Some facts about Team USA (and NBA) star Kevin Durant: 1) He is very good at basketball 2) He is (surprisingly) very tall 3) He is very good at basketball 4) He is just a little thin skinned 5) He is very good at basketball 6) His birthday is 29 September Taking the last point into consideration, why were the US team singing Happy Birthday to him today? Following last night’s opening ceremony, the sun has risen on the first full day of action at Tokyo 2020. The heat has been stifling on the ground so far – even last night at the Olympic Stadium the temperature was in the high 20s celsius until past midnight. How the athletes cope with the humid conditions has been a major topic of conversation in the build-up; we saw the effects it could have yesterday when a Russian archer passed out from heat stress. And we’re set for another scorcher today, with temperatures expected to hit 32C. That is sure to pose a test for the male cyclists in their gruelling road race on boiling tarmac around Mount Fuji while hockey players will also feel the heat on the astroturf of Oi Hockey Stadium, with the men’s tournament about to begin when Australia face the home nation. Hello. We’re finally underway (even if we’ve been sort of underway for a few days now, but here is what is coming up in the next few hours: Women’s 10m air rifle: now Men’s hockey: Australia v Japan (1.30am BST/8.30pm ET/10.30am AEST) Men’s rowing: (2am BST/9pm ET/11am AEST) Men’s cycling road race begins: 3am BST/10pm ET/12pm AEST) My friend and colleague Jeff Zillgitt and I once had the idea for a Pub Games that would include darts, various billiard/pool sports, foosball and that shuffleboard thing you sometimes see. Today’s bar-goers in the US are more attached to trivia contests, which could be a lot of fun. Maybe Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings could do commentary. Tom, take it away. Trivia and new sports Miguel Aviles has answered my question about the hat trick in the first day of women’s football competition with Vivienne Miedema of the Netherlands. I suppose so, though she went on to score a fourth. I’d actually forgotten about her because, in the same game, Zambia’s Barbra Banda also had a hat trick. On new sports, Stephen Broadley asks a legitimate question: “Why are they introducing so many sports that can’t be measured objectively?” Because controversy sells! (Also because the kids seem to like these things.) Please start directing your ideas for new sports to the brilliant Tom Lutz, who will be taking over for me in ... two minutes? Wow, this just flew by. Years of anticipation to get these Olympics underway, so I suppose it’s no surprise that it seems like it’s going quickly now that it’s here. Trinidad and Tobago doesn’t have many athletes in the Olympics in events other than track and field / athletics, but one of them, rower Felice Chow, just left her fellow competitors in the single sculls repechage not just in her wake but behind her wake. Not bad for a 44-year-old. (It all goes downhill after that, I say as a 51-year-old who hasn’t take care of himself in the last 25 years.) What event would you like to see in the Olympics? This was a question raised in the last blog when we talked about Ultimate, which was left off the Paris program in favor of breakdancing. Sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding will be carried over from Tokyo; baseball, softball and karate will not. One thought from bethyl t via email: “firstly to resurrect the swimming obstacle race, last seen in the 1900 games, because there seem to be endless swimming disciplines but none that involve swimming over poles and underneath boats. bring it back. “secondly, and i would really love for this to happen - double dutch! it’s so much fun, endless room for creative expression, and it’s exhilirating to watch. the sport remains strong - i believe there is a league structure in the states, and they have regular tournaments too. would be a joy to see it at the games.” Preamble You’ve seen the ceremony (or at least the highlights). You’ve seen some football and softball (or at least some highlights, hopefully including the women’s football hat-trick – first person to email beau.dure.freelance@theguardian.com with the name of the scorer wins ... their name in this blog). You’ve seen rowing preliminary heats (or at least some highlights). You’ve spent a couple of hours playing the Google Doodle. Now it all begins for real. Any cycling man still standing after the Tour de France will spend another few hours in the saddle chasing Olympic gold. People will start punching, kicking, throwing, choking and brandishing swords at each other without being arrested. Horses and people will do horse people things. We’ll all become instant experts on 3x3 basketball and wonder how the US men could have failed to qualify in a sport played in thousands of parks and driveways across the country. Badminton players, beach volleyball players, indoor volleyball players, tennis players and table tennis players will hit things over nets of various sizes. People will lift heavy things. Men and women will vault and flip. Swimmers and rowers will go fast across the water’s surface or slightly below it. And handball, field hockey, softball and water polo teams will fight to nudge foot-soccerball out of the spotlight. The first medal, though, is in women’s 10-meter air rifle, which always seems to have a nice story involved. In 2008, the winner was the Czech Republic’s Katerina Emmons, who had a new surname thanks to her decision to say a few comforting words to US shooter Matt Emmons in 2004 after he spoiled his chances of winning a second gold medal by firing at the wrong target on his last shot. In 2016, the surprise winner was US teenager Ginny Thrasher, who smiled through her few hours of fame before returning to West Virginia University to win some NCAA hardware, complete a biomedical engineering degree and become a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship. These Olympians ... such slackers.