Day three of the Tokyo Olympics is underway and Great Britain came prepared, securing its first three gold medals in quick succession.
There is plenty of metal up for grabs for some of the 11,000 athletes battling it out today with finals in skateboarding, swimming, diving, archery, canoe, shooting, and cycling.
Other events also underway today include men’s handball and volleyball, tennis, badminton, beach volleyball, boxing, judo and taekwondo among others.
Here’s a recap of the medal events:
‘We are the typhoon’
Russia is back on top in men’s Olympic gymnastics after remarkable performances by Artur Dalaloyan and Nikita Nagornyy.
The victory marked the first Olympic title for the Russians since 1996 in Atlanta.
Russia’s total of 262.500, capped by Nagornyy’s rock-solid floor routine set with victory on the line, was just good enough to hold off the sport’s other two superpowers -Japan and China.
Japan used a brilliant high bar routine by Daiki Hashimoto in the final rotation to surge past China for second with a score of 262.397.
“This morning we heard that a typhoon was coming, well a typhoon is already here and got Gold. We were the typhoon,” said Nagornyy.
Teen spirit
The podium at the women’s street skateboarding event had an average age of 14 on Monday.
Thirteen-year-old Momiji Nishiya of Japan clinched the gold at the event’s debut at the Olympics. The silver medal went to Brazil’s Rayssa Leal, also 13, while Funa Nakayama, 16, secured the bronze for Japan.
“It’s going to change the whole game,” U.S. skater Mariah Duran said. “This is like opening at least one door to, you know, many skaters who are having the conversations with their parents, who want to start skating.
“I’m not surprised if there’s probably already like 500 girls getting a board today,” she added.
Golden boy
Adam Peaty, 26, won Great Britain its first gold medal of the competition after successfully defending his title in the men’s 100m breaststroke.
Peaty has been undefeated in the 100m discipline for seven years and his latest bit of bling adds to his eight world titles and 16 European titles.
“It just means the world to me, I thought I had the best preparation but morning finals changed everything and threw that out of the window,” he said in a statement.
“You can do whatever you want in your own pool but when it comes to being out here it’s not about time. I was racing myself. It wasn’t about the time but the race,” he added.
Swimming in medals
Plenty more swimming to catch up on:
- The USA sucessfully swam for gold at the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay
- Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, nicknamed the “Terminator,” won the women’s 400m freestyle
- Canada’s Margaret MacNeil bagged herself a gold medal in the women’s 100m butterfly
Diving for gold
Hard on the heels of its first gold medal of these games, Great Britain secured a second with Tom Daley and Matty Lee coming on top in the men’s synchronised 10m platform event.
They beat second-placed China by just 1.23 points.
It’s the first gold medal for Daley, 27, who made his Olympic debut aged 14 in Beijing and then won bronze in London 2012 and Rio 2016.
Men’s triathlon
Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt won the men’s triathlon Olympic gold medal following a three-way battle for the title.
“That finished tape has been something I’ve been dreaming about for so many years. And to actually be able to put it together on the day is something I’m really proud of,” he said after his win.
Alex Yee of Great Britain won the silver in the Tokyo 2020 swim-bike-run event for Great Britain’s sixth Olympic medal in triathlon.
And Hayden Wilde claimed the bronze for New Zealand’s first medal of the Tokyo 2020.
Cross-country mountain biking
Team GB podiumed again with Tom Pidcock’s gold in the cross-country mountain bike event.
Pidcock, 21, won the World Cup race at Nove Mesto earlier this year to become the Olympic favourite. But he was then hit by a car and broke his collarbone on a training ride, keeping him off a bike for about a week in June, putting his Olympic hopes in jeopardy.
Yet on Monday, he dominated the toughest course in Olympic history leaving reigning champion Nino Schurter and his Swiss teammate Mathias Flueckiger behind on the fourth of seven laps.
Slaloming to victory
Europeans dominated the men’s canoe slalom event with gold going to Slovenia’s Benjamin Savsek.
He was joined on the podium by Czech Republic’s Lukas Rohan and Germany’s Sideris Tasiadis.
Savsek’s and Rohan’s first and second place gave their respective countries their first medal of these summer Olympics.
Skeet shooting
Skeet shooting was a Team USA event with Vincent Hancock and Amber English winning gold in the men’s and women’s events respectively.
For Hancock, it’s the third gold medal, having won in Beijing and London, while English secured her very first gold. But both set new Olympic records on Monday.
Men’s archery
South Korea defended its Olympic men’s archery team title with a 6-0 win over Chinese Taipei during the gold-medal match. (An IOC arrangement from 1979 known as the Nagoya Resolution allows Taiwanese athletes to compete internationally but not under their own name, flag or anthem – hence the team is called Chinese Taipei).
In the bronze medal match, Hiroki Muto helped Japan beat the Netherlands in a shoot-off with a walk-off arrow that nearly landed in the heart of the target.
Judo sees Kosovo shine
Nora Gjakova has won Kosovo’s second gold medal in judo at the Tokyo Olympics with an ippon victory over France’s Sarah Leonie Cysique in the women’s 57-kilogram division.
Gjakova joined Distria Krasniqi, who won gold at 48kg on Saturday, as the second and third gold medalists in Kosovo’s entire Olympic history. Majlinda Kelmendi won Kosovo’s first at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, also in judo.
Meanwhile, Japanese judo superstar Shohei Ono has won his second Olympic gold medal after an epic lightweight final against Georgia’s Lasha Shavdatuashvili.
Ono is Japan’s fourth gold medalist in six weight classes so far in Tokyo in judo, the nation’s homegrown martial art. Japanese judokas have also won one silver and one bronze.
Fence off
Cheung Ka Long won Hong Kong’s second Olympic gold medal in its history by beating defending champion Daniele Garozzo 15-11 in the men’s foil fencing final.
Cheung secured the win with a video review for the last point and then ran to celebrate with his coach.
Hong Kong’s only previous Olympic win was gold for Lee Lai Shan in women’s windsurfing in 1996.
The women’s sabre fencing final was an all-Russian affair with Sofia Pozdniakova claiming gold, while compatriot Sofya Velikaya consoled herself with a silver medal — her third consecutive in the event.
Russia is competing under the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the latest doping-related sanctions from the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Manon Brunet of France won the bronze medal after beating Anna Marton of Hungary 15-6.
