The last time the Olympics came to China, he oversaw the whole endeavor. Now the Games are back, and this time Xi Jinping is running the entire nation. The Chinese president, hosting a Winter Olympics beleaguered by complaints about human rights abuses, has upended tradition to restore strongman rule in China and tighten Communist Party control over the economy and society. Xi was in charge of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that served as a “coming-out party” for China as an economic and political force. A second-generation member of the party elite, Xi became general secretary of the party in 2012. He took the ceremonial title of president the next year. Xi spent his first five-year term atop the party making himself China’s strongest leader at least since Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Xi was dubbed “chairman of everything” after he put himself in charge of economic, propaganda and other major functions. That reversed a consensus for the ruling inner circle to avoid power struggles by sharing decision-making. Read:Xi stresses common development, win-win cooperation The party is crushing pro-democracy and other activism and tightening control over business and society. It has expanded surveillance of China’s 1.4 billion people and control of business, culture, education and religion. A “social credit” system tracks every person and company and punishes infractions from pollution to littering. Xi’s rise coincides with increased assertiveness abroad following three decades of China keeping its head down to focus on economic development. Xi wants China to be “the greatest country on Earth, widely admired and therefore followed,” said Steve Tsang, a Chinese politics specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “The world where China is top dog is a world where authoritarianism is safe,” Tsang said. Democracies will ”need to know their place.” Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi enjoyed a privileged youth as the second son of Xi Zhongxun, a former vice premier and guerrilla commander in the civil war that brought Mao Zedong’s communist rebels to power in 1949. At 15, Xi Jinping was sent to rural Shaanxi province in 1969 as part of Mao’s campaign to have educated urban young people learn from peasants. Xi was caught trying to sneak back to the Chinese capital and returned to Shaanxi to dig irrigation ditches. “Knives are sharpened on the stone. People are refined through hardship,” Xi told a Chinese magazine in 2001. “Whenever I later encountered trouble, I’d just think of how hard it had been to get things done back then and nothing would then seem difficult.” Beijing is pushing for a bigger role in managing trade and global affairs to match its status as the second-biggest economy. It has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors by trying to intimidate Taiwan — the island democracy that the ruling party says belongs to China — and by pressing claims to disputed sections of the South and East China Seas and the Himalayas. The party has ended limits on foreign ownership in its auto industry and made other market-opening changes. But it has declared state-owned companies that dominate oil, banking and other industries the “core of the economy.” Beijing is pressuring private sector successes such as Alibaba Group, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, to divert billions of dollars into nationalistic initiatives including making China a “technology power” and reducing reliance on the United States, Japan and other suppliers by developing processor chips and other products. That, combined with U.S. and European curbs on Chinese access to technology due to security fears, is fueling anxiety global industry might decouple or split into markets with incompatible auto, telecom and other products. That would raise costs and slow innovation. Xi, 68, looks certain to break with tradition again by pursuing a third term as party leader at a congress in October or November. He had the constitution’s limit of two terms on his presidency repealed in 2018. That reversed arrangements put in place in the 1990s for party factions to share decision-making and hand over power to younger leaders once every decade. Even before Xi took power, party officials complained that group leadership was too cumbersome and allowed lower-level leaders to ignore or obstruct initiatives. Officials defend Xi’s efforts to stay in power by saying he needs to ensure reforms are carried out. Xi led an anti-corruption crackdown whose most prominent targets were members of other factions or supported rival leadership candidates. The campaign was popular with the public but led to complaints that officials refused to make big decisions for fear of attracting attention. Xi has called for a “national rejuvenation” based on tighter party control over education, culture and religion. Many of the changes are hostile to ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, pro-democracy and other activists and independent-minded artists and writers. Social media groups for gay university students have been shut down. Men deemed insufficiently masculine were banned from TV. Read: China orders lockdown of up to 13 million people in Xi’an An estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim minority groups have been confined in camps in the Xinjiang region in the northwest. Activists complain Beijing is trying to erase minority cultures, but officials say the camps are for job training and to combat radicalism. They reject reports of force abortions and other abuses. Xi oversaw the 2015 detention of more than 200 lawyers and legal aides who helped activists and members of the public challenge official abuses. After the coronavirus emerged in 2019, Xi’s government suppressed information and punished doctors who tried to warn the public. That prompted accusations Beijing allowed the disease to spread more widely and left other countries unprepared. Beijing extended its crackdown to Hong Kong following 2019 protests that began over a proposed extradition law and expanded to include demands for greater democracy. A national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, prompting complaints that Beijing was eroding the autonomy that had been promised when the former British colony returned to China in 1997 — and ruining its status as a trade and financial center. Pro-democracy figures have been imprisoned. They include Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old former publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, which shut down under government pressure, and organizers of candlelight memorials of the party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on a pro-democracy movement. A big potential stumbling block to achieving Xi’s ambitions is the struggling economy. Growth is slumping after Beijing tightened controls on use of debt in its real estate industry, one of its biggest economic engines. That adds to the drag from politically motivated initiatives, including tech development and orders to manufacturers to use Chinese suppliers of components and raw materials, even if that costs more. “Xi himself weakens the economy rather than strengthening it,” Tsang said. “If you mess up the economy, he’s not going to make China the dominant power in the world.”

