Medical specialists confirmed 458 Covid cases during the Tokyo Olympic Games, the organising committee said Monday. Twenty-eight infections were confirmed in the past 24 hours, while the highest number – 31 – was reported on August 5. The number covers the period from July 1 when preparations for the Olympic Games entered the final stage and athletes began to arrive in Japan. Read:Mixed bag: Erratic Pandemic Olympics come to a nuanced end More than 650,000 Covid tests were conducted during the Olympics and the preparatory stage, with 0.02% of them turning out to be positive. Due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in Tokyo, a state of emergency was extended until August 31. It includes restrictions on the number of spectators during public events. So, the Tokyo Olympic Games were held from July 23 to August 8 without spectators.

An Indian state has decided to name roads and schools after the members of the men's hockey squad that recently bagged a medal at the Tokyo Olympics after nearly 41 years. As many as 11 players in the Indian men's hockey team belong to the northern state of Punjab. In a statement, the Punjab government has said that the move to name a road and a school in the localities of the respective medal-winning players aims at inspiring the youth to take up sports as a career. "The players have made the country proud after nearly 41 years, and naming roads and schools after them would be a small token of appreciation," Punjab's School Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla told the media. Also read: After 41 yrs, Hockey-India win bronze in Tokyo Olympics On Thursday, the Indian men's hockey team scripted history at the Tokyo Olympics by defeating Germany 5-4 to bag a bronze medal at the quadrennial sporting extravaganza after over four decades. The country's last success at the Olympics came in the 1980 Moscow games in Russia, where the men's hockey team got the gold. In the 1968 Mexico games and the 1972 Munich games too, India bagged bronze. Soon after the win on Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up the winning men's hockey team members in Tokyo and congratulated them for finally breaking the Olympic medal jinx. Read:A pandemic Olympics, without all the crowds: What gets lost? "Many, many congratulations to you and the entire team, you have made history. The entire country is filled with joy. Your hard work has paid off. The entire country is happy," Modi was heard saying in a video posted by Indian Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Twitter. "Historic! A day that will be etched in the memory of every Indian. Congratulations to our Men’s Hockey Team for bringing home the Bronze. With this feat, they have captured the imagination of the entire nation, especially our youth," Modi had tweeted earlier that day. In fact, in the match, Germany had taken an early lead with Timur Oruz scoring a goal in  the first quarter. India's Simranjeet Singh soon equalled the scores of the two team. Read: Olympic families find solace, create bonds far from Tokyo Germany, however, bounced back with two more goals in the second quarter to lead 3-1. However, the third quarter proved lucky for India. And subsequently, Simranjeet scored his second goal of the match to give India an edge over Germany.

Indian men's hockey team scripted history in the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday, defeating Germany 5-4 to bag a bronze medal at the quadrennial sporting extravaganza after nearly 41 years. The country's last success at the Olympics came in the 1980 Moscow games in Russia, where the men's hockey team got the gold. In the 1968 Mexico games and the 1972 Munich Games too, India bagged the bronze. Read: Olympic families find solace, create bonds far from Tokyo Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up the winning men's hockey team members in Tokyo and congratulated them for finally breaking the Olympic medal jinx. "Many, many congratulations to you and the entire team, you have made history. The entire country is filled with joy. Your hard work has paid off. The entire country is happy," Modi was heard saying in a video posted by Indian Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Twitter. Soon after the match, the PM tweeted, "Historic! A day that will be etched in the memory of every Indian. Congratulations to our Men’s Hockey Team for bringing home the Bronze. With this feat, they have captured the imagination of the entire nation, especially our youth." Read: At an extraordinary Olympics, acts of kindness abound Indian President Ramnath Kovind also took to Twitter to laud the Indian men's hockey team for its dominating performance and “exceptional skills, resilience & determination". “Congratulations to our men’s hockey team for winning an Olympic Medal in hockey after 41 years. The team showed exceptional skills, resilience & determination to win. This historic victory will start a new era in hockey...," he wrote. In fact, in the match, Germany had taken an early lead with Timur Oruz scoring a goal in the the first quarter. India's Simranjeet Singh soon equalled the scores of the two team. Read:A pandemic Olympics, without all the crowds: What gets lost? Germany, however, bounced back with two more goals in the second quarter to lead 3-1. However, the third quarter proved lucky for India. And subsequently, Simranjeet scored his second goal of the match to give India an edge over Germany. “A billion cheers for India! Boys, you’ve done it ! We can’t keep calm ! #TeamIndia! Our Men’s Hockey Team dominated and defined their destiny in the Olympic history books today, yet again! We are extremely proud of you!" the Sports Minister tweeted.

