Men’s 50km walk: Spain’s Marc Tur and Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert are now on their own in second and third. They are exchanging words, perhaps discussing how they will catch Tomala, who has a huge lead. He looks a little ragged, so hopefully there are no rule violations and a disqualification. I think that is the only thing that can stop him. Men’s 50km walk: 4km to go and Poland’s Tomala has a lead of just under 3 minutes. The chasing pack are catching him up but nowhere near quick enough. At this pace he’ll still win by two minutes or so. The chasing pack looks like it has dropped Canada’s Evan Dunfee and Japan’s Masatora Kawano. Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert, Spain’s Marc Tur and Portugal’s João Vieira look like they will battle for silver and bronze. Men’s 50km walk: Japan’s Masatora Kawano has done brilliantly to haul himself back into the lead chasing pack after taking a break to vomit. The rigours of the last 10km can cause muscle cramps, gastro-intestinal problems, low sodium, low blood sugar, dehydration or core temperature problems. It’s one of the reasons, the Olympics don’t want this distance at Paris 2024. Men’s 50km walk: The chasing pack is down to five: Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert, Spain’s Marc Tur, Portugal’s João Vieira, Canada’s Evan Dunfee and Japan’s Masatora Kawano. Our leader, Dawid Tomala of Poland, goes through 44km and his lead is now 3min 11 seconds as he pours water on himself and wisely keeps to the shady side of the road. They’re not closing the gap. Men’s 50km walk: Tomala’s time over 42km – just about a marathon - was 3hr 12min. Except he walked it. In blistering heat. A lot of the rest of the race will be about managing the heat. Tomala’s lead is just over three minutes with time - and distance - running out for the pack. The TV commentary team point out that that’s around a 750m gap. Men’s 50km walk: The temperature is projected to be 31C/88F at the end of the race. This is the last time the 50km will be at the Olympics, so it’s going to go out in brutal heat. Men’s 50km walk: Australia’s Rhydian Cowley looks in danger of being dropped by the chasing pack at the 40km mark. And with 10km to go Tomala has increased his lead t0 2min 50sec – and doesn’t look like he’s slowing down. What a performance – he’s out on his own, a magnificent solo effort. But the final 10km is (obviously) the toughest. Men’s 50km walk: Will Tomala’s lightning pace hurt him in the final stages? He’s approaching the 3hr mark and the temperature continues to climb. Canada’s Evan Dunfee has made a small break to try to catch the Pole, but his lead is up from 2min 04sec at the last timecheck to 2min 28sec with 12km to go. Meanwhile, Spain’s Jesús Ángel García – at the age of 51 and in his eighth Olympics – is in 27th. Men’s 50km walk: One lovely thing about this event is today is that there are actual real life spectators on the street as Tokyo starts its day. Poland’s Tomala now has a lead of 2min 04sec over the pack with 14km to go. He did the last 5km in 21 minutes! 21! I’m happy if I can run 5km in 25 minutes. And he’s walking! I guess that’s why he’s at the Olympics and I’m typing about it. Men’s 50km walk: Poland’s Dawid Tomala maintains his lead of nearly two minutes as he slings his bag from the feeding station over his shoulder and tucks into some well deserved water and snacks. Then he throws the rest of the water over his head, which makes sense seeing as it’s already 28C/82F at 8.15am. Preamble Hello Olympics fans. And specifically race walking fans, I know it’s a big day for you. In preparation for today’s blog, I walked earlier.* More than once, it was great. (*Amusing aside courtesy of Will Unwin). Things are quietening down a little as the Games approach the final stages, but don’t stop reading because that’s how we make our money and I need to buy some new shoes. Plus the Olympics are great! Here’s my colleague Martin Belam with what to expect today. Key events for Friday 6 August All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Aberdeen, 13 hours for Washington DC and 16 hours for San Francisco. 🌟If you only watch one thing: 2.30pm-7.30pm Modern pentathlon – you’ll never convince me that the sports making up the modern pentathlon weren’t drawn out of a hat in 1912 when someone asked people to write down things they thought a 13th-century French knight would be able to do, but it is undoubtedly compelling viewing. The women today go swimming from 2.30pm, fencing at 3.45pm, do a bit of showjumping at 5.15pm and then finish it off with a combined cross-country hike and a bit of laser-shooting where you don’t get penalised for misses, but the faster you can hit five targets the faster you can get running again. Unmissable stuff 🥇 5.30am and 4.30pm Race walk – yes, that’s 5.30am in Sapporo for the men’s 50km race walk. The women race walk 20km in the afternoon. Imagine having to get up for a 5.30am start 🥇 7.30am Golf – two hours after the men start the 50km race walk, it’s a leisurely 7.30am start for round three of the women’s golf 10.30am and 7pm Hockey – Team GB’s women go for bronze against India in the morning, then Argentina and the Netherlands hockey it out for the gold in the evening 🥇 1.40pm and 8pm Basketball – women’s semi-finals. The US have an approximately 1,057-year long winning streak and face Serbia in the first match. The hosts play France in the evening. 3.30pm and 7.50pm Water polo – there are some placing matches as well, but the real meat is the men’s semi-finals. Greece v Hungary in the afternoon, and Serbia v Spain in the evening. Expect fireworks. 3.30pm-7.15pm Track cycling – highlights include the women’s madison final at 5.15pm and the men’s sprint finals at 6.35pm 🥇 5.30pm, 6.30pm and 9.10pm Sport climbing – it’s the climax of the women’s event in three sessions with the medal at the end 🥇 7.30pm Artistic swimming – it is the team technical routine. 7.30pm Table tennis – there’s a bronze match earlier at 11am, but in the evening it is the men’s team gold medal match. Can Germany stop China making it a fourth straight win since this event was introduced in 2008? Probably not 🥇 7.50pm-10.55pm Athletics – there is only one session in the stadium and it is mostly finals: the women’s javelin, the men’s 5,000m, the women’s 400m, the women’s 1500m – which will feature Lisa Muir and the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan – and it then ends with the women’s and men’s 4x100m finals 🥇 9pm Football – the rescheduled women’s final between Sweden and Canada 🥇 You can find our full interactive events schedule here, and it acts as a live scoreboard during the day. As it stands Here’s how the emoji table stood at 10.15pm Tokyo time: 1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 34 🥈 24 🥉 16 total: 74 2 🇺🇸 USA 🥇 29 🥈 35 🥉 27 total: 91 3 🇯🇵 Japan 🥇 22 🥈 10 🥉 14 total: 46 4 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 17 🥈 5 🥉 19 total: 41 5 ◽️ Not Russia 🥇 16 🥈22 🥉 20 total: 58 6 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 16 🥈 18 🥉 17 total: 51 7 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 9 🥈 9 🥉 16 total: 34 8 🇫🇷 France 🥇 7 🥈 11 🥉 9 total: 27 9 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 7 🥈 10 🥉 18 total: 35 10 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 7 🥈 9 🥉 10 total: 26