When the Tokyo Olympics began during a worsening pandemic in Japan, the majority of the host nation was in opposition, with Emperor Naruhito dropping the word “celebrating” from his opening declaration of welcome. But once the Games got underway and local media switched to covering Japanese athletes’ “medal rush,” many Japanese were won over. They watched TV to cheer on Japanese athletes in an Olympics that ended Sunday with a record 58 medals for the home nation, including 27 gold. There are still worries that Japan will pay a price for hosting these Games; recent days have seen record numbers of virus cases. But for now, among many, a sense of pride and goodwill is lingering. “Having the games in the middle of the pandemic didn’t seem like a good idea, and I did wonder if they should be canceled,” said Keisuke Uchisawa, 27, an office worker. But the medal haul, he said, was “very exciting and stimulating. Once the Games started, we naturally cheered the athletes and simply enjoyed watching them.” Read: Olympic photos from far above and underwater His wife Yuki, a medical worker, worried especially about the pandemic. But she began cheering when she noticed patients at her hospital beaming as they watched the Games. “I saw the power of sports, and I thought it was wonderful,” she said. “Athletes made outstanding performances, and we wanted to cheer for them.” The couple were recently picking out matching Olympics shirts and pandemic masks from an official goods store in downtown Tokyo. The store, almost empty before the Games, was crowded on a recent weekday toward the end of the Olympics. Many customers appeared to be workers from the neighborhood dropping by during lunch breaks. Beforehand, a lot of Japanese expressed reluctance or opposition to holding the Olympics during a pandemic that, for them, was worsening. A series of resignations of Olympic-linked officials over sexism, past bullying and Holocaust jokes also hurt the Games’ image ahead of the July 23 opening. There were protests on Tokyo streets and on social media. After the opening ceremony, however, many opponents started to cheer. More than half of Japan’s population watched the event, according to rating company Video Research — the highest rating for an Olympic opening ceremony in Japan since 61% for the 1964 Tokyo games, a time when far fewer people had televisions. Outside the National Stadium, where dozens of demonstrators regularly held anti-Olympic rallies, many fans stood in a line next to the Olympic rings waiting to take selfies. It was the closest they could get to locked-down, spectator-free stadiums. Opposition to the Olympics has steadily dropped in recent weeks. One poll taken by the Asahi newspaper just ahead of the Olympics showed opponents fell to 55% from around 70% earlier this year, and 56% of the respondents said they wanted to watch the Games on TV. And separate surveys taken by the Yomiuri newspaper and TBS Television at the end of the Games showed more than 60% of their respective respondents said it had been good to hold the Games. Those who felt intimidated by the unwelcome mood in the beginning began to feel relieved. “It was a bit scary to get on a train wearing an Olympic volunteer uniform” early on, when people were still more strongly opposing the Games, said Asuka Takahashi, a 21-year-old student who helped at the beach volleyball venue. She felt less tension after the Games started, and thought more people were interested in them than she had initially believed. Read: Over 450 Covid cases confirmed during Tokyo Olympics And when Takahashi recently visited Olympics stores, she also saw that lots of merchandise was sold out. “Many Japanese,” she said, “are enjoying the Olympics in the end.” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, criticized for insisting on hosting the Olympics despite the virus, was likely hoping for this evolution in sentiment. He has been trying to reverse nosediving support ratings for his government ahead of general elections expected in the autumn. “Japanese Olympians’ outstanding achievements will give us strength, too,” said Tateo Kawamura, a veteran lawmaker of Suga’s governing party. Suga called and congratulated judoka Naohisa Takato, who won the first gold for Japan, and has since publicly congratulated medal winners on Twitter. Suga has repeatedly said there is no evidence linking the upsurge in cases to the Games — and, in fact, barely more than 400 positive cases were reported inside the Olympic “bubble” from early July until the closing ceremony. But whether the Games lift public sentiment in a lasting way could hinge on how the virus plays out. “The government has forced the holding of the Olympics and Paralympics in order to regain popularity ... but it’s a risky gamble,” Seigo Hirowatari, a University of Tokyo law professor emeritus, said during a recent online event. While some have tried to see the positive side of the Olympics, others remain opposed. There’s a new word floating around to describe what some see as a growing pressure to support or even to talk about the Games: “Oly-hara” or Olympic harassment. Medical experts have raised alarms as virus infections accelerate in Tokyo; daily cases surged to new highs during the Olympics. On Aug. 5, Tokyo logged 5,042 cases, an all-time high since the pandemic began early last year. Experts say the ongoing infections propelled by the more contagious delta variant could send the daily case load above 10,000 within two weeks. Nationwide, total cases exceeded 1 million, with more than 15,300 deaths. Last week, Japan’s government introduced a contentious new policy in which coronavirus patients with moderate symptoms will isolate at home as the surge of cases strain hospitals. That policy was needed, the government said, in spite of an expansion of the state of emergency from Tokyo to wider areas that will last until the end of August. Read: Mixed bag: Erratic Pandemic Olympics come to a nuanced end “If you turn on the TV, there is nothing else but the Olympic Games, and people are not sharing in a sense of crisis” about the exploding infections amid the festivity, said Dr. Jin Kuramochi, a respiratory medicine expert. “People will see the reality after the closing ceremony.” Those who opposed the Games say the money should have been spent on health care and economic support for pandemic-hit people and businesses. The $15.4 billion cost of the Games — largely shouldered by Japanese citizens’ tax money — has caused concerns. That leads to sentiments like the one from Yoko Kudo, a preschool teacher. “I hope” she said, “at least the rest of the world will thank Japan for achieving the Games despite the difficulties.”

