TOKYO (AP) — The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
The U.S. women’s volleyball team won its third straight match at the Olympics and is assured of a spot in the quarterfinals.
The Americans beat Turkey 25-19, 25-20, 17-25, 20-25, 15-12 in their third pool play match to join Italy at 3-0 in Pool B.
The United States is seeking its first gold medal in the sport and is off to a good start in Tokyo with wins over Argentina, defending champion China and Turkey.
Italy, Serbia and Brazil have also clinched spots in the quarters with the other four spots still to be determined.
TABLE TENNIS FINALS
Chen Meng won the women’s singles table tennis title at the Olympics by beating Chinese teammate Sun Yingsha 4-2 in the final.
The victory is a return to winning form for China after a surprising loss in mixed doubles to a Japanese team in the gold medal match. Chinese women have won every Olympic gold medal in singles.
Sun took the first game 11-9 but the top-ranked Chen won the next two 11-6 and 11-4. Sun dominated the fourth game 11-5 with Chen running away in the fifth 11-4.
Chen finally won 11-9 in the final game and immediately went to hug her coach before both players posed with the Chinese flag and their paddles.
Mima Ito of Japan won the bronze medal by beating Yu Mengyu of Singapore.
Sunisa Lee became the fifth straight American woman to claim the Olympic title in the women’s all-around. She edged Rebeca Andrade of Brazil in an entertaining and hotly contested final while Simone Biles watched from the stands.
Lee’s total of 57.433 points was just enough to top Andrade. The Brazilian earned the first gymnastics all-around medal by a Latin American athlete but missed out on gold when she stepped out of bounds twice during her floor routine.
Russian gymnast Angelina Melnikova earned bronze two days after leading ROC to gold in the team final.
A few hours after winning the first individual gold medal of his career, Caeleb Dressel has returned to the pool to tie an Olympic record in preliminaries of the 100-meter butterfly.
Dressel touched first in the last of eight heats with a time of 50.39 seconds, equaling the mark set by Singapore’s Joseph Schooling when he won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Dressel holds the world record of 49.50, set two years ago at the world championships in Gwangju.
Hungary’s Kristof Milak was the second-fastest qualifier, advancing to Friday’s semifinals in 50.62. Milak already won gold in the 200 butterfly.
A couple of big names failed to make the top 16, which was needed to advance.
South African gold medalist Chad le Clos was 18th, while Schooling was far back with the 44th-fastest time. Only 11 swimmers went slower than the defending Olympic champion, who has fallen on hard times with his memorable upset of Michael Phelps.
Katie Ledecky has advanced to the final of her final Olympic event, posting the top time in preliminaries of the 800-meter freestyle.
After anchoring the United States to a silver medal in the 4x200 free relay during the morning session, Ledecky returned to the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in the evening to post the top qualifying time of 8 minutes, 15.67 seconds.
Another American, Katie Grimes, was the second-fastest qualifier at 8:17.05. Australia’s double gold medalist, Ariarne Titmus, also advanced to Saturday morning’s final to set up a fourth and final showdown with Ledecky.
Ledecky will be going for her second gold medal of these games and sixth individual medal overall, which would be the most of any female swimmer. She’s currently tied with Hungarian great Krisztina Egerszegi.
Allison Schmitt has entered rare territory with her swim in the women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay.
Schmitt became only the fourth American female swimmer to win 10 Olympic medals in her career. She earned a silver for her leadoff leg at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
The 31-year-old Schmitt is a team captain as she takes part in her fourth Olympics. She’s earned a pair of relay medals in Tokyo, also picking up a bronze for swimming in the preliminaries of the 4x100 free relay.
Schmitt now has four golds, three silvers and three bronzes in her career. The only other American female swimmers to win more are Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin, each of whom had 12 career medals.
Asked about her milestone, Schmitt broke down in tears. She says “getting to the Olympics is hard. Winning an Olympic medal is even harder.”
China has claimed its first gold medal at the Olympic pool.
Zhang Yufei turned in a dominating performance to win the women’s 200-meter butterfly with an Olympic-record time of 2 minutes, 3.86 seconds. She was more than a body length ahead of the pair of Americans, Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger.
The U.S. swimmers dueled back and forth for the silver, with Smith pulling ahead at the end to touch in 2:05.30. Flickinger earned the bronze in 2:05.65.
Bobby Finke of the United States has captured gold in the debut of the men’s 800-meter swimming freestyle event at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri grabbed the silver after leading most of the race, while the bronze went to Mykhailo Romachuk of Ukraine.
It was a thrilling finish. Germany’s Florian Wellbrock grabbed the lead from Paltrinieri on the final flip, with Finke lurking back in fourth. But the American turned on a dazzling burst of speed at the end of the 16-lap race, passing all three swimmers ahead of him to take the gold.
Finke’s winning time was 7 minutes, 41.87 seconds, just 0.24 ahead of Paltrinieri. Romachuk finished in 7:42.33, knocking Wellbrock back to fourth.
The men’s 800 freestyle was added to the Olympic program for the Tokyo Games, marking the first time that approximate distance was contested by the men since there was an 880-yard race at the 1904 St. Louis Games.
