Tokyo 2020 Olympics: China top medal table, Covid worries build – as it happened

• 2.11pm BST14:11 Chen Meng secures gold in the women's table tennis!
• 1.58pm BST13:58 Suni Lee wins the women's All-Around gold medal!
• 1.19pm BST13:19 Russia's Olympic Committee take gold in the women's fencing team foil
• 11.54am BST11:54 GOLD! Aaron Wolf of Japan beats Guham Cho of South Korea by ippon the men's -100kg judo!
• 10.42am BST10:42 Gold! Shori Hamada of Japan beats Madeleine Malonga of France by ippon in the women's judo -78kgen's
• 8.37am BST08:37 Australia's athletics team have been given the all-clear!
• 8.32am BST08:32 Gold! Jess Fox of Australia wins the women's canoe slalom!

Bong! Big Ben strikes midnight and with that this liveblog will be put out of its misery. A new one will grow in its place, and it will grow here:

And I, meanwhile, am off. Bye!

Rowing: Togo’s Claire Ayivon is going to win the women’s F final by a huge margin. Sudan’s Esraa Khogali is going to finish in her own sweet time.

Rowing: This is the first of 12 men’s and women’s single sculls races this [insert local time period here], which will end up with every competitor having a position. This is the Final F, and its winner will be 30th. A women’s Final F follows, followed by men’s and then women’s Final Es, then Final Ds and so on for about two hours, culminating in the Final As. There are 11 nations represented in the two final As, with only the Russian Olympic Committee in both.

Rowing: Riilio Rii was Vanuatu’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony. He is wearing less oil today.

Rowing: Compared with Alfadhel Riilio Rii is is Riili, Riili good. He’s up three boat lengths already.

Rowing: The final day of rowing starts here, with a men’s single sculls F final between Kuwait’s Abdulrahman Alfadhel and Riilio Rii or Vanuatu.

Golf: I’ve seen a few ways of spelling Jonathan in my time but Jhonattan takes some beating. Anyway, Jhonattan Vegas, the world No95, is on the tee.

Golf: We have action! Day is-it-six-or-seven-where-is-the-consensus-people? is under way! Should be a good ‘un. Perhaps my favourite line from Martin Belam’s daily briefing email was this one:

If you only watch one thing: 9am-9pm Athletics – in some ways it never feels like the Olympics have truly got under way until there ar...[snip]

So if you’re only going to watch one thing, it’s 12 hours of athletics. Wave goodbye to your Friday, folks.

Golf: Yesterday two of the first three-man group to start ended the day in the top three. Today the groups are the same, but the order different. Slovakia’s Rory Sabbatini, Chile’s Mito Pereira and Renato Paratore are in the first trio. The first two are tied for 20th on 69, and Paratore a couple of shots back.

Sport ahoy! In the next half-hour action will get under way, with the second round of the golf starting at 6.30am Tokyo time, and the first rowing event 15 minutes later.

Here’s a timetable of Australians in action on Friday, when Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell will be going for gold in the swimming pool, while the Matildas seek a place in the semi-finals and the track and field competition begins:

Triathlon: The triathlon relay is not exactly tomorrow - it’s very much on Saturday if you’re in Tokyo (where it starts at 6.30am) or Australia, but for British viewers it starts late on Friday and in parts of the USA it’s mid-afternoon. Of all the events I’ve never seen before, it might be the one I’m most looking forward to. Teams of four, two men and two women, take it in turns to complete a course made up of a 300m swim, 6.8km on the bike and a 2km run. Each leg takes around 20 minutes, the whole race about an hour and 20. France start as favourites, having won the last three world championships, but Great Britain and the USA will be among those hoping to topple them. The action begins at 22.30 BST/17.30 NY/14.30 LA/ 07.30 Sydney. Here’s a Reuters preview:

Having collected two silver medals in the individual events, Britain can further cement their place as the most successful country in Olympic triathlon history by winning the Games’ first-ever mixed relay event on Saturday.