Sunisa Lee’s gymnastics are stunning. They’re just not “perfect.” Not technically, anyway. Thousands of hours of practice. Dozens upon dozens of competitions. And not once has a judge watched the new Olympic all-around champion do her thing — not even on uneven bars, where the 45-second set she plans doing in Sunday’s event finals is a free-flowing series of connections and releases that make it seem as if she is floating — and thought “that’s flawless.” Lee is not alone. No elite gymnast — not even American star and six-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles — has received a perfect score since the sport moved off the “10” system to a new Code of Points in 2006. Scores are now a combination of the difficulty of the routine (which is open-ended) and the execution, which is based on a 10.0 scale. In theory, “perfect” execution is possible. It’s just that no one has ever done it. A reality that long ago led Lee to make peace with the idea that a faultless routine is a myth, no matter how it may feel to her or how it may look to everyone other than the two people in blue blazers sitting at the judge’s tables. Instead, she shoots for what she considers her best, perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation more than anything. Her 15.400 on bars during the team final was the highest of the night by any athlete on any event and a spectacular display that helped the U.S. claim silver. It also included 1.4 points of deductions, and she could sense them piling up even as her teammates roared encouragement. Hard to blame her for sounding relieved on Friday when talking about her impending switch to competing collegiately at Auburn. “(I want to) kind of get away from this elite atmosphere just because it’s so, like, crazy,” Lee said. It’s a mental and physical grind. Gymnastics can wreak havoc on the body and cast doubt in the mind. Every single turn in every single rotation in every single practice every single day of your career can be tweaked. “It’s hard in that sense because it is such a sport where you’re trying to reach perfection, but perfection is unattainable,” said three-time Olympian Ellie Black of Canada. “I still struggle sometimes. It’s not like you ever get something and it’s easy for the rest of your life and the rest of your career.” Read: Olympics Latest: 6 banished for breaking COVID rules For Lee, a release of sort awaits. NCAA training is limited to 20 hours a week. The difficulty and length of routines are a step down from what Lee is used to and the 10-point scoring system remains very much alive. A shot at drilling a routine and being rewarded for it awaits, even if Lee called it “weird to think about it.” Such is the delicate psychological dance between the world’s best gymnasts and their sport. Lee has been competing under the international code for so long, she can’t even fathom the idea of seeing a score flash that doesn’t include being nitpicked to within an inch of its life. It takes copious amounts of mental strength to thrive when nothing — from a technical standpoint anyway — is up to the ultimate standard, which puts it at odds with most other sports. Tom Brady can throw a 50-yard spiral for a touchdown. Steph Curry can swish a 3-pointer. Those moments don’t exist in gymnastics. Black believes the code of points makes up for it in other ways. The open-ended nature of the system allows for more creativity in putting together routines. “That’s the part of it that’s kind of addicting,” said Black, who qualified for the Olympic all-around final before an ankle injury forced her to sit out. “There’s something new to try.” Besides, Black figures, “if you could just hit something perfectly, you’d probably lose some of that interest or motivation to keep going.” So Black — just like every other gymnast on the planet — searches for tiny moments of bliss. The stuck dismount. The mastery of a new skill. The smooth connection from one element to another. Still, the inner voice — the one that can feel the wobble or sense the imperfect hand placement — can be tough to turn off. American Chellsie Memmel won a world all-around title in 2005 and was part of the silver-medal winning U.S. team in Beijing in 2008. Memmel retired and went into coaching and judging before beginning returning to training during the pandemic. Even as her skills returned, turning the “judge” switch off was difficult. She records every routine then does a video review with her father Andy, who also serves as her coach. She loves the immediate feedback on what’s going right and what’s going wrong while trying to make a point to not be too hard on herself. