July 26 Tokyo 2020 Olympics news and results

Japan’s mixed doubles pair of Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito claimed their country's first ever Olympic table tennis gold medal with a dramatic victory over China’s Xu Xin and Liu Shinwen on Monday.

It was the first time the mixed doubles event had been played at the Olympics and Monday’s finale didn’t fail to disappoint.

Mizutani and Ito came back from 2 sets down to win 4-3, clinching the final set 11-6.

Victory for the pair ended years of incredible Chinese dominance in the sport.

China had won every Olympic title in the table tennis since South Korea’s Ryu Seung-min triumphed in the men’s singles competition at the 2004 Athens Games.

Mizutani and Ito’s victory sees Japan end Monday top of the Olympics medals table with eight gold medals, one more than the United States.

The Olympics are in full swing in Tokyo, with 21 gold medals won on Monday. You can track the medal count here.

Here's who walked off a winner:

Archery 

Artistic Gymnastics

Canoe Slalom

Cycling Mountain Bike

Diving

Fencing

Judo

Shooting

Skateboarding

Swimming

Table Tennis

Taekwondo

Triathlon

Weightlifting

Sofia Pozdniakova, daughter of Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) President Stanislav Pozdniakov, secured a gold in the individual women's sabre fencing competition on Monday.

Two-time world champion Pozdniakova, who was making her Olympic debut, defeated ROC teammate Sofya Velikaya 15-11 in the final.

For 36-year-old Velikaya it was a third Olympic silver medal after she finished runner-up at London 2012 and Rio 2016. 

Pozdniakova follows in the footsteps of her father Stanislav who previously won 4 Olympic gold medals in the sabre competitions – 3 coming in the team competition at Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 200, respectively, and 1 in the individual competition at Atlanta 1996.

Pozdniakov was appointed President of the Russian Olympic Committee in May 2018.

Remember: Due to a ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency for doping non-compliance, Russian athletes are note competing under their country's name, flag and national anthem at major international sporting events until Dec. 16, 2022. They are officially recognized as members of ROC.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz has won the Philippines' first ever Olympic gold medal after she won the women's 55kg event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, setting an Olympic record with a total mark of 224 kg.

Prior to Diaz's gold, the Philippines had claimed 10 Olympic medals (3 silvers and 7 bronzes). She won the silver medal in the women's 53kg event at the 2016 Rio Games. 

The Philippines captured their first medal of the Summer Games.

Liao Qiuyun of China took silver with 223 kg and Kazakhstan's Zulfiya Chinshanlo won bronze with 213 kg. 

Hong Kong fencing athlete Edgar Cheung has won the city's first gold medal at the Summer Olympics in 25 years, beating Italy's Daniele Garozzo at the men's foil finals.

Cheung beat Garozzo — who won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics — by 15 to 11 on Monday night local time in Tokyo, becoming the first Hong Kong fencing athlete to win a medal at the Olympics.

Speaking to the media after the victory, Cheung said he still could not believe his win.

Hong Kong has now won two gold medals at the Olympics, the first of which was won by windsurfer Lee Lai-shan in 1996.

The Russian Olympic Committee has captured the gold medal in men's all-round gymnastics.

Nikita Nagornyy, Denis Abliazin and Artur Dalaloyan and David Belyavskiy together scored a total of 262.500, which is the top mark.

Japan claimed the silver with a total of 262.397, and China took the bronze medal with a score of 261.894.

What is the Russian Olympic Committee? Due to a ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency for doping non-compliance, Russian athletes aren’t competing under their country's name, flag and national anthem at major international sporting events until Dec. 16, 2022. They are officially recognized as members of ROC, an abbreviation of Russian Olympic Committee.

Team Great Britain's Tom Daley ended his long wait to top an Olympic podium after winning the men's synchronized 10-meter diving competition with his partner Matty Lee on Monday.

In December 2013, Daley came out on YouTube and almost eight years later, the Briton says he is proud of the LGBT representation that he has witnessed at the Games.

He said that he hopes they don't feel "so frightened and scared and alone."

Daley’s husband, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, posted a video on Instagram of him screaming and celebrating the win from Canada as they watched the live event from afar. The couple have a three-year-old son together.

In comments after the event, Daley said he also felt he’d grown since becoming a husband and father.

“My husband, he said to me that my story wasn't finished, and that my son ... needed to be there to watch me win an Olympic gold medal,” he said.

Read more about Tom Daley here:

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TV star. Lover of crochet. And now after four Olympics, Tom Daley has elusive gold medal

Kosovo’s Nora Gjakova further extended the country’s golden Olympic judo record by winning the women’s under-57kg final on Monday.

Two-time world champion Gjakova defeated France’s Sarah-Léonie Cysique to claim her maiden gold medal.

Gjakova’s gold is Kosovo’s second of the Tokyo Games after Distria Krasniqi’s victory in the women’s under-48 kg category on Saturday.

It’s Kosovo’s third Olympic medal in total since the country made its debut at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Majlinda Kelmendi earned the country’s first historic gold in the women's under 52kg at Rio 2016. 

Defending champion Kelmendi, though, was eliminated in her first round contest in Tokyo on Sunday.

Here are some highlights from the first Monday of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (in 2021).

Big surprises and upsets:

In the performance of a lifetime, Austria's Anna Kiesenhofer won the cycling gold medal, after she raced so far ahead that she was out of sight of the other cyclists. She only took up the sport in 2014 and does not have a professional contract at the moment.

Tunisia's Ahmed Hafnaoui shocked the swimming world by winning gold in the 400m freestyle. During the preliminary round, he qualified in 8th place with the slowest qualifying time of all finalists.

The US men's basketball team, flush with NBA stars, lost its first game to France. The French used the size of three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and a magnificent performance from fellow NBAer Evan Fournier to shock the Americans, who could not capitalize on multiple attempts to close out the game.

Some firsts:

Anastasija Zolotic became the first American woman to win Olympic gold in Taekwondo and Fencer Lee Kiefer is the first US woman to win gold in individual foil.

At just 13, Nishiya Momiji of Japan, is now one of the youngest gold medal winners in Olympic history, after she won the women's street skateboarding event. She is just months older than the current female record-holder, American diver Marjorie Gestring, who was 13 years and 267 days old when she won gold at the Berlin Games in 1936.

What's on tap today in Japan:

Covid-19 continues to loom large:

The Games have been overwhelmingly unpopular among the Japanese public, according to polls. But the mood appears to be shifting as Japan brings in gold medals.

Meanwhile, Tokyo continues to report a rising number of daily new coronavirus cases, with at least 153 cases linked to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, organizers said Monday.

The full schedule can be found on the Olympics website here.