July 27 Tokyo 2020 Olympics news and results

The match that got Brazil's Italo Ferreira the inaugural gold medal in Olympic surfing began with his "good board" breaking on his first wave.

"That board gives me good speed, the other one is more slow," he said. "It’s super hard out there, but I knew that there was a lot of opportunities around. That’s why I started to catch a lot of waves and get scores.”

And finally, it was all about getting back up.

The reigning World Surf League champion described the winning moment as "one of the best days of my life for sure."

"I was so nervous at the beginning, but I just tried to surf and have fun. Because two months ago, I was busy with training and thinking and dreaming, and now I’ve got the gold medal."

“The dream came true,” he added.

Jolanda Neff led the way as the Swiss team won all three medals at the women’s cycling mountain bike event.

Former world champion Neff, who won the test event on the Izu circuit in 2019, put in a dominant display to land her country’s first gold medal of the Games.

Sina Frei finished in second place and Linda Indergand rounded off a memorable day for the Swiss by taking the bronze medal.

It’s the first clean sweep in a specific Olympic event for Switzerland since the men’s floor exercise in gymnastics artistic in 1936.

Teenagers Chen Yuxi, 15, and Zhang Jiaqi, 17, secured a dominant gold for China in the women’s 10m synchronized platform diving on Tuesday to maintain the country’s perfect record in the event.

China has won gold in this event at every Olympics since its debut at Sydney in 2000.

The Chinese pair ended with a majestic score of 363.78, more than 50 points ahead of silver medalists Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell from the United States.

Parratto and Schnell’s medal was the US’ very first in this event.

Bronze went to Mexico’s Gabriela Agundez and Alejandra Orozco who finished on 299.70.

The Olympics come around every four — or five years in the case of Tokyo — for athletes, and crashing out in the opening lap of your event isn't how Mathieu van der Poel would have imagined his Games panning out.

The Netherlands rider suffered a dramatic tumble in the early stages of the cross country cycling event, ruling him out of medal contention.

In a post on his Instagram with a picture of his fall, he promised his fans that he'd be back in the saddle as quickly as possible. "I don’t know what to say, but I’ll be back," the 26-year-old said.

He went onto congratulate eventual winner Tom Pidcock, and the Team GB rider posted his own message of support to Van der Poel in the comments of the Instagram post.

"Hope you’re ok mate! We all know you’ll be back."

Team USA's Carissa Moore won the first ever women’s surfing gold medal in Olympics history on Tuesday, defeating South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag in the final.

The four-time world champion and world No.1 sealed a comprehensive victory to enter the Olympic history books.

Moore scored waves of 7.33 and 7.60 to surpass Buitendag’s total score of 8.46.

The 28-year-old had already endeared herself to the Japanese public ahead of the Games by delivering a thank you speech in Japanese to the city of Makinohara for hosting the pre-Olympic Games training camp.

In a press release from US Surfing, Moore said she practiced the speech all night and wanted to show her appreciation for the city hosting the team.

Ricarda Funk has just taken gold in the women's slalom K-1 final at the Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre and celebrates with a running jump back into the water. It’s Germany’s first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics.

The third-fastest qualifier, her final time of 105.50 sees her finish ahead of Spain’s Maialen Chourraut (106.63) and Australia’s Jessica Fox (106.73).

Fox was the favorite for this event having qualified for the final with the fastest time, but she picked up a second penalty at the end of her run.

Despite the empty stands, there was a good atmosphere for the final; music blared from speakers as competitors were introduced and coaching teams ran alongside the course shouting encouragement to their athletes.

#Firsts##

Tokyo has reported its highest-ever increase of new Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, adding 2,848 new cases on Tuesday.

The capital’s previous daily record of new cases was reported on January 7, with 2,520 new cases, according to Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The record comes amid the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in its fourth day of official competition.

At least 160 Covid-19 cases have been reported as linked to the Tokyo 2020 Games as of Tuesday, according to Tokyo 2020 organizers.

The Japanese capital is currently under a state of emergency in effect until August 22.

Brazil's Italo Ferreira entered the Olympic history books on Tuesday by becoming the first-ever gold medallist in surfing.

The reigning World Surf League champion defeated Japan's Kanoa Igarashi to take the title, with Australia’s Owen Wright collecting the bronze medal. 

American Carissa Moore faces South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag in the women's gold medal contest later on Tuesday to round off the first Olympic surfing competition.

After three days of hot weather, Tokyo became blanketed in thick cloud and rain overnight, with skies beginning to clear by Tuesday afternoon local time.

The earlier drop in temperature might have been a welcome relief for athletes competing in the women’s canoe slalom semifinals at the Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre, where the water is said to be a touch too warm.  

“It is like a bath. It is like paddling in bathwater,” Australia’s Jessica Fox said after competing in the heats on Sunday.

“It is beautiful, it is an amazing venue, but the water is really quite warm, so it is all about the ice baths and the ice towels and as much ice as possible. It gets pretty warm in Penrith in Australia, but this is the warmest by far, for me.”

Fox was fastest in today's semifinals -- where a handful of team members and officials gathered in the stands -- and is the favorite to win gold later on.