No one is catching Romania for gold with 500m to go. New Zealand and the Netherlands battle for silver... The Netherlands team’s coach is watching this from his hotel room after he had to isolate because of Covid protocols. It’s Romania, who stretch out into the lead over the Netherlands and Lithuania at 500m - a lightning start. But at halfway New Zealand have made up water and move into second. We now have a run of six A finals (ie you win gold if you win) coming up. First, it’s the women’s double sculls, featuring USA, New Zealand, Romania, Canada, the Netherlands, Canada and Lithuania. As we ready ourselves for the start Mark from Wisconsin has something to say on sports that should be dropped from the Games: “Drop skateboarding cuz you’re making it too mainstream for normals. Replace with uncool sports like cornhole or log rolling.” Log rolling is definitely not uncool. It’s the women’s quadruple sculls B final next. USA, Britain, New Zealand and France are your crews. GB leap/row very fast out to an early lead and are not seriously challenged after that. New Zealand, France and the US finish after them in that order. Meanwhile, Paul McDevitt writes in on sports that shouldn’t be in the Olympics. “I don’t think there should be sports played by millionaire professionals like golf, basketball, football or tennis although they at least are sports played by the masses unlike skeleton, ski jumping, pole vault etc, which are sports only ‘played’ by athletes completing in an Olympics,” he says. So you’re saying your school didn’t have a skeleton bob track? You missed out, Paul. The men’s four B final is next. Poland finish ahead of Canada, Switzerland and South Africa respectively. Just to clarify: there are no medals in the B finals (rebutting the myth that everyone gets a medal these days) but it’s nice to win something. And who will win the men’s quadruple sculls B final? I’ll tell you who: either China, Norway, Germany and Lithuania. Aaaand it’s China who romp home, the kings of the B final every one of them. Germany, Norway and Lithuania finish second, third and fourth. Reader Joe Surtees writes in (reading and writing - all in one day!) with a question that will provoke ... some debate. “I wanted to ask whether people had an opinion on what sports really shouldn’t be in the Olympics?” he says. Or asks. Has he asked or said here? “For me, it has to be anything involving a horse.” That’s gymnastics out then, but do go on. “Equestrianism seems more to do with who can afford to buy and keep an impressive animal, than anything else. Look at the ages of the competitors, they hardly scream Olympian ideal. It’s surely more animal training than sport.” We’re on to the women’s four B final now in the rowing. It’s a battle for North American supremacy as Canada take on the US with Denmark and Romania also in the mix. The US have a narrow lead over the Romanians with 500m to go. The Americans coast home first but it’s a scrap between the other three before Denmark pip Romania for second. Canada are fourth. We have a fairly quiet 30 minutes or so of competition ahead. There are plenty of B finals in the rowing (ie: the very good rowers rather than the very, very good rowers). It’s the men’s double sculls at the moment where the ROC came home first ahead of New Zealand. One for our Australian readers now: there are plenty of medal opportunities for the Aussies in the next few hours. Here is what is coming up in rowing and swimming. All times are AEST. Swimming 11:30am – men’s 100m freestyle semi-finals (Kyle Chalmers); 11:41am – women’s 200m freestyle final (Ariarne Titmus, Madi Wilson); 11:57am – women’s 200m butterfly semi-finals (Brianna Throssell); 12:21pm – men’s 200m breaststroke semi-finals (Zac Stubblety-Cook, Matt Wilson); 12:54pm – women’s 1500m freestyle final (Maddy Gough, Kiah Melverton); 1:26pm – men’s 4x200m freestyle relay final (Australia) Rowing 9:10am onwards – women’s four final (Lucy Stephan, Rosemary Popa, Jessica Morrison, Annabelle McIntyre); men’s four final (Alexander Purnell, Spencer Turrin, Jack Hargreaves, Alexander Hill); men’s quad scull final (Caleb Antill, Jack Cleary, Cameron Girdlestone, Luke Letcher); women’s quad scull final (Ria Thompson, Rowena Meredith, Harriet Hudson, Caitlin Cronin); men’s pairs semi-finals (Sam Hardy, Joshua Hicks); women’s pairs semi-finals (Jessica Morrison, Annabelle McIntyre); women’s eights repechage (Australia); men’s eights repechage (Australia) Simone Biles’s former USA gymnastics Aly Raisman has spoken in support of the Olympic champions after her withdrawal from the team event yesterday in Tokyo. “It is so much pressure,” Raisman said in an interview with ESPN. “It’s the most pressure I’ve ever seen on a gymnast and maybe even Olympic athlete, and I can’t imagine how hard it is for her. “I’m very proud of Simone, and I can’t imagine the bravery that it takes to just say, ‘I’m not going to do it today.’” Raisman also said athletes’ needed support for their mental health. “When I was training, there really weren’t resources for us to talk about our mental health or even ways to understand it,” Raisman said. “So I’m not even sure if there is resources out there in Tokyo for Simone ... We need to be asking the organizations like USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee: What are you doing to support your athletes and how can we prevent athletes feeling like they are struggling so much that they can’t finish the competition? What can we learn from this? And how can we better support athletes?” Preamble Hello. It’s been a busy 24 hours at the Olympics with a shower of medals (expected), rain showers (expected) and Simone Biles’s withdrawal from the team gymnastics competition (unexpected), something that prompted a shower of articles (I was a little unclear about how I was going to get another shower reference in there). But enough of the past. What’s coming up today? My colleague Martin Belam has provided a guide to today’s highlights. Read on ... All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Inverness, 13 hours for New York and 16 hours for San Francisco. 🌟If you only watch one thing: 5.30pm Equestrian – today is the dressage individual final. As mentioned above, Charlotte Dujardin is in search of a third consecutive gold. Plus it has horses. 🐴🥇 9.18am-10.50am Rowing – the schedule has been a bit all over the place because of the weather, but at the time of writing, we are expecting a series of six finals tomorrow, including the double sculls, the fours and the quadruple sculls in both men’s and women’s varieties 🥇 10.30am-1.15pm Swimming – I feel like I say this every day but it is another big day of finals in the pool. For the women there is the 200m freestyle, the 200m individual medley and the 1,500m freestyle. The men will compete for the 200m butterfly and the 4x200m freestyle relay 🥇 11am-6pm Rugby sevens – the men’s competition is on its final day. After four matches to decide the minor placings, Great Britain face New Zealand in the first semi-final at 11am, with Fiji v Argentina at 11.30am. The bronze medal match is at 5.30pm and the 34th and final match of the tournament for the gold medal is at 6pm 🥇 11.30am and 2pm Cycling – there’s a big day ahead at the Fuji International Speedway circuit which hosts Japan’s F1 races. The women go in their individual time-trial in the morning, the men in the afternoon 🥇 3pm Diving – on Wednesday the offering at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre is the men’s 3m springboard synchro – Britain’s Jack Laugher will be aiming to defend his 2016 crown alongside new partner Daniel Goodfellow 🥇 7.15pm Artistic gymnastics – Wednesday see’s the men’s individual competition final 🥇 9.55pm-10.25pm 3x3 Basketball –the men’s final follows the women’s final as we bid farewell to this frenetic addition to the Games 🥇