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics “You have to give yourself some leeway and not beat yourself up about it,” said the 33-year-old Memmel, who competed at the U.S. championships in June. “You have to look at it like: ‘OK, that was fine, but where can I make those improvements? What needs to be fixed?’” Even if the fixing can feel relentless. Biles has come closer than anyone to cracking the code. During the second day of the 2015 U.S. gymnastics championships, the then-18-year-old’s Amanar vault drew an audible “ooooh” throughout the arena when her feet suction-cupped to the mat on her dismount. It looked perfect. It felt perfect. It wasn’t. She received a 9.9-E score. Asked later whether she knows where the deduction might have come from, she shrugged and laughingly suggested her toes were crossed. It’s that same vault — a roundoff/back handspring onto the table followed by 2 1/2 twists — that Biles bailed on during the first rotation of team finals in Tokyo after getting lost in the air. Her availability for the rest of the Games is in question. She already has pulled out of the all-around, uneven bars, vault and floor exercise finals. Maybe she returns for one final bow during the beam final on Tuesday, though time is running out for her bout with “the twisties,” as she described them, to subside. It’s a phenomenon that occasionally plagues gymnasts regardless of skill level, even the greatest of all time. It also highlights the sport’s own Sisyphean pursuit of an ultimate goal that can never be achieved. Maybe that’s not the point anyway. “People need to understand we’re not robots,” said all-around silver medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil. A concept Biles, Lee and all the others who gathered in Tokyo have long understood. If they were consumed with perfection, they would have bailed years ago. Go out there. Do you what you can as well as you can for as long as you can. The battle after all, isn’t with the judges. It’s with yourself. “I usually don’t even try and think about the score,” Lee said. “Because that’s when I come out on top.” And what could be more perfect than that?

Any sporting event is, at its heart, a show. It has the actors on center stage, performing for the rest of us. It has the spectators, sitting in their seats watching raptly. And — in modern times, at least — it has the “home” audience, which in the past half century of growing video viewership has far outpaced the numbers of those actually in attendance. At their halfway point, the Tokyo Olympics are still grappling with the fact that in that equation, the middle group — those spectators on the scene who cheer, gin up enthusiasm and add texture to the proceedings — couldn’t come. And in the COVID era, a key question presents itself: If an Olympics falls in the forest and nobody there hears it, did it really make a sound? The Japan organizing committee’s president, Seiko Hashimoto, thinks it will. She said a couple weeks ago that she wasn’t worried that a locked-down, crowdless Olympics — what she calls the “`Tokyo model” — would fundamentally change the experience. “The essence of the Games,” Hashimoto said, “will remain the same.” They won’t, of course. They already aren’t. And in fairness, how could they, when part of that very essence — the roar of a real, live crowd — has been excised out of (you know the phrase by now) an abundance of caution? During the 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic, the relationship between the watched and the watchers in audience-based public events has shifted tectonically. Productions that normally happen in front of crowds — crowds that, it’s worth noting, both watch performances and sometimes become an integral part of them — have changed in various ways. Some entertainment venues turned to presenting performances to people in parked cars, much like drive-in movies; one comedian, Erica Rhodes, filmed a TV special outside the Rose Bowl in California and relied on honking horns for the bulk of her audience response. It added a kinetic, if cacophonous, energy. On TV, the iconic game show “The Price Is Right,” whose fundamental DNA relies on audience members to “come on down!” and become contestants, shut down for six months and then returned with mostly empty seats and contestants who aren’t surprised to be chosen. But when it comes to fan interaction, sports, arguably, have been affected the