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TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases in almost six months on Wednesday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said with the Tokyo Olympics opening in just over a week.
The surging numbers came out on the same day that International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach paid a courtesy call in Tokyo on Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
On the one hand, skateboarder Nyjah Huston is the quintessential counterculture sports star with a story even the best marketing team could not make up: He spent different parts of his childhood cut off from society, living off the land, perfecting his trade in a family-owned indoor skateboard park.
BOSTON (AP) — When the first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, winners did not get gold medals as they will later this month when the Tokyo games get underway. Instead, they got silver, while runners-up got bronze.
BEIJING (AP) — China will send 431 athletes to the Tokyo Games as part of a 777-member delegation, its largest at an Olympics outside China, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday.
The team includes 298 female athletes, more than twice the 133 male competitors.
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Almost all of the athletes from the refugee Olympic team have had their arrival at the Tokyo Games delayed after a team official tested positive for the coronavirus.
Twenty-six refugee athletes from around the world will stay and train in Qatar, where they had been attending a “welcome experience” before a planned departure to Tokyo, the International Olympic Committee said Wednesday.
USA Basketball finally made it look easy again.
Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal each scored 17 points and the Americans took control from the outset, beating Argentina 108-80 in Las Vegas on Tuesday to avoid what would have been the first three-game losing streak in this era of NBA players being able to represent USA Basketball on the international stage.
Both the U.S. Olympic team and the WNBA All-Stars expect a competitive game in the league's showcase Wednesday.
Usually there is not much defense played in All-Star games until the fourth quarter, but this one could be different with the Olympians having limited time to get ready for the Tokyo Games.
There was a time when Kristie Mewis realized her soccer career wasn't quite headed in the direction she hoped.
Mewis had fallen out of favor with the U.S. national team. She'd passed through pro clubs without finding her place.
LONDON (AP) — Johanna Konta of Britain won't compete at the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19, she said Tuesday, after being dropped from Wimbledon just over two weeks ago when a member of her team contracted the virus.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Olympic champion gymnast Oleg Verniaiev is set to miss the Tokyo Games because he has been banned for four years following a failed drug test.
The Ukrainian gymnast tested positive for the banned substance meldonium in August 2020 and was banned after a ruling by the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation, which hears disciplinary cases in the sport.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — For some Native Hawaiians, surfing’s Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland.
NEW YORK (AP) — No team has been playing better than Minnesota the past few weeks as the WNBA enters its month-long Olympic break.
The Lynx are riding a seven-game winning streak and have turned around their season.
Roger Federer will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics, writing on social media Tuesday that he “experienced a setback" with his knee during the grass-court season.
Federer had said before Wimbledon that he would make a decision about going to the Summer Games after the Grand Slam tournament ended.
WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden will attend the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics in Tokyo, the White House announced Tuesday, even as the city has entered a new state of emergency over a rise in coronavirus cases.
Three-quarters of the 613-person U.S. Olympic team that was released Tuesday competed in the American collegiate system — the most up-to-date number to illustrate the country's dependence on NCAA and other college programs to bring home medals.
Three-time world champion Peter Sagan withdrew from the Olympic road race Tuesday, a day after minor surgery to treat an infection in his knee, eliminating another potential favorite less than two weeks before the start of the Summer Games.
TOKYO (AP) — IOC President Thomas Bach referred to his Japanese hosts as Chinese when he appeared in public on Tuesday for the first time since arriving in Tokyo last week.
Giving a pep talk at the headquarters of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee, Bach's opening remarks were, “You have managed to make Tokyo the best-ever prepared city for the Olympic Games.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — These games don’t count. Right now, that is the only saving grace for USA Basketball.
And for quite probably the first time in 29 years of NBA players suiting up for the national team, there was a smattering of boos when a game ended — on home soil, no less.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM RIO: The United States won its sixth consecutive gold medal in women's basketball with arguably the best team ever assembled. The Americans routed their opponents, winning by an average of nearly 40 points a game, including a 29-point win over Spain in the championship contest.
Three-time world champion Peter Sagan had surgery Monday to treat an infection in his right knee that occurred following a crash at the Tour de France, leaving his status for the Tokyo Olympics in question less than two weeks before they begin.
Sam Mikulak felt frantic. The American gymnast had his training disrupted by COVID-19, and the Tokyo Olympics were postponed until 2021.
