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Olympic Games: what Tokyo 2020 (2021) left us

2021-08-08T21:22:57.588Z


The Tokyo Olympics had several situations and moments that already mark them in the history of sport. We present you some.


This couple recreates all Olympic sports in 17 days 2:04

(CNN Spanish) -

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (2021, actually) have come to an end.

This Sunday, the closing ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in the Japanese capital was the last moment of this sporting event that took place from July 23 to August 8.

  • PHOTOS |

    The closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

From taking place in the midst of a pandemic to the increasingly constant theme of mental health, these Tokyo Olympics had multiple situations and moments that already mark them in the history of sport.

We present you some.

1. Olympic Games in the middle of covid-19

The Olympics were originally to be held in 2020, but the covid-19 pandemic prevented this from happening.

They had to be postponed for a year, so the official start date was left for July 23.

However, the pandemic, which has not ceased to date, once again raised doubts.

Even two days before the initial flagging, Tokyo 2020 director Toshiro Muto was not ruling out a last-minute cancellation of the Olympics amid a surge in covid-19 cases.

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But they were carried out, although with many changes: without an audience in the competitions, all the athletes living in a 'bubble' called the Olympic Village, with mandatory use of face masks between duels and delivery of medals, among others.

What was the result at the end of the sports event?

Organizers of the Olympics said on Sunday that 27 new cases of covid-19 related to the Games had been identified.

None of them were athletes.

To date, Olympic authorities have reported 436 Games-related covid-19 cases, which ended overnight in Tokyo.

On Saturday, in Tokyo alone, 4,566 cases of covid-19 were reported, the fourth day in a row that the city has reported more than 4,000 new infections daily.

2. Mental health in sport

One of the topics that received the most attention in these Olympic Games was that of mental health in sport.

Tennis player Naomi Osaka, Japan's standard bearer at these Games, had already spoken about this when she retired from Roland Garros in May and it had become one of the flagships of this issue.

Attention to this matter increased further when Simone Biles, a gymnast from the United States and one of the best in history, decided to withdraw from the Tokyo 2020 women's gymnastics team final for mental health reasons.

Both Biles and Osaka, beyond their results in competition, have put in the public eye the issue of mental health, which is of vital importance and has affected many athletes for years.

  • Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, and mental health in sport: why it is important to talk about this the way they did, what it takes, and some expert advice

3. Simone Biles

After withdrawing from that final, Biles did not compete again until the last event for which he could contest a medal: the balance beam final.

For his return, Biles had to secretly train in a Japanese gym to regain his physical form.

She did not reach the gold medal, but her bronze medal was a total triumph for the US gymnast.

After winning the bronze medal, Simone Biles shared her impressions, insisting again that it is important to talk more about mental health with athletes.

Biles: We need to talk more about mental health with athletes 0:58

4. Tom Daley

Diver Tom Daley, who after four Olympic Games managed to reach the gold medal at Tokyo 2020, also spoke about mental health.

After going viral for knitting in the women's 10-foot dive final, Daley said on her alternate Instagram page that the only thing that has kept her mentally well throughout the pandemic is her love of knitting.

"The only thing that has kept me calm throughout this process is my love of knitting and crocheting and all things sewing," Daley told her 564,000 followers on her Instagram page @madewithlovebytomdaley.

The last creation that Daley shared at the Tokyo Olympics was a cardigan that he knitted throughout the sporting event.

On her Instagram, she posts the photos and promotes them to raise funds for various charitable causes.

5. The youngest Olympic podium in history and adults in competition

Skateboarding attracted attention not only because it debuted in Tokyo 2020, but also because of the young age of the athletes who competed, especially in the events of the women's category.

Japanese Nishiya Momiji won the gold medal in skateboarding.

At just 13 years old, she is one of the youngest medalists in the history of the Games.

And it wasn't just Nishiya: the entire podium at that event was young, so much so that it is the youngest in the history of the Olympics.

In addition to Nishiya, a 13-year-old gold winner, 13-year-old Rayssa Leal from Brazil won silver and 16-year-old Funa Nakayama from Japan took bronze.

A combined age on the podium of 42 years.

These are the young men who dominate in Tokyo 2:07

Just as the youth stood out, the greatest also exalted the sports spirit.

Historic equestrian Andrew Hoy became Australia's longest-serving Olympic medalist, winning team silver and individual bronze at age 62 at Tokyo 2020.

Let's hear it for Australia's oldest Olympic medalist, Andrew Hoy!

😱

Inspiring and achieving in Olympic Equestrianism since 1984 this man shows no signs of stopping!

Eyes on Brisbane 2032!

👀

📸 © ️FEI / @Ctanierephotos / Libby Law Photography @ Tokyo2020 @Olympics pic.twitter.com/Jx0G5GGcuq

- The FEI (@FEI_Global) August 3, 2021

On the other hand, Chuso GarcĂ­a Bragado, from Spain, became the athlete with the most Olympic participations in history: from Barcelona 1992 to Tokyo 2020, where he competed at the age of 51.