most of all. Last summer, once big league baseball resumed without fans in the seats, the sport deployed recorded, piped-in crowd noise for the benefit of both athletes and fans watching at home. Most ballparks even created cardboard figures (customizable for a price, of course) to mimic spectator action, a novel if laughable pivot. It was, though, part of a cultural landscape that has been under construction for a long time. Sixty years ago, Daniel J. Boorstin, a historian who became the Librarian of Congress, came up with a term: the “pseudo-event.” Among its traits: It is not spontaneous, but planned. It is created primarily for the purpose of being reproduced. And its success is measured in how widely it is reported, and in how many people watch it. Read: Olympics Latest: 6 banished for breaking COVID rules Pair that with these astonishing figures: The International Olympic Committee generates almost 75% of its income from the sale of broadcast rights. About 40% of the IOC’s total income is from one source — NBC, the U.S. broadcast rights-holder. And estimates suggest canceling the Tokyo Olympics might have cost the IOC $3 billion to $4 billion. Those numbers shout one thing. For all of its focus on the athletes and their accomplishments, this event was made to be watched — and, what’s more, made to be watched by people who aren’t here in Tokyo. “The audience in the venue is no longer the economics. The media is the economics,” says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. That was an emerging axiom in the late 20th century, and a more ubiquitous one today. But there’s another question to ask, too: Does the lack of on-site crowds impact the quality of at-home viewing? On one hand, the vantage points from your recliner are better than anything you could see in person. The best ticket at an Olympic venue couldn’t begin to approximate what an NBC camera sees. “We’re not only in the best seats; we’re in seats that don’t even exist,” Thompson says. And yet ... There is a very real purpose to crowds, beyond how they impact athletes and performers who are actually there. Research has shown that at-home audiences watching competition — and other forms of entertainment — react to the feeling that they have proxies who are really in the arena. That, in effect, if we can’t be there, we know there are people like us who are. “There’s a reason sitcoms have laugh tracks. Seeing and hearing other people enjoy a thing leads us to enjoy that thing,” says Jennifer Talarico, a professor of psychology at Lafayette College who studies how people remember personally experienced events. Laugh tracks, in use since TV’s early days, were designed to prompt audiences about when to find something funny. But the underlying message is deeper: If we know others are watching and being entertained, it paves the way for our entertainment. That bears out today in the popularity of YouTube videos showing gamers as they game, and in shows like Britain’s “Gogglebox,” in which TV audiences watch ... TV audiences watching TV. There’s the pathos factor, too. The prevailing American Olympic TV narratives — emotion-saturated backstories about individuals, backed by loved ones, working hard and triumphing — are typically intertwined with crowd shots that include those very supporters watching the achievements happen. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics “That doesn’t carry through when you can’t pan through to Mom in the crowd,” Talarico says. “Mom isn’t there. She’s still in the same place that she was before. I think that makes the crowd aspect of the Olympics even more influential than a major league baseball game.” There are mitigating factors to Tokyo’s empty seats during these Games. Social media fills in the gaps to some extent; instead of watching a community of watchers, we can now form our own. But it’s not quite the same, is it? There’s a reason that young boys playing driveway basketball stop after a shot and shout, “He shoots, he scores!” before cupping their hands to their mouth to approximate a crowd’s roar. There’s nothing like it. And when TV cameras pan various Olympic venues and find emptiness, or even seats painted in seemingly random drab colors to look as if there are people in them, it’s clear that something — that certain something that only a crowd can provide — is glaringly absent. In the era of screens and of vicarious watching and global live broadcasts, three simple words, “I was there,” still hold power — even if you’re one of the ones who aren’t.