That unease stayed with Mikulak for a while, and it led him to confront all the ways the perfectionism of gymnastics had affected the rest of his life.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — An attempt at cheating to qualify Uzbekistan swimmers for the Tokyo Olympics has been blocked by sport’s highest court. World swim body FINA denounced Uzbekistan's “nefarious behavior.”
TOKYO (AP) — A virus state of emergency began Monday in Japan's capital, as the number of new cases is climbing fast and hospital beds are starting to fill just 11 days ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea has reported more than 1,000 coronavirus cases for the sixth straight day as the greater capital area entered stringent social distancing restrictions to slow transmissions.
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Even with a chance to complete a so-called “Golden Slam,” Novak Djokovic isn't sure he'll be playing at the Tokyo Olympics.
The lack of fans and the tight coronavirus restrictions in Tokyo means Djokovic remains on the fence about traveling to Japan.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Gregg Popovich has been repeating a similar refrain ever since he got the job to coach the U.S. men’s national basketball team. The world, he insists, is catching up.
April Ross was 24 years old when she first started playing beach volleyball, the sport that would eventually send her to four Olympics.
At that age, Sarah Sponcil is already headed to the Summer Games.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Patty Mills hit a 3-pointer as time expired, giving Australia an 87-84 win over Argentina in a pre-Olympics exhibition on Saturday night.
Mills inbounded the ball with 2.5 seconds left to Jock Lansdale, who handed it back to Mills for the winning shot at the buzzer — capping a comeback that was needed after the Australians wasted a 10-point lead midway through the final quarter.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — This is not how USA Basketball expected to open its Olympic summer.
Nigeria probably didn’t expect it, either.
If there was any expectation of invincibility for the Americans heading into the Tokyo Olympics, it’s already gone — after Nigeria beat the U.S.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The largest of the Navajo Nation casinos is preparing to reopen for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The Twin Arrows Resort Casino east of Flagstaff has been closed since March 2020.
BOSTON (AP) — Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman was reunited with her beloved dog Mylo, a week after he ran off after being spooked by fireworks in Boston.
Raisman announced Mylo’s return in a tweet Friday night, six days after she reported the 35-pound brown dog was missing.
Before Caroline Marks ever won her first surfing contest and long before ever earning a spot at the Tokyo Games as her sport makes its Olympic debut, there was simply this: Trying to impress her big brothers.
TOKYO (AP) — Two more prefectures outside the immediate Tokyo area have decided to bar fans from attending Olympic events because of rising coronavirus infections, Tokyo Olympic organizers confirmed on Saturday with the pandemic-delayed games opening in just under two weeks.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — USA Basketball didn’t blow up Kevin Durant’s phone with repeated calls to beg and plead for him to play in the Tokyo Olympics. It was a much more dignified process: They asked, then they waited.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — European weightlifting champion Daniyar Ismayilov faces being stripped of his title after failing a drug test, the Turkish weightlifting federation said on Friday.
Ismayilov was the Olympic silver medalist in the 69-kilogram category in 2016 and won the European title at 73 kg in April.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency leaders are pushing to further mitigate “harsh consequences” for marijuana if it's not intentionally used to enhance performance, though they cannot unilaterally change the rules, they wrote in a letter to members of Congress critical of the agency in the wake of sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson's ban from the Olympics.
PARIS (AP) — Paris police released rapper Lil Baby from custody on Friday after fining him for having cannabis in his car, according to the city prosecutor's office. He was stopped along with NBA star James Harden, who was frisked but not detained.
LITTLE FALLS, N.J. (AP) — Sitting in the dugout at tiny Yogi Berra Stadium as he prepared to play for the Frontier League’s Sussex County Miners, Todd Frazier recalled reading a quote from former Yankees teammate Masahiro Tanaka vowing Japan’s baseball team will win an Olympic gold medal.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan is famous for running on consensus. But the decision to proceed with the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics has shredded it.
On one side, the Japanese public face concerns about the coronavirus at a time when only 16% are fully vaccinated.
LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Toni Duggan returned to Everton on Friday, signing a two-year contract with the club where she made her professional debut.
The 29-year-old forward had spent four seasons in Spain, playing for Barcelona and then Atlético Madrid.
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Australian triathlete Ashleigh Gentle had just finished a training session at her temporary base of Cairns in north Queensland state. Hot, muggy and tropical Cairns — except for the tropical part — is exactly what she’s expecting during her competition at the Tokyo Olympics.