Christina Dressel began organizing the room long before the NBC cameras started rolling. The mother of swimming superstar Caeleb Dressel reeled off a makeshift seating chart for the couch, directed everyone who wanted to be on television where to stand and even scoured the posh hotel for life-sized, cardboard cutouts of her son. She found four and lined them up behind the 40-strong Dressel posse. She then asked if the coffee table was too cluttered with empty wine glasses and water bottles. Nope. After all, it was an accurate portrayal of this party scene. Read: At an extraordinary Olympics, acts of kindness abound The Dressels were among hundreds who accepted an offer to spend part of the Tokyo Olympics at Universal Orlando with other equally disappointed friends and families of American athletes, all banned from traveling to Japan because of the coronavirus pandemic. They gathered nearly 12,000 miles from Tokyo in a crowded ballroom at a resort with hundreds of strangers – at least at first – and created a red, white and blue-themed blowout that rivaled anything they would have experienced abroad. It turned out to be a support system like no other. “These people are great,” said Venus Jewett, whose son Isaiah failed to make the 800-meter final after tangling feet with a fellow runner in a semifinal heat. “They get it. … Being here, it’s not like being over there, but it’s a good consolation prize. You can’t get much better than this.” Parents, siblings, friends and former teammates crowd into the ballroom at the Lowes Sapphire Falls Resort daily to watch the Summer Games and bond with others in a similar situation, all of them unable to be on hand to root for their loved ones competing for gold. They spend mornings and nights together, smiling and laughing, eating and drinking, screaming and cheering. They’re usually celebrating and occasionally consoling. Team Dressel was the main event during the swimming competition, with Christina Dressel and Caeleb’s photogenic wife, Meghan, taking center stage for an entire week. Universal Orlando and NBC invited The Associated Press inside for a sneak peek on the night Dressel set a world record in the 100-meter butterfly and won his third of five gold medals at the Tokyo Games. Most of his crew wore red Speedo T-shirts with Team Dressel printed on the back. They posed for pictures on the stage, cramming shoulder to shoulder underneath a Team USA banner, and led “U-S-A, U-S-A” cheers that have become a nightly lead-in to NBC’s television coverage. Christina Dressel quieted the raucous crowd as soon as her son entered the pool area half a world away, eager to hear everything the commentators had to say about her son. Dressel’s inner circle — his mom, dad, wife, sister and brother — were directly in front of one of two scoreboard-sized projection screens inside the ballroom. Christina and Meghan stood as soon as the race started. His sister joined them. His dad and brother reluctantly followed. The roars reached a fever pitch when Dressel made the turn in first place, on pace to break the world record. His mom ducked behind his dad for a few seconds, too nervous to watch. But she quickly emerged and started jumping up and down as it became clear Dressel was about to make history. Read:A pandemic Olympics, without all the crowds: What gets lost? Christina and Meghan collapsed onto the couch as Dressel touched the wall first. The celebration was just getting started. Mom eventually hugged everyone around her, including Dressel’s Orlando-based agent who was videotaping the rowdy scene for a documentary on his pandemic-altered path to Olympic glory. Dressel raced two more times that night, finishing first in one 50-meter freestyle semifinal heat and anchoring the 4x100-meter mixed medley relay team that came home a disappointing fifth. Team Dressel was in full effect for both. Dressel’s family members rented a house in Orlando and routinely took advantage of the hospitality lounge, which was open for breakfast every morning and for dinner and an open bar at night. The emotional video of them trying to chat with Dressel following his second gold medal went viral, bringing extra attention to the family and the venue. Universal Orlando, NBC, the U.S. Olympic Committee and two sponsors, including Japanese automaker Toyota, offered each Team USA athlete plane tickets and four days of accommodations to the resort and Universal’s three theme parks for two family members or friends. They had the option to purchase more passes. The lounge serves as its own entertainment district, a full bar in the middle of the ballroom and televisions and tables in every direction. Toyota put several cars on display, including one that could be taken for a virtual test drive and another with a colorful paint job inspired by Dressel’s tattoos. There are games galore, too; table tennis, cornhole, a giant “four to score” board and an extra large Jenga setup. But those other Games get way more attention. Jewett brought her 17-year-old daughter, 82-year-old mother and 79-year-old father to the hotel for several days. A former collegiate sprinter and current fifth-grade teacher in Inglewood, California, Jewett had saved for years in anticipation of traveling to Tokyo with her son. Even after a yearlong delay and a seemingly endless stretch of uncertainty, she was as devastated as any Olympic parent when Japan decided to ban spectators. She settled for Orlando and ended up making new friends and creating lifelong memories. She was at the lounge when Katie Plum’s daughter, Kelsey, led the United States to a gold medal in 3-on-3 basketball. “It’s sad to not be there,” said Katie Plum, who moved from San Diego to Las Vegas to be closer to her WNBA daughter. “But this has made it super fun and I’ve learned a lot. But, of course, I’d like to be in the USA House in Tokyo. I’m just grateful they got to go.” Plum and her family spent two days at Universal Orlando and proudly offered to show off a voicemail from Jill Biden congratulating them on Kelsey’s gold. How did she miss a call from the first lady? Read: Olympics Latest: 6 banished for breaking COVID rules “We were waiting in line at Harry Potter,” she said, laughing and shaking her head. She didn’t miss out on nearly as much while attending the lounge, getting drawn into rugby, rowing, track and other sports. “We’ve been on all kinds of (emotional) trains,” she said. “You end up trying to support everyone you meet. And you appreciate when people get invested in your kid and want to watch. So you want to give back and sit over by somebody’s couch. I’ve watched some amazing games, stuff I might otherwise not have gotten to see.”