Alex Yee and Georgia Taylor-Brown’s second places in the individual events took the country’s overall medal haul to seven since the sport joined the Games in 2000.

Two of those were Alistair Brownlee golds and while his younger brother Jonny was unable to add to his silver and bronze after finishing fifth, he gets a final chance to stand on top of the podium as part of a formidable looking British squad.

With either uber-swimmer Jess Learmonth, ninth in Tuesday’s race, or 2016 bronze medallist Vicky Holland completing the quartet, the British will be the team to beat.

If Saturday’s race is anything like a repeat of the 2019 Tokyo test event, when France’s Dorian Coninx just held off Yee in a photo finish, then fans will not be disappointed. The French, world Champions in 2018, 2019 and 2020, look best-equipped to challenge Britain for gold, especially as their team has been boosted by the availability of Vincent Luis.

A United States team featuring a resurgent Katie Zaferes, bronze medallist in the individual event, will also want to ensure they are in the mix, especially on the men’s side after they again failed to make any impression in the search for that elusive first medal in the sport.

Australia also had a disappointing display in the individual races but the former triathlon powerhouse have the added benefit of a pool of six to select from. Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and Switzerland also have plenty of quality and, given the often unpredictable nature of the short, sharp event, a medal is not out of the question for any of them.

“Relay leg selections are so important and is what makes the relay so exciting to watch,” elite coach Blair Cartmell told the tri247.com website. “I do believe GB have the strength and expertise to hold anyone off, but there has to be no mistakes and staying calm under pressure.”

Neither individual champion - Flora Duffy of Bermuda or Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway - will get a chance to add to their haul as their countries did not qualify.

Trampoline: The big question set to be answered tomorrow is: can Rosie MacLennan do it again? The Canadian won gold in 2012 and 2016 and is aiming for a the kind of triple glory that would make her an all-time legend of the bouncy platform world. There’s an interesting video on the Olympic website that I can’t link to (it’s here), but here are some highlights of her previous gold medal-winning performances:

We’ve updated the daily Olympics gallery with a few new photographs, which I would encourage you to check out at your earliest convenience. It’s so good that this can’t get in it.

Tumaini Carayol

Tennis: Marketa Vondrousova and Belinda Bencic will face each other in the women’s tennis singles gold medal match. Vondrousova, who toppled the second seed, Naomi Osaka, in the third round, continued to back up that big win by outplaying Elina Svitolina, the fourth seed, 6-3, 6-1.

“I was thinking that two or three matches would have been great, and then I beat Naomi so then I thought that I was playing well and that maybe I could even do better,” said Vondrousova, who is from the Czech Republic. “I’m now just happy to be in the final. It’s an amazing feeling. I can’t believe it. Maybe it’ll sink in later. This is amazing, even if it’s silver or gold, it’s amazing and I’m just very proud.”

Earlier in the day Bencic, the ninth seed, navigated her path into the final by defeating Elena Rybakina 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-3, the first of two wins in another stellar day in Tokyo. She will now become the first Swiss player to win two Olympic medals in the same year after she also reached the women’s doubles final alongside Viktorija Golubic, beating Laura Pigossi and Luisa Stefani 7-5, 6-3. They will face the tops seeds, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.

Much more here:

An email! “Hi Simon.” Hello Tim Bishop! “A review of the live feed suggests you haven’t mentioned Emma Wilson, the GB windsurfer who’s secured at least a Bronze Medal. with the possibility of a better result in the double-points Medal Race on Saturday. Just an oversight, I’m sure!”

Absolutely. A quick search of the news wires finds this from PA Media:

Windsurfer Emma Wilson is guaranteed to pick up at least a bronze medal for Great Britain on Saturday.

Wilson, the daughter of former Olympic windsurfer Penny Wilson, nee Way, has an insurmountable lead over fourth place going into the double-points medal race at the weekend. Her tally of 34 puts her four points behind China’s Lu Yunxiu and two points ahead of third-placed Charline Picon of France.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” said the 22-year-old, whose mother was a three-time world champion and represented Great Britain at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. “My coach told me on the rib and it’s an amazing feeling. I’ve watched the Olympics since I was a little kid and it’s always been a dream.”

