Your Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics anticipation thread!

During the BMX, especially during Nakamura Rim’s round, they kept cutting away to a line of fans on the bridge by the arena. A little bit of pathos, there.

Enoshima is a great location for the sailing. (I really need to go and visit, that area is on Japanese TV a lot)

bbc changed channels halfway through the women's second bmx with the gbr having fallen during first run...

No Jamaican in the men’s 100m final.

love the Kenyan singlets

Yulimar finally smashes the World Record in the triple jump. Beaten after 26 years.

Aw, Bashim and Tamberi were given the option of having a jump-off in the high jump or sharing the gold and they chose to share.

That was terrific.

that Barshim-Tambera moment will be the best gif of these Games

*Tamberi

Wow, Italy gold in 100m too!

History made 😍

Gold medal for both Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi after the two athletes agree on it!#Olympics #athletics #TokyoOlympics2021 pic.twitter.com/zpWXVmsuiw

— George Orfanakis (@G_Orfan) August 1, 2021

Fratus é a personificação do meme do emocionado do pódio 🥉🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/EfqwUwlf8s

— Vinícius (@vinni_pereira) August 1, 2021

lol badminton women's doubles final one player ran off court mid point leaving her partner to hold on, grabbed a spare racket off the table, ran back and won the point. and the indonesian pair win gold despite being unseeded

!!

This is rather worrying but not unexpected: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-olympics-belarusian-athlete-says-she-was-taken-airport-go-home-after-2021-08-01/

Looks like Facebook is good for something:

"The 25-year-old Rojas, who has already won two world titles and a silver medal in Rio in 2016, paid credit to her coach, the legendary Cuban long jumper Ivan Pedroso, with whom she linked via Facebook. After its algorithm suggested they be friends, she wrote to Pedroso to say how much she admired him. He replied that he rated her as well and then invited her to train with him in Spain.

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“It was destiny,” she said. “It was meant to happen. I think that meeting Ivan through Facebook was definitely a turning point in my life. I just broke a world record and have an Olympic gold medal. This is priceless. I am making my dreams come true.”

Rojas, who had initially wanted to be a volleyball player only to find there was no team in her local sports centre in Anzoategui, beat Patricia Mamona of Portugal and her training partner, Ana Peleteiro of Spain, into silver and bronze respectively.

“I was looking for the world record, I knew we had that distance in my legs to get it,” she said. “I could hear the ‘wow’ from the crowd and Ana screaming – I didn’t have to look because my head, my heart, my body already knew. My coach was screaming and jumping and cheering. It is incredible!”

When told that she was the first Venezuelan female gold medallist, she said: “I think I am opening doors – and not just for myself. I am also opening doors for people who want to achieve great things and to write great things for my country.”"

Lol bcz it's true

who cares https://t.co/ZsBL4B7loO

— raandy (@randygdub) August 1, 2021

"Can we have two golds?"

Best Olympic moment I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/vZP8XNegVq

— Ana Breton (@missbreton) August 2, 2021

That was magic.

Not so magic are TeamGB’s Lotus bikes.

The moment of this Olympics for sure! And all the right people have been triggered by it. I'm curious why anyone would choose to have a jumpoff: "You can either both have the gold now, or potentially lose. It's your choice."

Canada beat US in the women's fitba. A shit match and US had the better of it tbh but would be cracking if Sinclair can end her career with the gold

sweet sweet revenge for 2012

This is rather worrying but not unexpected: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-olympics-belarusian-athlete-says-she-was-taken-airport-go-home-after-2021-08-01/

She has been offered asylum in Poland. The whole story is crazy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/asia/belarus-olympics-kristina-timanovskaya.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage

Oh look, the foundations of women's sport have not in fact been ripped asunder, dashing the dreams of little girls everywhere or whatever the TERFs told us would happen https://t.co/h8TsdnJ0fH

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) August 2, 2021

the gifs are there:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/e4d4faf7e08b89ee2dbdc89e6ab1f6e9/69b89261e2dd4630-43/s400x600/7afdbac63454fc135fbf0a7054ad4a205a918348.gifv

https://64.media.tumblr.com/3f656ace3fb595eb46f7b1ab849391b7/69b89261e2dd4630-2e/s400x600/4ca58607e65de171e69e3e519ab3fb4d59e05711.gifv

https://64.media.tumblr.com/bd62aee6ecaf991e7df8128b9d58a61d/69b89261e2dd4630-e9/s400x600/b3938ac4d86b5eda785e6727d1dec0183aeb3e90.gifv

I was watching some of the totally nuts women's badminton duo championship and got a chuckle when the guy calling the game apologized for the cursing in Mandarin by one of the competitors.