A surfer jumping in to translate for the rival who’d just beaten him. High-jumping friends agreeing to share a gold medal rather than move to a tiebreaker. Two runners falling in a tangle of legs, then helping each other to the finish line. In an extraordinary Olympic Games where mental health has been front and center, acts of kindness are everywhere. The world’s most competitive athletes have been captured showing gentleness and warmth to one another — celebrating, pep-talking, wiping away one another’s tears of disappointment. Kanoa Igarashi of Japan was disappointed when he lost to Brazilian Italo Ferreira in their sport’s Olympic debut. Not only did he blow his shot at gold on the beach he grew up surfing, he was also being taunted online by racist Brazilian trolls. Read: A pandemic Olympics, without all the crowds: What gets lost? The Japanese-American surfer could have stewed in silence, but he instead deployed his knowledge of Portuguese, helping to translate a press conference question for Ferreira on the world stage. The crowd giggled hearing the cross-rival translation and an official thanked the silver medalist for the assist. “Yes, thank you, Kanoa,” said a beaming Ferreira, who is learning English. Days later, at the Olympic Stadium, Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar found themselves in a situation they’d talked about but never experienced — they were tied. Both high jumpers were perfect until the bar was set to the Olympic-record height of 2.39 meters (7 feet, 10 inches). Each missed three times. They could have gone to a jump-off, but instead decided to share the gold. “I know for a fact that for the performance I did, I deserve that gold. He did the same thing, so I know he deserved that gold,” Barshim said. “This is beyond sport. This is the message we deliver to the young generation.” After they decided, Tamberi slapped Barshim’s hand and jumped into his arms. “Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful,” Tamberi said. “It was just magical.” Earlier, on the same track, runners Isaiah Jewett of the U.S. and Nijel Amos of Botswana got tangled and fell during the 800-meter semifinals. Rather than get angry, they helped each other to their feet, put their arms around each other and finished together. Read: Olympics Latest: 6 banished for breaking COVID rules Many top athletes come to know each other personally from their time on the road, which can feel long, concentrated, and intense — marked by career moments that may be the best or worst of their lives. Those feelings have often been amplified at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games, where there is an unmistakable yearning for normalcy and, perhaps, a newfound appreciation for seeing familiar faces. Restrictions designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have meant Olympians can’t mingle the way they normally do. After a hard-fought, three-set victory in the beach volleyball round-robin final on Saturday at Shiokaze Park, Brazilian Rebecca Cavalcanti playfully poured a bottle of water on American Kelly Claes’ back as she did postgame interviews. The U.S. team had just defeated Brazil but the winners laughed it off, explaining that they’re friends. “I’m excited when quarantine’s done so we can sit at the same table and go to dinner with them. But it’s kind of hard in a bubble because we have to be away,” said Sarah Sponcil, Claes’ teammate. For fellow American Carissa Moore, the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions brought her closer with the other surfers. The reigning world champion said she typically travels to surfing competitions with her husband and father. But all fans were banned this year, and Moore admitted she struggled without their reassuring presence in the initial days of the Games. Moore had flown to Japan with the U.S. team 10 days before the first heat, and soon adjusted to living in a home with the other surfers, including Caroline Marks, whom Moore considered the woman to beat. Moore said she didn’t know Marks well before the Tokyo Games but on the night she was crowned the winner and Marks came in fourth, her rival was the first to greet her. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics “Having the USA Surf team with me, it’s been such a beautiful experience to bond with them,” Moore said. “I feel like I have a whole another family after the last two weeks.” After the punishing women’s triathlon last week in Tokyo, Norwegian Lotte Miller, who placed 24th, took a moment to give a pep talk to Belgium’s Claire Michel, who was inconsolable and slumped on the ground, sobbing. Michel had come in last, 15 minutes behind winner Flora Duffy of Bermuda — but at least she finished. Fifty-four athletes started the race but 20 were either lapped or dropped out. “You’re a (expletive) fighter,” Miller told Michel. “This is Olympic spirit, and you’ve got it 100%.”

The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic: Tokyo Olympics organizers say they have banished six people, including two silver medalists from the country of Georgia, for breaking rules designed to protect against COVID-19 cases. Toshiro Muto, the games chief executive, says it was a “clear and serious violation” of the so-called playbooks of health and safety rules for two Georgian judokas to go sight-seeing. Read:Olympic swimming ends with splashy new records, US gold Vazha Margvelashvili and Lasha Shavdatuashvili were seen near Tokyo Tower on Tuesday, after their events were finished. Muto says the Georgian embassy in Tokyo has apologized for the incident. The other four were accredited contractors from Britain and the United States arrested for allegedly using cocaine before the Olympics opened. Muto says there have been eight cases of games credentials being temporarily suspended. In four cases, organizers collected a “signed pledge” from people suspected of breaking rules. Ten strict warnings were issued, Muto says. ___ MEDAL ALERT Australia’s Logan Martin capped quite a show in BMX freestyle’s Olympic debut, putting together a sterling first run to win gold at the Tokyo Games. Britain’s Charlotte Worthington started the high-flying act by winning women’s gold and Martin followed with an equally-impressive performance. The 27-year-old two-time world champion posted a 93.3 in his first ride and watched as the other eight riders failed to catch him. Martin went for a victory lap after the final rider made his second run, but cut it short after a hard landing on a jump. Venezuela’s Daniel Dhers secured silver with a 92.05 on his second run and Britain’s Declan Brooks had a second-run 90.8 to take bronze. ___ Simone Biles will not defend her Olympic gold medal on floor exercise. USA Gymnastics says the six-time Olympic medalist has opted not to compete on floor. She won gold in the event in Rio de Janeiro and placed second in qualifying last week. Jennifer Gadirova of Britain will replace Biles in Monday’s finals. USA Gymnastics says Biles has not decided whether to participate in Tuesday’s balance beam final. Biles is dealing with a mental block that in gymnastics is referred to as “the twisties.” She is having trouble figuring out where her body is in relation to the ground when in the air. ___ MEDAL ALERT Gong Lijiao of China has won her first Olympic gold medal in the shot put with a personal best of 20.58 meters. The reigning two-time world champion produced two efforts over 20 meters on her last two attempts at the Olympic Stadium to cement her victory ahead of Raven Saunders of the United States, who took the silver medal with 19.79. Veteran Valerie Adams of New Zealand won a bronze medal in her fifth and likely last Olympics. The 36-year-old Adams is a two-time Olympic champion and in Tokyo became the first woman to qualify for five Olympic finals in the shot. ___ MEDAL ALERT American Caeleb Dressel has won his fifth gold medal of the Tokyo Games, finishing off one of the great performances in Olympic history. Dressel swam the butterfly leg as the Americans set a world record in the 4x100-meter medley relay with a time of 3 minutes, 26.78 seconds. That eclipses the mark of 3:27.28 they set at the 2009 Rome world championships in rubberized suits. Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew and Zach Apple joined Dressel on the winning team. That ensured the Americans closed out the swimming competition with another gold in a race they’ve never lost at the Olympics. Earlier in the session, Dressel won the 50 freestyle for his third individual title of the games. He also won two golds on the relays. ___ MEDAL ALERT Emma McKeon has claimed her historic seventh swimming medal at the Tokyo Olympics with Australia’s victory in the women’s 4x100 medley relay. The 27-year-old from Brisbane becomes the first female swimmer to win seven medals at a single games. The only men to do it are Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Matt Biondi. Capping a brilliant performance by the entire Aussie women’s team, McKeon followed her victory in the 50-freestyle earlier in the session to take the butterfly leg on the relay. Cate Campbell closed strong on the freestyle, touching in an Olympic record of 3 minutes, 51.60 seconds to edge the two-time defending champion Americans. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics Kaylee McKeown and Chelsea Hodges started things off for the winning Australian team. Abbey Weitzeil touched in 3:51.73 to give the United States a silver. She anchored a team that also included teenagers Regan Smith, Lydia Jacoby and Torri Huske. The bronze went to Canada in 3:52.60. ___ MEDAL ALERT Britain’s Charlotte Worthington put on a show in BMX freestyle’s Olympic debut, landing the first 360 backflip in women’s competition to knock off American Hannah Roberts at the Tokyo Olympics. Roberts, a three-time world champion at 19, set the bar in her opening run, landing a backflip with a tailspin for a 96.1. Worthington crashed on her first run, but pulled out all the stops in her second. The 25-year-old added a front flip to her 360 backflip and closed with another backflip for a 97.5. Roberts, the top seed, had a chance to top the Brit, but landed hard off an early jump and waved off the rest of her second run. Switzerland’s Nikita Ducarroz took bronze with an 89.2 in her second run. ___ MEDAL ALERT American Bobby Finke has won gold in the grueling men’s 1,500-meter freestyle race. The American won his second gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics with another strong finishing kick. Just as he did in winning the 800-meter freestyle, Finke stayed closed throughout the 30-lap race and turned on the speed at the end. He touched in 14 minutes, 39.65 seconds. Ukraine’s Mykhailo Romanchuk took the silver in 14:40.66, while the bronze went to Germany’s Florian Wellbrock in 14:40.91. Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri faded to fourth in 14:45.01. The top four were close nearly the entire race, often separated by less than a second at the turns. But that was right where Finke needed to be. After his closing lap in the 800, he knew he had the speed at the end to beat everyone else. Finke has been perhaps the biggest American surprise at the pool. Relatively unknown before the U.S. trials, he become the first American male to win the 1,500 since Mike O’Brien at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. ___ MEDAL ALERT Australia’s Emma McKeon has claimed the gold medal in the women’s 50-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics. It is the sixth medal of the games for the Aussie star, who has one more chance to make it seven in the 4x100 medley relay. McKeon completed a sweep of the 50- and 100-meter freestyle with an Olympic-record time of 23.81 seconds. The silver went to Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström in 24.07, while defending Olympic champion Pernille Blume of Denmark settled for bronze this time in 24.21. American Abbey Weitzeil finished last in the eight-woman field. ___ MEDAL ALERT American Caeleb Dressel has won his fourth swimming gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics with a victory in the 50-meter freestyle. Dressel cruised to a relatively easy victory in the frenetic dash from one end of the pool to the other, touching in an Olympic record of 21.07 seconds. France’s Florent Manaudou repeated as the Olympic silver medalist in 21.55, while Brazil’s Bruno Fratus claimed the bronze in 21.57 -- edging out American Michael Andrew for the final spot on the podium. Dressel has one more shot at a gold in the 4x100 medley relay, an event the United States has never lost at the Olympics. He’ll swim the butterfly leg in a race that caps nine days of swimming competition at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. If Dressel claims a fifth victory, he would join Americans Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Matt Biondi, as well as East Germany’s Kristin Otto, as the only swimmers to win as many as five golds at a single Olympics. Phelps did it three times. ___ Katie Ledecky is bidding farewell to the Tokyo Games after claiming four medals, two of them gold. The American swimming star went on Twitter to post her thanks to the people of Tokyo and everyone who gave her “tremendous support this week and over the years!” Even though the stands were largely empty at the Olympic pool because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ledecky says she “could hear you all!” Ledecky wasn’t quite as successful as at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she swept her three individual events and also won a gold and a silver in the relays. But she did win gold in her two longest events, the 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle, in addition to swimming a brilliant anchor leg that almost pulled out a gold for the United States in the 4x200 free relay. Along the way, Ledecky became the first female swimmer to win six individual golds in her career, the first woman to win the 800 free at three straight Olympics, and one of just five American female swimmers to earn 10 career medals. At age 24, Ledecky has no plans to stop swimming. Read: Tokyo records record virus cases days after Olympics begin ___ UPSET ALERT Americans Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes are out of the beach volleyball tournament after a three-set loss to Canada in the knockout round opener. Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson beat the U.S. 22-24, 21-18, 15-13 at the Shiokaze Park venue. Americans Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena are set to meet Qatar in the afternoon session. Claes and Sponcil entered the games as the hottest team in the world, winning the last two events of the pandemic-extended qualifying period to grab the second U.S. spot in Tokyo. In the process, they knocked out five-time Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings.