Tom Squires will start sixth overall in the men’s medal race.

In the Finn, reigning Olympic champion Giles Scott made it four race wins in a row to sit top of the standings with four races left to go, while in the Nacra 17 John Gimson and Anna Burnet are up to second at the halfway stage of the competition.

Sean Ingle

Gymnastics: This was supposed to be the night that Simone Biles added yet another star-spangled page to the history books, by becoming the first gymnast to defend an women’s Olympic all-around title for more than 50 years. Instead a new American talent emerged from the shadow of greatness.

While Biles watched and whooped from the stands, 18-year-old Sunisa Lee held her nerve in an epic four-way tussle for gold. She had already made waves by becoming the first Hmong American to compete for Team US – and then again during a nerveless performance in Tuesday night’s team competition after Biles withdrew citing anxiety concerns. This, though, was a performance bursting with energy, boldness and power. And it also capped a story so remarkable and sweeping it could have been scripted by Hollywood.

Much more here:

Anastasia Logunova is a Russian basketball player. Here she is playing 3x3 basketball in Tokyo:

The ROC team did very well in the 3x3 basketball, eventually winning the silver medal after losing narrowly to the USA in yesterday’s final:

Whereupon they had to leave Tokyo sharpish, and today they arrived back in Moscow, where they were met at the airport by friends and family.

And there was yet more happy news for the Logunova family:

The end.

Gymnastics: Sunisa Lee, the new women’s Olympic all around champion, said that Simone Biles and her older teammates gave her some key advice in a tense moment shortly before her final, writes Tumaini Carayol.

“They told me to just go out there and not worry about anything else because I was starting to put a lot of pressure on myself,” she said. “I feel like people kind of put that pressure on me, that I had to come back with that medal. So I tried not to think about it and that’s what they told me to do, Just focus on myself and do what I want to do because that’s when I compete the best.”

Much more here:

Given the absence of supporters in Tokyo, and the fact that athletes are basically ordered to hotfoot it out of the country as soon as their event finishes, this seems a really good thing, allowing athletes to get a deserved ovation and the public to catch a glimpse of their heroes.

The Dutch have always known how to throw a party, and Holland House is always one of the must-visit places at the Olympics. On this occasion it’s actually in Holland. However much effort went into it was worth it just so that Annemiek van Vleuten’s mum could feel maximum nachas.

Swimming: Here’s a preview of Friday’s pool-based action, courtesy of Reuters:

Emma McKeon can add to Australia’s golden haul in a women’s 100m freestyle final packed with champions and record holders at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday.

After smashing the Olympic record in the preliminary heats with a personal best of 52.13sec, McKeon starts in lane four in pursuit of her fourth medal of the Games. Hong Kong’s 200m freestyle silver medallist Siobhan Haughey could be McKeon’s closest challenger, followed by Australia’s former world champion and triple Olympic relay gold medallist Cate Campbell. The field also features Canada’s defending Olympic champion Penny Oleksiak, Sweden’s world record holder Sarah Sjostrom and 2016 medley relay gold medallist Abbey Weitzeil of the United States.

Australia have so far won five golds in the swimming, four provided by women, but McKeon has yet to win an individual title. “She’s in good form,” Australia’s five-times gold medallist Ian Thorpe told Seven television. “But, of course, she’s up against Cate Campbell and the likes of the best competitors in the world. So that one’s a tough one to call, but I think she will medal in that.”

South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker has the world record in her sights in the women’s 200m breaststroke after qualifying close to the mark. “I wish had longer fingernails,” she told reporters after missing it by five hundredths of a second. Olympic 100m breaststroke champion Lilly King qualified only fifth fastest.

In the men’s 200m backstroke, Luke Greenbank was second fastest to Russian favourite Evgeny Rylov in the semis, as Britain enjoy their best Olympic swimming performance in 113 years. “There have been some inspiring performances and I really want to get in on that action and come away with a medal,” he said.

