Tri Bourne of the United States celebrates after winning a men’s beach volleyball match against Switzerland at the Summer Olympics on Wednesday at Tokyo, Japan. Felipe Dana/Associated Press
TOKYO — New U.S. beach volleyball partners Jake Gibb and Tri Bourne will have some more time at the Olympics to get to know one another.
The Americans had never played together before their first match in Tokyo on Sunday. They beat Switzerland 21-19, 23-21 on Wednesday to improve to 2-0 in the round robin. They have one more match remaining, against Qatar on Friday night.
Gibb qualified for the Tokyo Games with Taylor Crabb as his partner. But Crabb tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew, allowing Gibb to replace him. Bourne was on the third-place U.S. team in the qualifying race; each country is limited to a maximum of two spots.
Two wins should be enough to put the Americans in the knockout round. At worst, it would put leave them in a three-way tie for first and give them a tiebreaker match.
ROWING: Australia swept the men’s and women’s fours in the first rowing finals of the Tokyo Games, as windy conditions at the Sea Forest Parkway helped the boats set world or Olympic records in all six races.
Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis of Romania started the assault on the record book as the pair of 22-year-olds bolted from the start to dominate the women’s double sculls.
The French duo of Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias then held off a late charge by the Netherlands over the final 50 meters to hang on to win the men’s double sculls by 0.2 seconds.
Australia swept the men’s and women’s fours as part of a four-medal haul for the Aussies on the day. The Netherlands also took four medals, including gold in the men’s quadruple sculls.
China wrapped the day’s medal races by dominating the women’s quadruple sculls, beating silver medalist Poland by more than six seconds.
TUESDAY’S EVENTS
SOFTBALL: Japan won its second straight Olympic softball gold medal, beating the United States 2-0 in an emotional repeat of its 2008 victory in Beijing that again left the Americans in tears.
Yukiko Ueno took a one-hitter into the sixth inning, five days after her 39th birthday, and Japan snuffed out an American rally attempt with an acrobatic double play in the sixth inning that will long be replayed.
Japan led 2-0 when Michelle Moultrie singled leading off the sixth off hard-throwing 20-year-old left-hander Miu Goto.
Goto dealt Haylie McCleney her first strikeout of the Olympics with a 69 mph pitch at the hands, then allowed a single to Janie Reed.
With two on and one out, Amanda Chidester lined a rocket to third. The ball bounced off the left wrist of third baseman Yu Yamamoto and ricocheted to perfectly positioned shortstop Mana Atsumi, who stuck out her glove for a backhand spear, then made a Derek Jeter-like jump throw to second baseman Yuka Ichiguchi to double up Moultrie.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: The U.S. women opened play with an 81-72 win over Nigeria that extended the Americans’ win streak at the Olympics to 50 games.
A’ja Wilson scored 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in her debut.
The U.S. came to Tokyo coming off two rare exhibition losses in Las Vegas earlier this month. The Americans also beat Nigeria by 31 points in that game.
This game was much closer and marked the first time that a team had come within single digits of the U.S. since Russia lost by four points in the semifinals of 2004 Athens Games.
WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL: The expected Olympic showdown between the top two women’s teams in the world turned out to be a one-sided affair.
The U.S. women swept defending gold medalist China 29-27, 25-22, 25-21 on Tuesday in a pool-play match that left the Americans at the top of Pool B and the Chinese seeking to win their first set of the tournament after two straight sweeps to open the Games.
“When we play them, it’s always a great competition,” U.S. captain Jordan Larson said. “But ultimately, I thought we controlled what we could on our side of the net. I think it put them in a lot of trouble. Really proud of our team for imposing ourselves on them. But we know that the history of China and how they were in Rio, you just never know what could come.”
China was also swept by Turkey in the opener but showed five years ago in Rio de Janeiro how little the pool-play matches can mean after losing three of five of them before rallying to win gold. That’s similar to what happened in London in 2012 when Brazil finished fourth in its pool before winning gold, as U.S. Coach Karch Kiraly was quick to point out.
“It’s not unusual for a team to struggle in preliminary and then catch fire with a key win in the quarterfinals,” he said. “I wouldn’t count China out at all right now. They don’t want to be down 2-0, but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of doing major damage in this tournament.”
WOMEN’S SOCCER: The United States made it through to the quarterfinals after a 0-0 draw with Australia.
The Americans are looking to win a fifth Olympic gold medal in Tokyo. They are also vying to become the first team to win at the Olympics following a World Cup title.
But they’ve made it hard on themselves at the Tokyo Games. The U.S. team lost to Sweden 3-0 in its opening match — snapping a 44-game unbeaten streak — before rebounding with a 6-1 victory over New Zealand.
MEN’S SWIMMING: The streak of 12 straight gold medals for the U.S. men in the individual backstroke ended when a pair of Russians beat out defending Olympic champion Ryan Murphy in the 100-meter race.
Evgeny Rylov won the gold medal in 51.98 and teammate Kliment Kolesnikov took the silver in 52.00. Murphy settled for the bronze in 52.19.
It was the first backstroke defeat for the U.S. men at the Olympics since the 1992 Barcelona Games.
They won 12 straight golds over the past six Olympics, including Murphy’s sweep of the 100 and 200 back at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
“Winning an Olympic gold medal means you’re the best in the world,” Murphy said. “Being third in the world is no slouch.”
WOMEN’S TRIATHLON: Flora Duffy has won the Olympic women’s triathlon, earning Bermuda’s first gold medal ever and first medal of any kind since 1976.
Duffy is a two-time former world triathlon series champion. She’s competing in her fourth Olympics and is one of just two athletes representing Bermuda in Tokyo.
The start of the race was delayed 15 minutes because of storm conditions around Tokyo Bay. Duffy pumped her arms over her head as she finished the swimming, cycling and running course in 1 hour, 55:36 minutes.
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