the Games with a lung-busting sprint to victory in the 50 free. Diving off the blocks, he surfaced in the lead and never gave it up — or took a breath — as he finished in 21.07 seconds, an Olympic record. Florent Manaudou of France finished second in 21.55 seconds, and Bruno Fratus of Brazil (21.57) came in third.

When Dressel learned that he had won, he flexed his left bicep and then hustled out of the pool to prepare for the day’s final race, the 4×100 medley relay.

Dressel had entered the pool Sunday having already won three gold medals at the Games, in the 4×100 freestyle relay, the 100 free and the 100 butterfly. His time in the 100 butterfly, 49.45 seconds, was also a world record.

History was on the line in the final event, the men’s 4×100 medley relay. The American men entered the competition having won gold in every Olympics they had competed in — they did not participate in 1980, when the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics — and kept the streak alive with a world record, winning easily in 3:26.78.

Despite their dominance, the Americans had entered the race as underdogs. The Americans had nearly missed the final, in fact, qualifying seventh with a different set of swimmers. That left the group that strode onto the deck for the final — Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew, Dressel and Zach Apple — in an outside position, in Lane 1, but with a better-than-outside shot.

Dave Durden, the head coach of the men’s team, said he knew the team had a shot when he looked at splits from the previous world-record time and saw that each of the American men was individually capable of beating them.

“All we wanted them to do was swim at their level,” said Durden, who added that Dressel’s earlier swim had freed him mentally to perform well in the relay.

Murphy, the world-record holder in the 100 backstroke, staked the Americans to an early lead, before Adam Peaty of Britain, the world’s fastest man in the breaststroke, immediately erased the advantage by the race’s halfway mark.

But the Americans were just too deep. Dressel powered back in the butterfly, and Apple kept the United States streak alive with a strong closing freestyle leg. Britain won the silver and Italy took the bronze.

After a grueling week and a half of swimming, and an Olympic cycle that lasted five years instead of four, Dressel joked that he was ready to go home.

“I’m going to take a little break here,” he said, laughing. “I’m pretty over swimming, guys.”

Simone Biles has withdrawn from her third individual apparatus final of the Olympics, leaving only one event where she can choose to compete.

Biles on Sunday withdrew from the floor exercise final, which was scheduled for Monday, U.S.A. Gymnastics said in a statement. She had previously said that she would not compete in the uneven bars or vault finals, which are scheduled for Sunday night.

Her last potential event in the Tokyo Games would be the balance beam, and U.S.A. Gymnastics said she would make a decision soon.

“Either way, we’re all behind you, Simone,” the organization said in a statement.

MyKayla Skinner, another American, will take Biles’s place in the vault final. On the floor exercise, Jennifer Gadirova of Britain will move into Biles’s spot.

Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, was expected to repeat as all-around champion, but she withdrew from the all-around and the team final last week, citing mental health issues. She said that she was not mentally prepared to compete and that she was also dealing with a common gymnastics problem of her losing bearings while performing daring maneuvers in the air.

She exited the team final after the vault, and was in the stands to watch her teammate Sunisa Lee win the all-around. Lee was the fifth straight American woman to win that event, following Carly Patterson in 2004, Nastia Liukin in 2008, Gabby Douglas in 2012 and Biles in 2016.

Lee’s next chance at a medal will be on Sunday in the uneven bars, her best event.

TOKYO — The most decorated Olympic swimmer in Tokyo is … Caeleb Dressel? Katie Ledecky?

Nope. It is Emma McKeon of Australia, whose haul of seven medals ties her for the record by any female Olympian, set in 1952 at the Helsinki Games by the gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya of the Soviet Union.

McKeon’s seventh medal came in the 4×100 medley relay and made her the first female swimmer to win that many at a single Games. She joins Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Matt Biondi as the only swimmers with seven or more (Phelps has the record, with eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Games).

Australia set an Olympic record in the race with a time of 3:51:60, edging out the United States in a stroke-for-stroke final lap. Canada won bronze.

She won the 50 free in a time of 23.81, an Olympic record.

“I never thought that I would win a 50 freestyle because I have been training for the 200 my whole life,’’ she said afterward. “If I put it altogether I knew I could win. It’s very surreal. I think the whole week I’ve been kind of keeping my emotions just at a certain level because I knew I had so much more racing to do. It’s very surreal to be in that kind of company.”

McKeon’s tally:

• 4×100 freestyle relay (gold, world record)

• 100 free (gold, Olympic record)

• 50 free (gold, Olympic record)

• 100 butterfly (bronze)

• 4×200 free relay (bronze)

• 4×100 mixed medley relay (bronze)

• 4×100 medley relay (gold, Olympic record)

She won four medals at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, giving her 11 medals in total and making her the most decorated Australian Olympian ever. Her five gold medals in Rio and Tokyo are tied with the swimmer Ian Thorpe for the most in Australian history.

They make it look easy: crisp gymnastics through the air, knifing impact with the water and barely a splash upon entry.

But diving is a grueling sport, requiring years of training from a young age. Some divers suffer from damage to their eyes, like detached retinas, from constant impact with the water. And for all that training, an Olympic performance comes down to a few seconds of twists and turns. There is no margin for error.

On Sunday, Shi Tingmao of China won gold in the 3-meter springboard event. Her teammate, Wang Han, took silver, underlining China’s dominance of this precision sport, in which perfection must be achieved in a couple seconds. Krysta Palmer of the United States rounded out the medals with bronze.

