Holding each other tighter than lovers, the wrestlers smear each other with sweat, spittle and — when they inadvertently cut each other — sometimes blood. Lungs heaving, mouths agape, they huff and puff into each others’ flushed faces. On their glistening bodies, it’s impossible to tell their opponents’ fluids and theirs apart. Underscoring the health risks of such proximity: They are the only people in the cavernous hall not wearing face masks. Watching Olympic wrestling in the midst of the pandemic of a deadly airborne disease feels like being part of a virological experiment, a real-life study of droplets, aerosols and fluid dispersion. A germophobe’s nightmare, it’s a messy spectacle best observed from the stands where volunteers hold signs reading “keep physical distance” for non-existent crowds, barred from the Tokyo Games because of surging coronavirus infections in the Olympic host country where less than one-third of the population is vaccinated.But because wrestling is the most close-contact sport of the Olympics, it also speaks loudest of the all-out war against the virus that athletes have waged to get to Tokyo and, once here, continue to fight to stay free of infection and compete. Wrestlers are the Games’ equivalent of the canaries that alerted coal miners to noxious gases in the air of closed-in mines. That even they say they feel safe going body to body in combat testifies to extraordinary efforts that Olympians are making to stay healthy, exercising a sanitary discipline that has made competition possible but has also squeezed a lot of fun from their Olympic experience. READ: Olympic families find solace, create bonds far from Tokyo Which Brazilian wrestler Aline Silva says is a necessary price to pay. She hopes the Tokyo Games will serve as a counterweight to COVID-19 fatigue by sending a sobering message that until the virus is beaten, people everywhere should exercise greater caution and take better care of themselves and others. Brazil has the world’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll with 556,000 fatalities. “In Brazil, everybody knows that it is best to not be in parties and do things like that. But I don’t know why they don’t care, they do anyway,” Silva said. “So we need to show people that we need, right now, to be focused on doing our jobs as safely as possible.” The 34-year-old had set her sights in Tokyo on making amends for her failure to win a medal at her home Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. But when the pandemic struck, she decided to put wrestling on hold indefinitely, in part because it no longer felt safe but also to set an example that life couldn’t, shouldn’t, simply carry on as before. She has an uncle who spent 13 days in the hospital with COVID-19. Only this year, in a small bubble of athletes who were tested and lived together with limited outside contact, did she resume preparations for the Games. “I believe that, right now, people should be thinking about lives. That matters more than any sport. But we are here, trying to beat this virus, too,” she said. “We need to do our part for everybody to survive. I might not die of COVID but I don’t want to pass the disease on to somebody that might die. A lot of people, I think, don’t think about that.” In Tokyo, Olympians can’t not think about that. They are sealed off in a giant sanitary bubble built with daily tests, oceans of sanitizer and strict restrictions on their movements. They are instructed not to mix with people outside their teams. They are told to avoid hugs, high-fives and handshakes — all deemed “unnecessary” by Games organizers — advice they often ignore in the heat and joy of competition. They cannot watch sports other than their own or wander around the city. The dining hall in the athletes’ village where most of them are confined has hospital-like cleanliness. Matilda Kearns, a water polo competitor from Australia, detailed the sanitary procedures in a TikTok posting. They not only sanitize their hands but also wear plastic gloves before touching food trays that have also been sanitized, she said. They then eat in small cubicles, which they wipe down with disinfectant wipes, separated by see-through plastic screens that make meal-time chat “pretty difficult because it’s hard to hear through them,” Kearns said. She added that they also have an additional team rule “that once the mask is off, you only have 10 minutes to eat to reduce exposure.” Preventive measures extend also onto fields of play. Table tennis has barred players from blowing on the ball before they serve, which some used to do to rid it of dust, and from wiping sweaty palms on the table. Before the pandemic, players were only allowed to wipe themselves down with towels after every six points, to avoid slowing play. Now, they can use towels liberally, to avoid sweat on the table. Players also must wear masks and gloves when selecting their stock of balls before matches. In badminton, when players need to replace a damaged shuttlecock, they now get a new one themselves from a dispenser, so they are no longer handled by the match official who used to distribute them. At the Olympic boxing arena, uniformed cleaners attack the ring between most fights to wipe down the ropes, corner pads and canvas of any sweat or blood, before the next pair of boxers forces them to do it all over again. In weightlifting, the bar is disinfected with surgical alcohol between lifts. READ: At an extraordinary Olympics, acts of kindness abound Outside the Olympic bubble, fueled by the more contagious delta variant, infections in Tokyo have logged new daily records and nearly tripled in the first week after the Games opened on July 23. Japanese officials say the surge is unrelated to the Olympics. Inside the Olympians’ bubble, infections have been limited. Since July 1, 222,000 tests on athletes and team officials yielded 32 positives, a strike rate of 0.01%, Games organizers say. Fully vaccinated and as careful as he can be, Finnish wrestler Elias Kuosmanen said he felt safe enough to shut off his mind to the risk of infection when he competed and got all sweaty in the men’s Greco-Roman heavyweight class. “We’re tested all the time, so I am pretty sure that the opponents and everyone are COVID-19-free,” he said. “I don’t need to stress about it.”