American Caeleb Dressel finished off his gold rush at the Tokyo Olympics with two more dazzling races, and Australia’s Emma McKeon won seven medals, more than any other female swimmer in a single games. Now, when the greatest swimmers are mentioned, there are two new names on the list. Read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Men's Football Quarter-Finals Preview Taking his place alongside Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Matt Biondi, Dressel captured his fourth and fifth gold medals of the pandemic-delayed games on the final day of swimming at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. With victories Sunday in the 50-meter freestyle and 4x100 medley relay, the 24-year-old Floridian joined a truly elite club of swimmers who won at least five gold medals at one games. Phelps did it three times, of course, highlighted by his record eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Games. There’s also Spitz (seven golds in 1972), East German Kristin Otto (six golds in 1988) and Biondi (five golds, also in ’88). Dressel starred at the pool with McKeon, who also won two more golds Sunday to push her overall total to seven — four gold and three bronze. She is the first female swimmer to win seven medals at a single games. The only men to do it are Phelps, Spitz and Biondi. “It still feels very surreal,” the 27-year-old from Brisbane said. “It’s going to take a little bit to sink in. I’m very proud of myself.” Mirroring Dressel’s final day, McKeon won the 50 free and took the butterfly leg on the Aussies’ winning 4x100 medley relay team on the women’s side. In the men’s medley — a race the men have never lost at the Olympics —the Americans were trailing two other teams when Dressel dived in for the fly. Just like that, he blew by Britain and Italy with a blistering leg of 49.03 seconds, more than a second faster that anyone else. Zach Apple made the lead stand up on the freestyle to give the Americans a world record of 3 minutes, 26.78 seconds -- eclipsing the mark of 3:27.28 they set at the 2009 Rome world championships in rubberized suits. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics Ryan Murphy and Michael Andrew joined Dressel and Apple on the winning team, ensuring the Americans remained unbeaten in the medley relay — the final swimming event at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. In the first event of the morning, Dressel won the 50 free for his third individual title of the games. Dressel cruised to a relatively easy win in the frenetic dash from one end of the pool to the other, touching first in the 50 free with an Olympic record of 21.07. When he saw his time and, more important, the “1” beside his name, he splashed the water and flexed his bulging arms. He also won gold in the 100 free, set a world record in the 100 butterfly and took part in the winning 4x100 free relay. A few minutes after Dressel climbed from the pool, McKeon completed her own freestyle sweep. She touched in 23.81 to add the 50 title to her victory in the 100. In the medley relay, McKeon entered truly rarified territory. She is only the second woman in any sport to win seven medals at an Olympics, joining Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya, who claimed two golds and five silvers at the 1952 Helsinki Games. McKeon took the butterfly leg before Cate Campbell anchored the Aussies to a victory over the two-time defending champion Americans. “I don’t know how she does it. I’m exhausted,” said Kyle Chalmers, one of the McKeon’s teammates. “To win one gold medal or an Olympic medal, it’s very, very special. We’re lucky to have her on the team.” Read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Turkmenistan Wins its First Olympic Medal In keeping with the theme of the day, Bobby Finke pulled off his own sweep in the two longest freestyle races. With another strong finishing kick, Finke became the first American man in 37 years to win the 1,500 freestyle. He added to his victory in the 800 free, a new men’s event at these games.

Japan is set to expand the coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo to neighboring areas and the western city of Osaka on Friday in the wake of a record surge in infections while the capital hosts the Olympics. A government panel approved the plan putting Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba, as well as Osaka, under the state of emergency from Monday until Aug. 31. The measures already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa will be extended until the end of August. Read: Tropical storm to bring rain, wind, waves to northeast Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is scheduled to officially announce the measures later Friday. Five other areas, including Hokkaido, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be placed under less-stringent emergency restrictions. Tokyo has reported a record rise in cases for three days in a row, including 3,865 on Thursday. The cases have doubled since last week, and officials have warned they may hit 4,500 a day within two weeks. Officials said 2,995 were hospitalized, about half the current capacity of 6,000 beds, with some hospitals already full. More than 10,000 others were isolating at home or designated hotels, with nearly 5,600 waiting at home while health centers decide where they will be treated. Tokyo is also setting up a facility for those requiring oxygen while waiting for hospital beds. At Friday’s meeting of government experts, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said the spike in Tokyo despite being under the state of emergency for two weeks is an “alarming development that is different from anything we have seen before.” Read: Japan girds for a surreal Olympics, and questions are plenty Nationwide, Japan reported 10,687 confirmed cases Thursday, exceeding 10,000 for the first time. It has recorded 15,166 fatalities from COVID-19, including 2,288 in Tokyo, since the pandemic began. Japan has kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries, but its seven-day rolling average is growing and now stands at 28 per 100,000 people nationwide and 88 per 100,000 in Tokyo, according to the Health Ministry. This compares to 18.5 in the United States, 48 in Britain and 2.8 in India, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The emergency measures focus on an alcohol ban at eateries and karaoke bars and their shortened hours, but they have become less effective because people are only requested to stay and work from home. Many were defying the measures as they have become tired of restrictive life and less cooperative even at a time when the more infectious delta strain is spreading. “We need to come up with measures that are effective,” Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike told a regular news conference Friday, without elaborating. Read:Japan's Olympic security balancing act leaves few satisfied Noting that adults in their 30s or younger dominate recent cases, Koike reminded them of following basic anti-virus measures including mask-wearing and avoiding having parties, urging them to “share the sense of crisis.” As of Thursday, 27% of the Japanese population has been fully vaccinated. The percentage of the elderly who are fully vaccinated is 71.5%.

