Day one of the 2016 Rio Olympics is wrapping up, and the day was filled with Olympic firsts,
odd moments, crazy plays, injuries, upsets and the chalk-it-up wins
from the U.S. women’s soccer and men’s basketball teams. Here’s a list
of the five biggest moments from the first official day of competition.
Japanese tennis player drops racket, rallies to win point
Japan’s Kei Nishikori, in his
first-round match against Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas, gets an unlikely
point in an unusual sequence of events. After serving, Nishikori
dropped his racket on the follow-through of his serve, and paused as if
he lost the point. But when Ramos-Vinolas returned his serve, he quickly
picked up his racket and rallied to win the point – and eventually the
match in two sets 6-2, 6-4.
Team USA tied for lead in medals after Day 1
From left, Simone Manuel, Abbey Weitzeil, Dana Vollmer and Katie Ledecky show off their silver medals Saturday. (AP)
The first medal of the day came from Ginny Thrasher, who won the women’s 10-meter air rifle event early this morning.
Following the West Virginia sophomore in the medal collecting was the
swim team, accumulating three medals, all silver, in the women’s
400-meter freestyle relay, the women’s 400 individual medley, and the men’s 400 IM. The fifth medal was a silver medal in archery by the men’s team. The U.S. is tied with Japan and China with five each, although the Americans lead in silver medals won.
Two gymnasts’ Olympics journies over following injuries
French gymnast Samir Ait Said broke his leg in a horrific landing
while performing on the vault. Said fractured his tibia on his second
vault attempt early Saturday morning and was taken off on a stretcher,
ending his Olympic competition. Another gymnast, Andreas Toba of
Germany, tore his ACL while performing a floor routine, but then came back to compete in the pommel horse event
in order to help Germany qualify for the team competition. Toba might
be the hero of the Olympics so far. If nothing else, he’s surely among
the toughest.
Venus Williams ends singles run with first-round upset
Venus Williams dropped her opening round match
to Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens, who is the No. 62-ranked player in the
world. It was arguably the biggest upset of the day, as the fifth-seeded
(and No. 6 in the world) Williams struggled to finish off the Belgian
after leading 4-1 and 5-3 in the third set. Williams would ultimately
fall in a tiebreak, ending her singles run in Rio in surprising fashion.
She still has a chance at a medal with her sister, Serena, in the
doubles tournament, which begins next week.
U.S. field hockey team pulls upset of No. 2 Argentina
As has been previously discussed,
the dominance by American sports teams doesn’t apply to the women’s
field hockey team. It has never won gold at the Olympics, with it’s best
ever finish being fifth. But that all might change this year as the
American women kicked off the tournament with a shocking 2-1 upset of
the second-ranked team in the world, Argentina. If the team keeps this
up, it might be able to remove itself from the list of events the U.S. hasn’t won.
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