Something has already happened 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭ó𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐨:


Chuso García Bragado 🇪🇸, at age 51, became the athlete with the most Olympic participations in history 🤯

✅ Barcelona 1992


✅ Atlanta 1996


✅ Sydney 2000


✅ Athens 2004


✅ Beijing 2008


✅ London 2012


✅ Rio 2016


✅ # Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/UUhdrUNeM9

- The Olympic Games (@juegosolimpicos) August 5, 2021

6. Perfect dives to win gold at age 14

The concerns of most 14-year-olds tend to range from school to social gatherings.

But not for Quan Hongchan.

Hongchan, the young diving sensation (who is also China's youngest athlete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics), won an impressive gold medal in the women's 10-meter platform event.

After the victory, she admitted that the nerves of the competition affected her slightly.

"I was a little nervous, but not much, just a little," she told reporters.

Hongchan made two perfect dives with a score of 10 from all the judges in a dominant display.

Thus, she became the second youngest woman to win the gold medal in this event, after her compatriot Fu Mingxia won the title at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, at just 13 years old.

  • These are some of the youngest and oldest athletes to win a medal in the history of the Olympic Games

Although when asked what she thinks of when people call her a "diving prodigy", Hongchan said she did not agree with that label.

"I don't think I'm a prodigy. I'm not very bright. I'm not doing well in school. You ask me all these questions and I just have a blank mind," replied the 14-year-old athlete.

7. Sexism in sport

Seeing that some commenters still made the "absolute minimum" effort to learn the name of an Olympic athlete "basically reinforces that stereotype that no one is watching, (that) no one cares about women's soccer or female athletes," said Rebecca Smith on the ongoing problem of sexism in sport.

  • Pigtails and smiles: pervasive language keeps sexism in Olympic sport

Infantization is also a pervasive force.

Scholars studying the intersection of gender and sport highlight the fact that commentators continue to use the word "girls" to describe elite athletes, regardless of their age, while rarely referring to male athletes as " kids".

Janet Fink, an expert in marketing of female athletes and women's sports and associate dean at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told CNN it was difficult to understand how in 2021 "you could call someone who is a world-renowned athlete a girl."

Despite this, visibility and interest in women's sport continues to grow, and current and former athletes often play a role in raising those profiles, according to Smith.

A record number of female athletes participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics could point to another indicator of that progression.

But gender inequality still largely exists at the Olympics, with the infantilization and sexualization of female athletes an ever-present force.

Smith points to another Olympic football game last week, in which the "blonde" ponytail of a Team Great Britain athlete was the subject of comment, or how a male commentator pontificate on the "beautiful" smile of a football player. rugby seven.

8. Shared gold medal

Athletes decide to share the gold 0:46

It was certainly a moving scene.

Two athletes jointly won the gold medal in the men's high jump at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Both Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) and Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar) had identical marks after exceeding 2.37 meters.

Afterwards, they tried, unsuccessfully, to exceed 2.39 meters.

So, according to the official Olympics website, the judge approached both athletes to ask if they wanted to tie the tie or share the gold.

The two decided to give up the tiebreaker and agreed to share the gold medal and the title of Olympic champions.

Tamberi and Barshim set their best records of the season as they pushed each other toward gold.

9. From Venezuela to the world

The Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas swept the triple jump event of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. She won the gold medal and smashed the world and Olympic records.

Yulimar from very early set the pace of competition and took over from the beginning of the test.

In her first jump, she broke the Olympic record with 15 meters and 41 centimeters, beating by just two centimeters the mark of the Cameroonian Francoise Mbango that had been in force since the 2008 Beijing Games.

But the best was yet to come and the 25-year-old jumper saved her last jump to break a world record that had been untouchable since 1995. The Caracas-born jumped 15.67, surpassing the mark of the Ukrainian Inessa Kravets by 17 centimeters.

This was the first gold medal in history for Venezuela in athletics.

10. "The Tokyo Summer", the worst in the history of the Olympic Games

Summers in Japan are hot, humid, and can be deadly.

If records are being broken during testing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, a brand might also emerge that might not have been desired.

Before the pandemic, heatstroke was the greatest risk for athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, but during the first week of competitions, the heat was exacerbated by humidity values ​​ranging from 66% to 84%, which makes the sensation of heat much greater and limits the body's ability to cool itself through sweat and evaporation.

"If you take into account not only the temperature, but also the humidity, I would say that Tokyo's summer is the worst in the history of the Olympic Games," said Makoto Yokohari, professor of environment and urban planning at the University of Tokyo and Tokyo 2020 advisor, who spoke to CNN before the jousts began.

During the Olympics, temperatures frequently reached 32.2 ° C or more, but with humidity, the feeling can be as high as 37.7 ° C.

In 2018 there were more than 1,000 deaths from the heat wave in Japan.

This year, from July 19 to 25, more than 8,000 people have been hospitalized for possible heat stroke.

With information from Chandler Thornton, Ben Church, Gawon Bae, Uriel Blanco, George Ramsay, Toyin Owoseje, Ben Morse, Kara Fox, Fernando Alfonso III, CĂŠsar LĂłpez, Amanda Sealy and Selina Wang.

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-08-08

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