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.

Athlete Jahir Rayhan will compete in the heats of his lone event Men's 400-meter run of the Tokyo Olympics'202O at the Olympics Stadium in Tokyo on Sunday morning. He will compete in lane-2 of the event's heats number-3 at 8:O1 am (Bangladesh time) along with the athletes of USA, Brazil, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobacco, Slovenia and Congo. Jahir is keen to display his career best performance in his favourite 400-meter in the Bangladesh's last event in the ongoing Tokyo Olympics.  He will be the 3rd Bangladeshi athlete to compete in 400-meter of 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. The present best timing of Jahir is 47.34 second. 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, all the Bangladeshi athletes performed their best show in the mega games. Two Bangladeshi swimmers--M Ariful Islam and Junayna Ahmed were eliminated from their respective heats of the men's and women's 50-meter freestyle swimming of the Tokyo Olympics'2020 making their career best timings at Tokyo Aquatic Center on Friday. Read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Meet the Bangladesh Athletes Ariful Islam, who had the honour of carrying the Bangladesh national flag in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, finished 3rd in heats number- 4 among eight competitors scoring his career best timing of 24.81 seconds. In the overall ranking, Ariful was placed 51st among 73 competitors of the event. His previous best timing of the event was 24.92 seconds made in the World Swimming Championship in South Korea in 2019. In the Women's 50- meter freestyle, Junayna Ahmed, a Bangladeshi origin London- based swimmer, finished 5th among eight swimmers in heats number 3 scoring her career best timing of 29.78 seconds. The overall ranking of Junayna in the event is 68th among 83 competitors. The previous best timing of Junaina Ahmed in the event was 30.96 second made in the World Swimming Championship in South Korea in 2019. Earlier Thursday, Bangladeshi promising teen-age archer Diya Siddique 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. Read: Olympics Archery: Diya Siddique eliminated from recurve singles in shoot-off The 17-year-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. Later, in the match fate-deciding shoot off, Diya, was miserably eliminated from the event in the very first attempt scoring 9 points against her opponent's score of 10 points. Earlier, Bangladesh’s 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. 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 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. On 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. The two Bangladeshi archers made a total score of 1297 to finish 16th and qualified for the round of 16 of the mixed team event. Ruman finished 17th among 64 competitors in the ranking round of recurve individual scoring 662 while Diya finished 36th among 64 participants in the ranking round making her career best score of 635.

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).

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.”

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

Bangladeshi celebrated archer M Ruman Shana was eliminated from his favourite men's recurve singles on the 5th day of Tokyo Olympics Archery at Yumenoshima Park Archery field in the Japanese capital Tuesday noon. He lost to his Canadian rival Duenas Chispin by 4-6 set points in a keenly contested round-32 match. Read:Olympics Shooting: Baki eliminated from 10-meter Air Rifles Ruman Shana made a good start beating his rival 26-25 in the first set, suffered 25-28 defeat in the 2nd set, conceded 27-29 defeat in the 3rd set, earned a 27-26 victory in the 4th set and eliminated from the event conceding a narrow 25-26 defeat in the 5th and match deciding set to his Canadian rival. Earlier in the morning, 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. He played 28-28 in the first set, earned 27-25 victory in the 2nd set, managed 26-25 victory in the 3rd set, conceded 25-27 defeat in the 4th set and qualified for the round-32 by winning the 5th and final set by 29-27. In remaining Bangladesh archery event, archer Diya Siddique will play Dziominskaya Karyna of Belarus in the elimination round of the women 's recurve singles on Thursday (July 29). Read:Olympics Archery: Bangladesh eliminated from mixed team event 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. 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. Read:Tokyo Olympics 2020: Meet the Bangladesh Athletes 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. 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.