Moore, Ferreira ride to historic surfing gold medals
After a series of underdogs stole the show at the beginning of surfing’s historic Olympic debut, two of the sport’s most seasoned superstars took home the gold medals.
Carissa Moore of the United States and Italo Ferreira of Brazil became the first Olympic surfing champions on Tuesday, more than a century after the sport first tried to get on the program.
The 28-year-old Moore, the darling child prodigy who could beat the boys and grew up to be the youngest world champion surfer, preserved after struggling in the early heats.
“It’s been a crazy couple of days,” Moore said. “A little bit of a rollercoaster of emotions just trying to figure out the break, find my rhythm, learning how to trust myself without my family here.”
The picture-perfect ending even included a rainbow that popped into the sky as Moore, who is the only Native Hawaiian surfer at the Games, shredded waves in the final against South African rival Bianca Buitendag.
Calling it “divine intervention,” the 17th-ranked Buitendag won silver after pulling off upset after upset over the three-day competition, starring in some of the contest’s biggest moments in her path to the Olympic podium.
When the clock ran out in the men’s final, Ferreira turned to the ocean, collapsed his hands together in a prayer and wept, nearly knocked over by the waves crashing onto shore as he thanked God for a dominate showing throughout the inaugural contest.
He won his final handily against Japan’s Kanoa Igarash, who is from Huntington Beach, despite crashing through an air to land on a broken board. The incident required a quick board switch on shore near the beginning of the heat, which didn’t seem to rattle the man who had so little growing up that he first learned to surf on a cooler.
“It’s super hard out there, but I knew that there was a lot of opportunities around,” the 27-year-old Ferreira said.
Tennis
Naomi Osaka was such a big headline act that she was given the honor to light the Olympic flame in her native country, but the four-time major champion will leave without a medal.
Osaka, who was born in
Japan and grew up in the United States, struggled with her usually reliable groundstrokes and lost 6-1, 6-4 in the third round to former French Open finalist Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic
“I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this,” Osaka said. “I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year (it) was a bit much. I think I’m glad with how I played, with taking that break that I had.”
Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron in Friday’s opening ceremony, won her opening two matches in straight sets following a two-month mental-health
break.
Softball
Japan won its second straight Olympic softball gold medal, beating the United States 2-0 in an emotional repeat of their 2008 victory in Beijing that again left the Americans in tears.
Yukiko Ueno took a onehitter into the sixth inning five days after her 39th birthday, and Japan snuffed out an American rally attempt with an acrobatic double play in the sixth inning.
Monica Abbott, who pitched a night before her 36th birthday, and 38-yearold Cat Osterman were the last holdovers from the U.S. team that lost to Japan 3-1 in 2008. This likely was their final moment on their sport’s grandest stage, which the International Olympic Committee has snatched away until at least 2028.
“I challenge the IOC to instate softball as a women’s sport into the Olympic docket on a regular basis,” said Abbott. “It’s been proven that we attract viewers, ... and I think it’s really difficult when you’re in an Olympics and then out of an Olympics ... to continue to build that momentum and engagement for this sport to grow worldwide.”
Swimming
Seventeen-year-old Lydia Jacoby of Alaska pulled off a stunning victory in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, upsetting American teammate and defending champion Lilly King.
“I was definitely racing for a medal. I knew I had it in me,” said Jacoby, who hails from the tiny town of Seward, which has a population of 2,733. “I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal, so when I looked up and saw the scoreboard it was insane.”
Only a handful of Alaska swimmers had even qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials. Jacoby was the first to ever make the team.
• The streak of 12 straight gold medals for the U.S. men in the individual backstroke ended when a pair of Russians beat out defending Olympic champion Ryan Murphy in the 100-meter race.
Evgeny Rylov won the gold medal in 51.98 and teammate Kliment Kolesnikov took the silver in 52.00. Murphy settled for the bronze in 52.19. It was the first backstroke defeat for the U.S. men at the Olympics since the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Volleyball
The expected Olympic showdown between the top two women’s volleyball teams in the world turned out to be a one-sided affair. The U.S. women swept defending gold medalist China 29-27, 25-22, 25-21 in a pool-play match.
Ratings
Viewership for the Tokyo Games has been down more than 30% compared to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. The Nielsen company said 16.9 million people watched Sunday night’s coverage on NBC, down 43% from the corresponding night in Rio. Saturday’s audience of 12.6 million was down 39%.