I never realized there was so much posturing in pro badminton

the Indonesian player switching out her racquet midway through a game, such a boss move

Buat yang ketinggalan momen Greysia Poli ganti raket di tengah rally seru, retwet dan share ke WA grup kamu

Indonesia!! #greyapfinaltokyo2020

🇮🇩🇮🇩🇮🇩 pic.twitter.com/WXx6lib6Pa

— Ridlwan ꦗꦺꦴꦏꦺꦴꦮꦶ (@ridlwandjogja) August 2, 2021

That was incredible. I love Badminton but we don't get enough coverage of it here.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/02/masilingi-and-mboma-racing-against-olympic-elite-and-complex-cruelty

"Mboma and Masilingi are women."

Do you want to run that past some of your colleagues at The Guardian?

USA/Spain b-ball not on tv, streaming only...yeah that makes sense.

IOC 'looking at' potential Chinese political gesture on podium
Alex Capstick

BBC Sport

The IOC is looking into a case of two Chinese athletes who wore Mao Zedong badges on the podium. The badges were pinned to the jerseys of Team Sprint gold medalists Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi during their medal ceremony at the Velodrome. It’s a potential violation of rule 50 which bars political gestures on the victory podium.

wow!! at that 400m hurdles final.

biles just killed her beam routine. love to see it. 2nd atm

Still waiting for a result in the men’s team pursuit semi. TeamGB should have lost to Denmark as they made the catch, but the front Dane took out the last British rider, seemingly not looking where he was going. The rules are not clear what happens here.

The bouldering section of the sport climbing is absolutely fascinating.

Had the best time covering climbing’s debut today: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/climbing-men-begin-olympic-summit-attempt-sports-games-debut-2021-08-03/

👍

So jealous you got to see that. That’s a great story.

I had to take myself to be after the first American nearly made it to the top of the lead wall. I did a lot of climbing as a teenager and I guess I have a slight appreciation for what they are doing, but I didn’t expect it to be so fascinating. It’s a mental problem as much as a test of strength and skill.

Are you going back for the rest of the contest, I think between the rest of the climbing and the rest of the track cycling I have my Olympic viewing fixed till Sunday.

watching the lead climbing now and it's fascinating that they are multiplying the scores of the 3 disciplines.

Are the bouldering & speed available on the BBC?

Can’t help you there, in Australia we have channel 7 giving the all sports all the time multi channel experience, all for the small price of watching commercials for ‘The Voice’ during crucial bits of the action.

just caught the lead by accident, didn't see the other bits. BUT that was only the men's qualifying, the women's qualifying is tonight and the finals are on over the two after that. 09:30 it says, so maybe watchable live.

lol at the swimming marathon feeding station

The women’s 800m was great. Mu won, as expected, and broke the US record but looked like she could comfortably have taken at least another second or two off her time if she really needed to. Hodgkinson broke Kelly Holmes’ British record for silver. Both are 19 years old.

The 800m is famously grueling, because it is the longest race where you pretty much are sprinting the whole time, but Mu runs so loose and easy she's amazing to watch.

Are you going back for the rest of the contest

yes, will be covering all of climbing. I don't have much time to post on here, but I (try to) update regularly on work twitter: https://twitter.com/rozlatiff

meanwhile, bassa mawem, who came very close to breaking the world record in the speed climbing qualifier, has pulled out of the final after injuring himself in the lead event. :(

Him and his brother Mickael are super fun, we did a video profile of them before the competition started: https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/climbing-frances-mawem-brothers-shoot-fo-id733546384?chan=c1tal5kh

women's skateboard results spoilered by radio 4 this morning. still very watchable though - it's more bowl than the usual plywood features and smoother because of that. looks fun to skate.

some of the uniforms are too skimpy though, rara skirts and teenage midriff. conversely, Japan seem to be wearing full on button up dress shirts with collars.

I though the Japanese girl wearing the white boiler suit had the coolest look.

she was 12, and killed her heat.

the polish shirts are quietly stylish. but nothing yet up to the standard of the Dutch cargo pants from Street.

"I'm extraordinarily grateful to the IOC"

The first openly transgender Olympian, Laurel Hubbard, is set to retire after failing to record a successful lift in the women's +87kg weightliftinghttps://t.co/te4kyuf1hE pic.twitter.com/NXkh8ngbnU

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 4, 2021