U.S. softball team goes to 5-0, hits last in gold-medal rematch
U.S. tops Japan 2-1 to stay perfect in group play and gains advantage for championship game.
Kelsey Stewart homered leading off the seventh inning, capping a late rally that gave the United States a 21 victory Monday over Japan in Yokohama to win the group stage at the Olympics and the right to bat last in the goldmedal game.
The U.S. trailed until an RBI single by Cal alum Valerie Arioto in the sixth.
Salinas native Monica Abbott (30) pitched a perfect seventh in her third relief outing to go along with two wins as a starter. The lanky lefthander is likely to start Tuesday’s goldmedal rematch against Japan, a day before her 36th birthday.
Stewart hit the Americans’ first homer of the Olympics, a drive just over the glove of right fielder Yuka Ichiguchi.
The Americans, trying to bounce back from their 31 loss to Japan in the 2008 goldmedal game, finished the group stage 50 while Japan dropped to 41.
The U.S. gave 28yearold righthander Ally Carda her Olympic mound debut, using Cat Osterman in relief in the sixth, when she struck out both batters she faced, then Abbott.
Japan rested Yukiko Ueno, 39, who beat the U.S. in the 2008 goldmedal game started by Osterman, and Miu Goto.
Swimming: Caeleb Dressel led off a U.S. victory in the men’s 4x100meter freestyle relay.
Dressel gave the U.S. the lead, and the men never gave it up. He swam the first leg in a blistering 47.26 seconds. Blake Pieroni and Bowe Becker kept the Americans out front before Zach Apple turned in an anchor leg of 46.69 to leave no doubt.
The U.S. won in 3:08.97, the thirdfastest time in history. Italy took the silver in 3:10.11, with the bronze going to Australia in 3:10.22.
Apple climbed from the pool to an embrace from Dressel, who is set for a grueling schedule of three individual events and three relays in Tokyo.
One down, five to go. ⏩ Perhaps the surest bet at the pool, Britain’s Adam Peaty, repeated as Olympic champion in the men’s 100 breaststroke.
The worldrecord holder posted the fifthfastest time in history (57.37) to rout the field. Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands took silver in 58.00, while the bronze went to Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi in 58.33.
⏩ Maggie MacNeil won Canada’s first gold medal at the pool, in the women’s 100 butterfly.
The reigning world champion touched first in 55.59, edging out Zhang Yufei of China (55.64) for the top spot. Emma McKeon of Australia took the bronze in 55.72, beating American Torri Huske, who will be a freshman at Stanford this fall, by onehundredth of a second.
Fencing: Lee Kiefer won the third gold medal for the United States at the Tokyo Olympics and the third fencing gold in U.S. history by beating defending champion Inna Deriglazova of Russia 1513 in the women’s foil final in Chiba, Japan.
⏩ Romain Cannone won France’s first gold medal of the Games, beating Gergely Siklosi of Hungary 1510 in the men’s epee final.
Taekwondo: Anastasija Zolotic won the United States’ first gold medal in women’s taekwondo by beating Russian athlete Tatiana Minina 2517 for the featherweight division title. Zolotic, 18, has told friends and family since childhood that she would be an Olympic champ.
“My 8yearold self was running around the schoolyard saying I was going to be Olympic champion but she could never have imagined what this mo
ment is like,” Zolotic said. “It’s unbelievable. It really hasn’t sunk in yet.”
Tennis: Naomi Osaka advanced to the the third round, stepping up her game when she needed to in a 63, 62 win over 49thranked Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland to reach the last 16 at Ariake Tennis Park. The secondranked Osaka will next face 2019 French Open runnerup Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic or Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania.
Triathlon: Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt won the men’s triathlon in a time of 1 hour, 45 minutes and 4 seconds, 11 seconds ahead of Britain’s Alex Yee. New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde was third. Blummenfelt was 13th in Rio in 2016.
Weightlifting: Three events, three gold medals. China kept its perfect record in Tokyo Olympic weightlifting, but only after plenty of drama.
It was gold or nothing when Chen Lijun stepped onto the stage for his second lift in the clean and jerk. He had two shots at lifting 187 kilograms — one kilogram short of the world record — to beat Colombia’s Luis Javier Mosquera. Fail and he was off the podium in the 67kilogram category.
Chen made the lift look easy, sparking loud celebrations as team officials in the hall waved flags. It came five years after cramps ended his Olympic medal hopes in Rio de Janeiro.
Chen’s gold was China’s second win of the day. Li Fabin won the 61kg class after pulling off a spectacular “flamingo” lift on one leg as he tried to balance earlier in the competition.
All eight Chinese weightlifters in Tokyo are gold medal contenders. Conditions are favorable for a historic sweep. Traditional rival North Korea is skipping the Olympics entirely, citing the coronavirus pandemic. Many other leading nations are fielding smaller squads. Judo: Japanese siblings Hifumi and Uta Abe each won gold medals in judo, giving the host country three golds in its beloved homegrown martial art. Hifumi triumphed in the men’s 66kilogram category shortly after Uta won the women’s 52kilogram division.
Cycling: Anna Kiesenhofer figured out a way to beat the powerhouse Dutch team in the women’s road race in Oyama: Make them forget you’re there.
The relatively unknown mathematician from Austria got into an early breakaway, then built a gap so big that the rest of the field forgot she was out ahead of them.
So when Annemiek van Vleuten escaped the peloton in the final kilometers, she threw her arms in the air thinking she had delivered a gold medal for the Netherlands. “I thought I had won,” van Vleuten said.
Surfing: The men’s contest was delayed 90 minutes due to low tide at Tsurigasaki beach, about 90 miles east of Tokyo. The International Surfing Association, the sport’s Olympic governing body, said low tide combined with the shifting weather has destabilized the quality of the surf conditions for the sport’s big debut.
Diving: China got off to a winning start in diving, claiming gold in women’s 3meter synchronized springboard to start what the Chinese hope is a sweep of the eight events. Shi Tingmao and Wang Han totaled 326.40 points, easily winning by 25.62 points. The U.S. duo of Alison Gibson and Krysta Palmer (University of Nevada) finished last among eight teams in their Olympic debuts.
Water polo: Cal alum Johnny Hooper returned to his mother’s homeland for his Olympic debut and had a big U.S. goal in a 1513 victory over Japan. He scored from deep with the U.S. clinging to a onegoal lead in the final minute to close it out.
Volleyball: The Russian men beat the United States in poolplay action, taking control when they held off two match points before taking the second set 2725 to go up 20. The U.S. rallied to win the third set before falling 2523 in the final set to fall to 11 in the tournament.
⏩ Defending gold medalist China lost its opening match of the women’s event for the second straight Olympics. Turkey won in Pool B 2521, 2514, 2514.
On the podium: Athletes who won medals on the opening weekend also helped earn a photogenic victory for others to share in the next two weeks.
Some medalists Sunday ignored the order from organizers to wear masks for the podium ceremony to protect against the coronavirus.
Seeing the pushback, the International Olympic Committee said, “Victory ceremony protocol has been adapted to allow athletes to have an image for the media that captures their faces and their emotions during a unique moment in their sporting career.”