Compatriot Duncan Scott has his chance of individual gold in the men’s 200m medley, with China’s Shun Wang, Japan’s Daiya Seto and Michael Andrew of the United States his big opponents. A medal of any colour would keep Scott on course to become the first British athlete to win four at a single Games.

Fencing: Can anyone explain this?

Taekwondo: Sachin Nakrani has interviewed Lutalo Muhammad, who people seem very excited about. I don’t think the BBC are having a very good Olympics by their very high standards, but Lutalo has been a good thing. “It was towards the end of day one that I started noticing I was getting a significant amount of attention,” he says. “At first I thought it was just a reaction to people’s excitement at seeing taekwondo at the Olympics for the first time in five years, but as it went on I began to realise this was a little bit unusual.”

Much more here:

Another cracking day lies in store tomorrow. Sure, there’s more dressage - nothing’s ever perfect, right? - but there’s also BMX finals, trampolining and the triathlon team relay. Here’s a list of every event in which medals will be won. My bold prediction is that Croatia will win the men’s doubles tennis, an event in which they have all four finalists:

RowingWomen’s single scullsMen’s single scullsWomen’s eightMen’s eight

SwimmingWomen’s 200m breaststrokeMen’s 200m backstrokeWomen’s 100m freestyleMen’s 200m individual medley

JudoWomen’s +78kgMen’s +100kg

Athletics Men’s 10,000m

BMX Racing Men’s and women’s individual

Badminton Mixed doubles

Shooting Women’s 25m pistol

Archery Women’s individual

Canoe Slalom Men’s K1

Gymnastics Women’s individual trampoline

Fencing Men’s team epee

Triathlon Mixed team relay

Tennis Men’s doubles

Table tennis Men’s singles

Hello world! Squash, then. It is, from where I’m sitting, the one glaring omission from the Olympic sporting roster, and there’s absolutely no logical explanation for it. Sure, the sport is currently dominated by one nation (Egypt), but the latest PSA rankings for men and women also include in their top 20s athletes from France, Great Britain, Australia, India, Belgium, Canada, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. It is played all around the world, and the Olympics would instantly become the pinnacle. It is played in, for example, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games without looking out of place.

It came this close to being included for London 2012, when the IOC picked it and karate from a shortlist of five (also including golf, roller skating and rugby sevens) to go to a final ballot, only for neither to get the required votes. Then golf and rugby sevens got approved to join the list in 2016, and climbing and skateboarding got the thumbs up for 2020, and squash kept getting ignored. Here’s a good piece from the squash player James Willstrop that followed that decision:

In three years time breakdancing - breakdancing, mind you - will be an Olympic sport. Squash remains sidelined. I have never seen a reasonable explanation. Please do email me one if you have one.

Adam Collins

“Hello Adam.” Andrew Benton, hello to you. “There’s Olympic tennis, there’s Olympic badminton, but there’s no Olympic squash! Why so?” It’s a fine question. And one that I’ll hand to Simon Burnton, who strikes me as the type of guy who will be able to give you an answer steeped in history. Thanks for your company. Bye!

Another highlight of any Olympic day, is scrolling through the best of the photographs. Once again, this collection doesn’t disappoint.

Something we missed. Belinda Bencic, the world No9 tennis player from Switzerland, is having a busy and wonderful first week at the Olympics. Raeder Laura Rutishauser brings this to my attention: “Not only did she make it to the women’s singles, but also the doubles final, having now played five singles and four doubles on five consecutive days and a total of 17 hours. I thinks that’s proof of incredible grit and athleticism there and worthy of a mention.”

It sure is! Going through it, after defeating Elena Rybakina (KAZ) 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 in the semi, Bencic’s opponent in the gold medal match is Markéta Vondroušová (CZE). In the doubles, with Viktorija Golubic, it will be the Czechs she again has to deny in the decider, specifically the pair of Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková. What a dreamy couple of days she might have ahead of her.