Dates: 23 July-8 August Time in Tokyo: BST +8 |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button and online; Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live, Sports Extra and Sounds; live text and video clips on BBC Sport website and app. |
Chelsie Giles won Team GB’s first medal of the Tokyo Olympics with judo bronze, after Bradly Sinden guaranteed at least a silver by reaching his taekwondo final on day two of the Games.
Giles, competing at her first Olympics, finished third in the -52kg event, beating Switzerland’s Fabienne Kocher in her bronze medal repechage.
In the men’s -68kg taekwondo, 2019 world champion Sinden will fight for Britain’s first gold later on Sunday.
Earlier, his team-mate and two-time defending Olympic champion Jade Jones fell to a shock defeat in the opening round of the women’s -57kg taekwondo.
Jones, the gold medallist in both London and Rio, was stunned by Kimia Alizadeh of the refugee team.
That came moments after Andy Murray, also a two-time Olympic champion, pulled out of the defence of his singles title with a minor thigh strain.
He will still continue in the men’s doubles, alongside Joe Salisbury, after they won their opener on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Adam Peaty won his 100m breaststroke semi-final in 57.63 seconds as he looks to win a second successive gold in the event.
Meanwhile, Olympics organisers have cancelled two days of rowing with adverse weather conditions expected to hit Japan’s capital.
That news comes on the same day an extreme weather policy was activated in the tennis tournament, with temperatures reaching 32C in Tokyo on Sunday, leading the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to trigger measures to give competitors more protection.
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Giles wins Britain’s first medal
Giles had only won her first Grand Slam gold medal in Israel earlier this year but can now add Olympic bronze to her collection.
She won the repechage against Kocher by ippon, an early scoring waza-ari having given her the advantage before she showed the greater composure to hold on.
The 24-year-old had lost to Japan’s Uta Abe in the quarter-finals, but beat Charline van Snick of Belgium in the first repechage round to give herself a medal chance.
Her bronze means Britain’s judo team have won a medal at the each of the past three Olympics, following on from the bronze won by Sally Conway at Rio 2016 and the silver and bronze that Gemma Gibbons and Karina Bryant picked up at London 2012.
Sinden into taekwondo final
Bradly Sinden found himself staring down the barrel of defeat in his semi-final, falling 16-9 behind at one stage to Zhao Shuai of China before battling back to win 33-25.
He will face Uzbekistan’s Ulugbek Rashitov in the final, which gets under way at 13:45 BST.
Sinden had powered into the semi-final with a 20-point victory margin over Hakan Recber and then dug in against Zhao, a Rio Olympic champion at the lighter -58kg category.
He looks a strong bet to secure Britain’s first gold of the Games, and if he achieves it, will become Britain’s first male Olympic taekwondo champion.
Jones beaten in opening fight
Wales’ Jones had entered Tokyo 2020 as one of GB’s favourites to bring home an Olympic title. In doing so, she would have become the first British woman to win Olympic gold at three successive Games and the first taekwondo fighter to win triple gold.
Nicknamed the Headhunter, because she prefers to score points from her opponent’s head rather than their body, Jones is the reigning world champion in her division and had entered the Games as number one seed.
But she met her match in Alizadeh who, five years ago in Rio, became the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal with -57kg bronze.
Her 16-12 defeat of Jones in Tokyo was not the first win she has recorded over the world number one though, having also beaten her en route to bronze at the 2015 World Championships.
Remarkably, this was Alizadeh’s first international fight since 2018. She fled Iran in 2020 and the Iran Taekwondo Association has refused to allow her to represent another nation.
Murray withdraws from singles
Former world number one Murray had been due to face Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime in the first round of the men’s singles on Sunday, but withdrew before the match.
“I am really disappointed at having to withdraw but the medical staff have advised me against playing in both events,” he said.
He has been replaced in the singles draw by Australian Max Purcell.
Should Murray win a medal with Salisbury in the doubles, he will become the first man to win four Olympic medals since tennis returned to the Olympic programme in 1988.
Murray and Salisbury face German pair Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz in the second round.