Bangladesh completed their Tokyo Olympics' 2020 mission one week before the meet ends with athlete Jahir Rayhan competing in the country's last event of men's 400-meter run heats at the Olympics Stadium in Tokyo Sunday. Jahir competed in the event's heats number-3 and finished 8th and last among the eight athletes of USA, Brazil, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Slovenia and Congo to eliminate from the" greatest show on earth.” Read: Olympics Athletics: Jahir Rayhan to compete in 400 meters on Sunday Jahir Rayhan, who was very much keen to display his best performance in his favourite 400-meter run in Bangladesh's last event of the Tokyo Olympics, eat his word as he took 48.29 seconds against his best timing of 47.34 seconds. In the heats number-3, M Cherry of USA finished top with a timing of 44.82 seconds, followed by J Jones of Barbados (45.04 ), C Taylor of Jamaica (45.20 ), D St Hillaire of Triniad and Tobago (45.41), L Janezic of Slovenia (45.44), GA Afoumba  of Congo (46.03), L Carvalho of Brazil (46.12) and Jahir Rayhan (48.29). Read: Olympics Archery: Ruman Shana eliminated from recurve singles In the event's overall ranking, Jahir was placed 44th among the 48 competitors. Jahir was the 3rd Bangladeshi athlete to compete in 400-meter run in the Olympics after 29 years after the participation of Mehdi Hasan in the Bercelona Olympics'1992 and Milzer Hossain in the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Read: Olympics Archery: Diya Siddique eliminated from recurve singles in shoot-off Earlier on last Friday, five Bangladeshi athletes out of  six--archer Ruman Shana, Diya Siddique, shooter Abdullah Hel Baki swimmers Ariful Islam and Junaina Ahmed-- completed their Tokyo Olympics assignments.  Except shooter Baki and athlete Jahir Rayhan, all the Bangladeshi athletes performed their best show in the mega games.

South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker was the star of the day, setting the first individual swimming world record at the Tokyo Olympics. Others shined, too. Evgeny Rylov completed a backstroke double for Russia, Emma McKeon gave the Aussie women another gold, and China earned a return trip to the top of the medal podium. The mighty Americans? For the first time in the meet, they spent the entire session Friday watching others win gold. Schoenmaker, a 24-year-old South African, won the women’s 200-meter breaststroke with a time of 2 minutes, 18.95 seconds, breaking the mark of 2:19.11 set by Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona. It was the third world record at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, with the first two coming in women’s relays. “I wasn’t expecting that at all,” said Schoenmaker, who added to her silver in the 100 breast. ”It couldn’t have been a better race. It still just doesn’t sink in, maybe one day.” Rylov thoroughly snuffed out America’s dominance in the backstroke, adding the 200 title to his victory in the 100 back. Rylov won with an Olympic-record time of 1:53.29, while American Ryan Murphy wound up with the silver (1:54.15). Also read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics Murphy was a double-gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he extended an American winning streak that began at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The U.S. won 12 straight men’s backstroke events over six Olympics, but that streak ended with Rylov’s victory in the 100. He made it 2-for-2 in the longer race, while Murphy settled for bronze and silver in the two events. Britain’s Luke Greenbank grabbed the 200 bronze in 1:54.72. McKeon touched first in the 100 freestyle with an Olympic-record time of 51.96, becoming only the second woman to break 52 seconds in the sprint. Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey earned the silver in 52.27, while another Aussie, Cate Campbell, took the bronze in 52.52. American Abbey Weitzeil was last in the eight-woman field. The Australians have won four individual women’s events at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, in addition to setting a world record in a 4x100 free relay that included both McKeon and Campbell. The team from Down Under has six golds overall, tied with the Americans, though the U.S. has the lead in the overall medal count. The Americans won three medals Friday, also claiming the other two spots on the podium behind Schoenmaker. But it was the first time the U.S. team went through an entire sessions of finals in Tokyo without winning at least one gold. Lilly King set a blistering pace early in the 200 breast and held on for a silver in 2:19.92, adding to her bronze in the 100 event. Annie Lazor nabbed the bronze in 2:20.84. “I don’t come from behind, that’s for sure, so I just wanted to put it out there and see where it goes,” King said. “I thought I did great.” A day after winning its first two golds at the pool, China picked up another victory when Wang Shun touched first in the men’s 200 individual medley. Wang edged Britain’s Duncan Scott with a time of 1:55.00. Scott took the silver in 1:55.28, while the bronze went to Switzerland’s Jeremy Desplanches in 1:56.17. Also read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Turkmenistan Wins its First Olympic Medal It was another disappointment for hometown star Daiya Seto, who didn’t even qualify for the final of his first two events. He got through in the 200 IM, but just missed out on a medal with a fourth-place finish -- a mere five-hundredths of a second behind the Swiss bronze medalist. American Michael Andrew led after the third leg, powering to the top spot on the breaststroke. But he faded badly on the freestyle to wind up in fifth, more than 2 seconds behind the winner. “I think it hurt worse than it looked, and it looked pretty bad,” Andrew said. “I knew I had to be fast at the 150 and I was praying for some Holy Spirit power to get me home in that (final) 50, but it wasn’t all there.” But the U.S. has several good chances to claim gold over the last two days of the swimming competition. Caeleb Dressel has two individual finals remaining, and Katie Ledecky is a big favorite in the 800 free. Dressel set another Olympic record in the semifinals of the 100 butterfly. Minutes after Hungary’s Kristof Milak took down the mark in the first semifinal heat, Dressel went even faster with a time of 49.71 in the second heat. “I feel fine,” Dressel said. “I’m not worried about the schedule. I’ve had it written down for a couple weeks now. I know what’s coming. I know how to pace it correctly. I know how to take care of my body.” It was the third-fastest time in history and left Milak as the second-fastest qualifier at 50.31. In the preliminaries, Dressel tied the former Olympic record of 50.39 set by Singapore’s Joseph Schooling to win gold at the 2016 Rio Games. Dressel will be a big favorite in Saturday morning’s final, though he could get pushed by Milak. The Hungarian already won the 200 fly with a dominating victory.   Dressel picked up the first individual gold medal of his career with a win in the 100 freestyle.

The quarter-final lineups for the men's football event at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 were confirmed following the end of the group stage round. Spain and football’s powerhouse Brazil are the strong favorites to win a gold medal at this year's Olympic Games. Spain will meet Ivory Coast in the quarterfinals, while Brazil will face a resurgent Egypt team in the first knockout round. The match between South Korea and Mexico is likely to be the most thrilling one in the quarter-final phase. Who can qualify in the men's football semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 is discussed in this article. Who are the front-runners to make it to the semifinals? 