Shi, a 29-year-old veteran who started her athletic career at age 6 as a gymnast before switching to diving five years later, unleashed an inward 2 1/2 somersaults pike for her first dive and capped it with a forward 2 1/2 somersaults 1 twist pike for her fifth and final dive. Her score of 383.50 dominated the rankings, with Wang scoring 348.75.

At the 2016 Rio Games, Shi captured gold in both the 3-meter springboard and the 3-meter synchronized events.

Diving routines unfold so quickly that they look like a video on fast-forward. The judges must make almost equally rapid verdicts on the athletes’ performances.

The Chinese Olympic diving team, nurtured in state training facilities from early elementary school age, has dominated the competition for years.

In Tokyo, they have struck gold in the women’s synchronized 3-meter event, the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform event and the men’s synchronized 3-meter event. The only gold that has eluded the squad so far was in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform event, in which they took silver.

TOKYO — When Laurel Hubbard, a 43-year-old weight lifter from New Zealand, makes her first attempt in the women’s heavyweight competition on Monday, she will become the first openly transgender female athlete to compete at the Olympics.

Yet she will do so amid a debate over whether she should be at the Games at all.

Athletes, advocates for women’s sports and fair-sport campaigners have questioned whether Hubbard, who competed in men’s competitions before quitting the sport more than a decade ago, has an unfair advantage. Others believe the Games’ binary categories fail to account for a diverse group of athletes.

Hubbard, who rarely speaks to the news media, declined a request for comment. But in 2017, she told Radio New Zealand that she did not see herself as a flag bearer for transgender athletes.

“It’s not my role or my goal to change people’s minds,” Hubbard said. “I would hope they would support me, but it’s not for me to make them do so.”

The New Zealand Olympic committee has shielded Hubbard since she arrived in Tokyo. Kereyn Smith, secretary-general of the committee, called Hubbard “quite a private person” and said she wanted her lifting to be the focus.

“She’s an athlete,” Smith said in an interview on Friday. “She wants to come here and perform and achieve her Olympic dream and ambition.”

Supporters of transgender athletes cheered her arrival.

“This moment is incredibly significant for the trans community, for our representation in sport and for all trans people and nonbinary kids to see themselves and know that sport is a place for them,” said Chris Mosier, a race walker who in 2020 became the first openly transgender man to compete in a U.S. Olympic trials.

Katie Ledecky of the United States swam to her second gold of the Games in the women’s 800 meters, a victory made all the more satisfying because it was at the expense of her rival Ariarne Titmus of Australia. Caeleb Dressel of the United States won his third gold medal, setting a world record in the 100-meter butterfly.

But there was disappointment for the U.S. swimmers in the new mixed medley relay: Ryan Murphy had the team in the lead after the opening backstroke leg, but they faded on the breaststroke and butterfly, all the way to last place at one point. Dressel’s freestyle anchor could pull them to only fifth. Britain won the event.

In track and field, Elaine Thompson-Herah defended her title in the 100-meter dash and led a Jamaican sweep of the podium with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson. Poland won the first mixed-gender 4×400 relay, followed by the Dominican Republic and the United States.

More mixed-gender events on Saturday: Spain won in trap shooting, with tiny San Marino in second and the United States third. Earlier, Alessandra Perilli had won San Marino’s first-ever medal in the individual event. Now she has two.

In the mixed triathlon relay, Britain beat the United States for gold, and France surprised Japan in the judo team competition.

The United States men’s basketball team beat the Czech Republic, 119-84, and advanced to the quarterfinals. The U.S. baseball team defeated South Korea, 4-2, and won its group.

Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain defeated Novak Djokovic to win the bronze in men’s tennis. Djokovic withdrew from his bronze medal mixed doubles match. The women’s tennis gold medal went to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.

And no one bounced better than Ivan Litvinovich of Belarus in men’s trampoline; Dong Dong of China was second for his fourth career medal in the event.

TOKYO — Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica on Saturday repeated as the Olympic champion in the women’s 100 meters, outsprinting a field that included Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a two-time former champion.

Thompson-Herah finished in 10.61 seconds, breaking Florence Griffith-Joyner’s Olympic record by a hundredth of a second in a time that made her the second-fastest woman in history.

It was a Jamaican sweep of the medals: Fraser-Pryce took silver in 10.74, and Shericka Jackson won bronze.

Fraser-Pryce had been seeking her third Olympic gold in the event after winning back-to-back titles at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. She won bronze in the 100 meters at the Rio Olympics in 2016, finishing behind Thompson-Herah and Tori Bowie of the United States.

On Saturday, Thompson-Herah edged ahead of Fraser-Pryce about halfway down the track and held her off, triumphantly raising her left arm as she crossed the finish line. She then fell to the track in apparent disbelief.

Teahna Daniels, the lone American in the race, finished seventh.

The final on Saturday was missing two notable figures: Sha’Carri Richardson, the U.S. champion, who is serving a monthlong suspension for testing positive for marijuana, a banned substance; and Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria, who was suspended by antidoping authorities on Saturday for testing positive for human growth hormone.

A deep pool of talent remained. Thompson-Herah seemed to send a message by winning her semifinal heat in 10.76 seconds, despite slowing a few meters from the finish.

Fraser-Pryce, meanwhile, came through her semifinal heat in 10.73. Both runners appeared primed for a showdown. They delivered.

The women’s 100-meter final was preceded by the first mixed-gender 4×400 relay in Olympic history. In a stunner, Poland won gold in a tight finish with the Dominican Republic in second, and the United States in third.

And in first-round heats of the men’s 100-meter dash, all three Americans — Trayvon Bromell, Fred Kerley and Ronnie Baker — made it through to the semifinals, though Bromell, one of the favorites to win gold, labored to a fourth-place in his heat and advanced based only on his time.