Bangladeshi promising teen-age archer Diya Siddique was eliminated from the women's recurve singles after making a brilliant fight in shoot-off stage of Tokyo Olympics '2020 Archery at the Yumenoshima Park Archery field in the Japanese capital Thursday morning. Seventeen years old talented archer from Nilphamari District Diya lost to her much superior opponent  Karyna Dziominskaya of Belarus by 5-6 set points  in a nerve shattering ups and downs elimination round match of the women 's recurve singles amid huge appreciations from games lovers. She made a good start beating her superior rival by 23-22 points in the first set, suffered 25-26 points defeat in the 2nd set, played 25-25 in the 3rd set, conceded 25-27 defeat in the 4th set and earned a 27-25 victory in the 5th set to tie the match 5-5 set points. Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics Later, in the match fate-deciding shoot off, Diya, miserably was eliminated from the event in the very first attempt scoring 9 points against her opponent's score of 10 points. After the day's match, three Bangladesh athletes out of six --archer Ruman Shana, shooter Abdullah Hel Baki and Diya Siddique -- completed their Olympics assignments. Three Bangladesh athletes-- swimmers Ariful Islam and Junaiyna Ahmed and athlete Jahir Raihan now  in Tokyo  as their events are yet to start.  Two Bangladeshi swimmers will compete in the heats of their respective 50- meter freestyle on Friday (July 30) while the lone athlete will contest in heat of the 400-meter run on Sunday (August 1). Earlier, Bangladesh famed shooter Abdullah Hel Baki was eliminated from the qualification round of his favourite Men's 10- meter Air Rifles of the Tokyo Olympics Shooting at the Asaka Shooting Range in the Japanese capital last Sunday. He finished 41st among the 47 competitors of the event making a worse total score of 619.8.  Read:Olympics Archery: Ruman Shana eliminated from recurve singles Country's celebrated archer M Ruman Shana was eliminated from round of 32 of the men's recurve singles losing to his Canadian rival Duenas Chispin by 4-6 set points in a keenly contested match  last Tuesday. Ruman Shana smartly advanced to the round-32 of the event eliminating Tom Hall of Great Britain by 7-3 set points in the elimination round Tuesday morning. In last Saturday, Bangladeshi archer Ruman Shana pairing with woman archer Diya Siddique lost to event's gold medalist South Korean pair An San and Kim Je Deok in the round-16 of the mixed team event (mixed doubles) of Olympics. Bangladeshi pair suffered 30-38 defeat in the first set, conceded 33-35 defeat in the 2nd set and eliminated from the event conceding a narrow 38-39 defeat in the 3rd and final set to Korean pair. Earlier on last  Friday, the two Bangladeshi archers made a total score of 1297 to finish 16th and qualifed for the round of 16 of the mixed team event as the last team. Read:Olympics Shooting: Baki eliminated from 10-meter Air Rifles Ruman Shana finished 17th among 64 competitors in the ranking round of recurve individual scoring 662 while Diya Siddique finished 36th among 64 participants in the ranking round making her career best score of 635. Archer Ruman Shana directly qualified to compete in the Tokyo Olympics after winning the bronze medal in the recurve men 's singles of the Archery World Championship held in June, 2019 while Diya Siddique earned opportunity to complete in the Olympics after getting a wild card. The Bangladeshi pair Ruman Shana and Diya Siddique earlier played in the mixed team event final of the Archery World Cup Stage 2 held in Lausanne, Switzerland last May.

For decades, they were told to shake it off or toughen up — to set aside the doubt, or the demons, and focus on the task at hand: winning. Dominating. Getting it done. For years, Simone Biles was one of the very best at that. Suddenly — to some, shockingly — she decided she wasn’t in the right headspace. By pulling on her white sweatsuit in the middle of Tuesday night’s Olympic gymnastics meet, and by doing it with a gold medal hanging in the balance, Biles might very well have redefined the mental health discussion that’s been coursing through sports for the past year. Michael Phelps, winner of a record 23 gold medals and now retired, has long been open about his own mental health struggles. Phelps has said he contemplated suicide after the 2012 Olympics while wracked with depression. Now an analyst for NBC’s swimming coverage, he said watching Biles struggle “broke my heart.” Read:Tokyo Olympics 2020: Turkmenistan Wins its First Olympic Medal “Mental health over the last 18 months is something people are talking about,” Phelps said. “We’re human beings. Nobody is perfect. So yes, it is OK not to be OK.” Biles joins some other high-profile athletes in the Olympic space — overwhelmingly females — who have been talking openly about a topic that had been taboo in sports for seemingly forever. — Tennis player Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, never went to Wimbledon and, after her early exit in Tokyo this week, conceded that the Olympic cauldron was a bit too much to handle. — American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson made no secret of the issues she faced as she prepared for an Olympic journey that never happened. She said she used marijuana to help mask the pain of her birth mother’s death, to say nothing of the pressure of the 100 meters. — Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin left training camp in January to clear his head, saying he was finding it “very difficult for me to know how to find my way as Tom Dumoulin the cyclist.” He resumed training in May; on Wednesday, he won a silver medal in the men’s individual time trials. — Liz Cambage, a WNBA player who competes for Australia, pulled out of the Olympics a week before they opened because of anxiety over entering a controlled COVID bubble in Tokyo that would have kept her friends and family away. “Relying on daily medication to control my anxiety is not the place I want to be right now. Especially walking into competition on the world’s biggest sporting stage,” she wrote on social media. Biles, though, took things to a new level — one that now makes it thinkable to do what had been almost unthinkable only 24 hours before. She stepped back, assessed the situation and realized it would not be healthy to keep going. On Wednesday, she pulled out of the all-around competition to focus on her mental well-being. “I have to do what’s right for me and focus on my mental health, and not jeopardize my health and well-being,” a tearful Biles said after the Americans won the silver medal in team competition. She said she recognized she was not in the right headspace hours before the competition began. “It was like fighting all those demons,” she said. The International Olympic Committee, aware of the struggles young athletes face, increased its mental health resources ahead of the Tokyo Games. Psychologists and psychiatrists are onsite in the