1st Quarter-Final (Spainvs. Ivory Coast) Venue: Rifu | Date: July 31 | Time (BST): 2 pm Verdict: Spain 2-1 Ivory Coast Following a strong showing in the group stage, Spain will be the favorite against Ivory Coast in the quarterfinals to advance to the semifinals. However, we can't refute that Ivory Coast had a solid performance in the group stage as well. They will do whatever they can to maintain the momentum and earn a place in the next knockout round. Read ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics Spain’s probable starting XI UnaiSimón (GK), Pau Torres, Eric García, Marc Cucurella, Óscar Gil, Martín Zubimendi, Pedri, Carlos Soler, Marco Asensio, Mikel Oyarzabal, Javier Puado Ivory Coast’s probable starting XI Eliezer Ira (GK), KouadioDabila, Eric Bailly, Ismael Diallo, WilfriedSingo, Franck Kessié, ZiéOuattara, KouassiEboue, Youssouf Dao, Max Gradel, Amad Diallo Read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Turkmenistan Wins its First Olympic Medal 2nd Quarter-Final (Japan vs.New Zealand) Venue: Kashima | Date: July 31 | Time (BST): 3 pm Verdict: Japan 2-0New Zealand Japan will have a slight advantage over New Zealand and will be the favorite to win this match. However, Japan will have to fight hard to beat a resurgent New Zealand side. The New Zealand side has looked impressive in this tournament and is poised to eliminate Japan from the competition. Japan’s probable starting XI Kosei Tani (GK), Kou Itakura, Maya Yoshida, Yuta Nakayama, Hiroki Sakai, Takefusa Kubo, Wataru Endo, Ao Tanaka, Daichi Hayashi, Yuki Soma, Ritsu Doan New Zealand’s probable starting XI Michael Woud (GK), Winston Reid, NandoPijnaker, Gianni Stensness, Clayton Lewis, Joe Bell, LiberatoCacace, Dane Ingham, Chris Wood, CallumMcCowatt, Elijah Just Read: Tokyo records record virus cases days after Olympics begin 3rd Quarter-Final (Brazilvs.Egypt) Venue: Saitama | Date: July 31 | Time (BST): 4 pm Verdict: Brazil2-0 Egypt We can expect a good battle between Brazil and Egypt in the third quarter-final. Brazil topped the group stage with a total of 7 points. Egypt edged out Argentina in the group stage due to a superior goal difference in the race for second place. However, Brazil have enough firepower to defeat Egypt in the quarter-final. Brazil’s probable starting XI Santos (GK), Diego Carlos, Nino, Guilherme Arana, DaniAlves, Richarlison, Bruno Guimarães, Douglas Luiz, Matheus Cunha, Claudinho, Antony Egypt’s probable starting XI Mohamed El-Shenawy (GK), Ahmed Hegazi, Mahmoud El-Wensh, Osama Galal, Ahmed Aboul-Fetouh, Karim El Eraki, Amar Hamdi, AkramTawfik, Ramadan Sobhi, Salah Mohsen, Ahmed Rayan Read: Naomi Osaka eliminated from Tokyo Olympics tennis tournament 4th Quarter-Final (South Koreavs. Mexico) Venue: Yokohama | Date: July 31 | Time (BST): 5pm Verdict:South Korea2-1Mexico (Extra Time) This will be the most exciting match in the quarter-finals. Both South Korea and Mexico have strong teams. South Korea topped group B, while Mexico came in second in group A. South Korea will have an edge in this match against Mexico due to the familiar environment. South Korea’s probable starting XI Song Bum-Keun (GK), Ji-Su Park, Jeong Tae-Wook, Kang Yoon-Sung, Seol Young-Woo, JeongSeung-Won, Won Du-Jae, Um Won-Sang, Lee Dong-Jun, Dong-Gyeong Lee, Hwang Ui-Jo Mexico’s probable starting XI Guillermo Ochoa (GK), Johan Vásquez, César Montes, Érick Aguirre, Jorge Sánchez, LuísRomo, Francisco Córdova, Carlos Rodríguez, Henry Martín, Alexis Vega, Diego Lainez Read: Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon’s en route Verdict As per the quarter-finals schedule, Spain and Brazil are the two heavy favorites to advance to the semifinals of the men's football event at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. On the other side, Japan and South Korea will have a slight advantage over their quarterfinal opponents. The best teams should make it to the semi-finals. The semifinal round will begin on July 31 (Saturday).