Olympic village and established a “Mentally Fit Helpline” as a confidential health support service available before, during and for three months after the Games. Read:Tokyo records record virus cases days after Olympics begin The 24-hour hotline is a free service that offers in more than 70 languages clinical support, structured short-term counseling, practical support and, if needed, guidance to the appropriate IOC reporting mechanisms in the case of harassment and/or abuse. The IOC-developed Athlete365 website surveyed more than 4,000 athletes in early 2020, and the results led the IOC to shift its tone from sports performance and results to mental health and uplifting the athlete’s voices. Content was created for various social media platforms to feature current Olympians championing mental heath causes. And the Olympic State of Mind series on Olympics.com shares compilations of mental health stories and podcasts. “Are we doing enough? I hope so. I think so,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Wednesday. “But like everyone in the world, we are doing more on this issue.” Naoko Imoto, a swimmer at the 1996 Atlanta Games, is a consultant on gender equity for the Tokyo Olympic Committee. She said Osaka’s admission in early June about mental-health struggles represented an opening for a discussion largely avoided. “In Japan, we still don’t talk about mental health,” Imoto said. “I don’t think there’s enough of an understanding on mental health, but I think there are a lot of athletes coming out right now and saying it is common.” Australian swimmer Jack McLoughlin choked back tears after winning the silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle Sunday, describing how the pressures of training during a pandemic while also pursuing an engineering degree nearly caused him to quit the sport. “That’s all to my family and friends. They really helped me out, I was really struggling,” McLoughlin said. “I train up to 10, 11 times a week, so to do that when you are not 100% sure you’re actually going to get where you want to be is pretty hard.” Particularly with the world watching. John Speraw, coach of the U.S. men’s volleyball team and the son of a psychologist, hired a specialist to assist his athletes when he coached at UC Irvine. He was an assistant on two Olympic teams before advancing to be the head coach for the Rio Games. There, he noticed his players were posting on Facebook — during the actual opening ceremony. “To me, it was the most striking,” he said. “I think we are very conscious of the increased scrutiny and external pressure and expectations that it places on our athletes.” Thriveworks, a counseling, psychology, and psychiatry services with more than 300 locations, found that one in three elite athletes suffer from anxiety and depression. In an analysis of more than 18,000 data points from print, online, broadcast and social media sources covering track and field, swimming, tennis, gymnastics and soccer, 69% of negative mentions were about female athletes compared to 31% about male athletes. It showed that when the focus is on an individual athlete, coverage becomes less enthusiastic with a 29% negative tone that exemplifies the public pressure and criticism athletes face, said Kim Plourde, a licensed clinical social worker at Thriveworks who works with elite athletes through the Alliance of Social Workers in Sport. Read:Naomi Osaka eliminated from Tokyo Olympics tennis tournament “Female athletes have to manage a different level of expectations from themselves, coaches, other athletes, media, and fans ranging from their physical appearance to their performance,” Plourde said. Jenny Rissveds of Sweden was the youngest women’s cross-country mountain biking champion when she won gold in Rio at 22. A year later, two deaths in her family triggered depression she still deals with. Rissveds failed to win a second consecutive gold, finishing 14th in Tokyo, but she was elated to be done with competition. “I’m just so f—-ing happy that it’s over,” she said. “Not just the race. But all these years, to not have to carry that title any more. I have a name and I hope that I can be Jenny now and not the Olympic champion, because that is a heavy burden. “I hope that I will be left alone now.”

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike on Wednesday urged younger people to cooperate with measures to bring down the high number of infections and get vaccinated, saying their activities are key to slowing the surge during the Olympics. On Tuesday, the Japanese capital reported 2,848 new cases, exceeding its previous record in January. Read:Bhutan fully vaccinates 90% of eligible adults within a week Koike noted that the majority of the elderly have been fully vaccinated and infections among them have largely decreased, while the mostly unvaccinated younger people are now dominating the new cases. “Younger people’s activity holds the key (to slowing the infections), and we need your cooperation,” Koike said. “Please make sure to avoid nonessential outings and observe basic anti-infection measures, and I would like younger people to get vaccinated.” As of Tuesday, 25.5% of the Japanese population has been fully vaccinated. The percentage of the elderly who are fully vaccinated is 68.2%, or 36 million people. Vaccination prospects for the younger have improved, and some can get their shots organized by work places and colleges, while others still wait based on seniority. But there are also concerns over hesitancy among the young, with surveys showing many of them having doubts, in part due to fake rumors about side effects. Read:Tropical storm to bring rain, wind, waves to northeast Japan Younger people have been blamed for roaming downtown areas after the requested closing hours for eateries and stores and spreading the virus. Tokyo is under its fourth state of emergency, which is to continue through the Olympics, but it mainly focuses on requiring establishments to stop serving alcohol and shorten their hours. Measures for the public are only requests and they are increasingly ignored. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has also urged people to avoid nonessential outings but says there is no need to consider a suspension of the Games, which are held with no fans in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures — Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama. Governors of the three areas, alarmed by Tokyo’s surging cases, said on Wednesday they plan to jointly ask Suga to place their prefectures under the state of emergency too. Read:Olympics ceremony uses music from Japanese video games Nationwide, Japan reported 5,020 cases in the last 24 hours for a total of 870,445 and 15,129 confirmed deaths. Japan has kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries. Its seven-day rolling average of cases is about 3.57 per 100,000 people, compared to 2.76 in India, 17.3 in the United States and 53.1 in Britain, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.