Turkmenistan was a part of the Soviet Union and their athletes formerly participated with the Soviet Union team. Turkmenistan competed in the 1996 Olympic Games for the first time after gaining independence. However, they are the only post-Soviet country that has never competed in the Winter Olympics. They've competed in seven Olympic competitions, including the ongoing event. Polina Guryeva earned the country's first-ever Olympic medal at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. She earned a silver medal in the women's 59 kg weightlifting event on July 27, 2021. In this article, we discussed how Polina Guryeva earned a silver medal in the Olympic Games.   Polina Guryeva is the First Olympic Medalist From Turkmenistan    Polina Guryeva is an ethnic Russian who was born in Ashgabat on October 5, 1999. She began her career with artistic gymnastics before switching to weightlifting. The 21-year-old earned gold at the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. She won a silver medal for her country Turkmenistan at the Tokyo Olympics 2020, making her the first Turkmenistan athlete to win an Olympic medal. She won the medal in the women's 59kg category. Read: Olympics Archery: Ruman Shana eliminated from recurve singles Guryeva dominated the snatch and clean and jerk events. During the pull, she lifted 96kg. She had to lift 96 kg twice but failed the first time she attempted that weight, but succeeded the second time. Guryeva excelled in the clean and jerk, lifting 121 pounds. Among contenders, that figure was also second best. Chinese Taipei's Hsing-Chun Kuo won gold in the event. She lifted 103kg in the snatch and 133 kg in the clean and jerk respectively and set two Olympic records. Mikiko Andoh of Japan took home the bronze medal. Countries with a Highest Medal Tally at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 The United States, China, and the host Japan are all performing well at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. The United States dominated the medal table after the first six days of competition, with a total of 30 medals, including 10 gold. China is in second place, followed by Japan. Russia, Australia, and the United Kingdom are also doing well. The Olympics main attraction Athletics will begin on July 30. (Friday). Read: Naomi Osaka eliminated from Tokyo Olympics tennis tournament Meanwhile, Bangladesh's chances of securing a medal were crushed when Ruman Shana was eliminated from his two events. Ruman Shana was eliminated in the Round of 32 of the Men's individual event and the Round of 16 of the mixed team event, leaving Bangladesh with little chance of winning a medal this year.       Updated Tokyo Olympics 2020 Medal standings (Top 10 as of July 28, 2021) Rank Team Gold Silver Bronze Total 1 United States of America 10 11 9 30 2 People's Republic of China 11 5 8 24 3 Japan 12 4 5 21 4 ROC (Russia) 7 8 5 20 5 Australia 6 1 9 16 6 Great Britain 5 6 4 15 7 Italy 1 6 8 15 8 Republic of Korea 4 2 5 11 9 Netherlands 2 6 3 11 10 Canada 2 3 4 9                     Source: https://olympics.com/en/ Bottom Line Polina Guryeva of Turkmenistan earned an Olympic medal in weightlifting, which is a great achievement for the country. On the other side, Flora Duffy has won the first Olympic gold medal for Bermuda and Hidilyn Diaz has earned the Philippines' first-ever gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Bangladesh's participants will very likely return home empty-handed. Because Bangladesh’s best opportunity of winning an Olympic medal was from Archery.  

Tokyo reported its highest number of new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, days after the Olympics began. The Japanese capital reported 2,848 new COVID-19 cases, exceeding the earlier record of 2,520 cases on Jan. 7. It brings Tokyo’s total to more than 200,000 since the pandemic began last year. Tokyo is under its fourth state of emergency, which is to continue through the Olympics until just before the Paralympics start in late August. Also read: 10 new Covid cases reported at Olympic village Experts have warned that the more contagious delta variant could cause a surge during the Olympics, which started Friday. Experts noted that cases among younger, unvaccinated people are rising sharply as Japan’s inoculation drive loses steam due to supply uncertainty. Many serious cases involve those in their 50s. They now dominate Tokyo’s nearly 3,000 hospitalized patients and are gradually filling up available beds. Authorities reportedly plan to ask medical institutions to increase their capacity to about 6,000. Japan’s vaccination drive began late and slowly, but picked up dramatically in May for several weeks as the supply of imported vaccines stabilized and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government pushed to inoculate more people before the Olympics. Also read: Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium The government says 25.5% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated, still way short of the level believed to have any meaningful impact on reducing the risk for the general population. Still, Japan has kept its cases and deaths much lower than many other countries. Nationwide, it has reported 870,445 cases and 15,129 deaths as of Monday. Suga’s government has been criticized for what some say is prioritizing the Olympics over the nation’s health. His public support ratings have fallen to around 30% in recent media surveys, and there is little festivity surrounding the Games. Also read: Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon’s en route