From whom to expect medals

On the first full-fledged competitive day of the Summer Olympics, 11 sets of awards will be played in seven sports.

Russian athletes have every chance not only to open an account for their medals, but also to hear the first concert of Tchaikovsky in honor of their victories.

By tradition, the winners will be determined in the air rifle shooting competition among women before anyone else.

Russia in this form will be represented by Yulia Karimova and Anastasia Galashina.

Karimova can be called one of the best rifle shooters, but she shows her highest results in small-caliber weapons.

This season, the 27-year-old athlete reached the final in pneumatics at the World Cup stage and took the final sixth place, so she will have some chances of bringing the country the first medal, albeit not too high.

But in the men's air pistol shooting, Russia has its own reliable favorite.

This is the current vice-world champion Artyom Chernousov.

He confirmed his form at the same stage of the World Cup, taking fourth place.

The main rival of the 25-year-old Russian will be the Korean Chin John Oh, who will have the opportunity to become the first five-time Olympic champion in shooting in 97 years.

The confrontation with South Korea may also occur in taekwondo.

Mikhail Artamonov will perform in the weight category up to 58 kg.

In 2017, he won silver at the World Championship and has been a contender for any tournament awards ever since.

In the semifinals, the 24-year-old Russian will probably be waiting for the current winner of the championship of the planet John Chun.

In the event of a victory over him, Artamonov will open the road to the first gold in Russian taekwondo.

The first day in fencing will also be held under the sign of wrestling with Korean athletes. The 2018 world champion Kim Jong Hwan will meet with Konstantin Lokhanov in the first match, and in the quarterfinals he can test Kamil Ibragimov's strength. The leader of the world saber, O Sun Wook, even before the semifinals, has a chance to cross with Veniamin Reshetnikov. If the Russians manage to pass these rivals, then the medals will be practically in their pockets.

Fencer Violetta Kolobova was even more unlucky with the draw. Already in the 1/8 finals, she will get either the current world champion Natalie Möllhausen from Brazil, or the silver medalist of the Rio Olympics Rosella Fiamingo from Italy. Even if you manage to defeat one of them, there is still a long way to go to the podium. Young compatriots Yulia Lichagina and Aizanat Murtazaeva will have even less chances of catching a medal, but they should not be considered zero either, since the Russian team is traditionally strong in every type of fencing.

In judo, domestic athletes won victories in weight up to 60 kg at the last two Olympics. Now Robert Mshvidobadze will try to continue this tradition. Although the current world champion in this category is another Russian, Yago Abuladze, the coaches entrusted the fight for a medal to a more experienced athlete who is the leader in the world ranking among all participants in the Olympics. The greatest danger for Mshvidobadze is the Japanese Naohisa Takato, who won three victories in his career at the world championships and has the bronze medal of the Games in Rio. Irina Dolgova will also perform in the weight category up to 48 kg. At the European level, it is among the leaders of its category, but at the world level it has not yet shown itself in any way.

In other types of programs, there is little hope of success.

Weightlifter Kristina Sobol will perform in Group B in the weight category up to 49 kg, which already speaks of her modest chances, since she will not compete directly with the best athletes.

In the mixed archery tournament, Russia will be represented by Ksenia Perova and Galsan Bazarzhapov, who took tenth place in the qualification.

Ilnur Zakarin, Pavel Sivakov and Alexander Vlasov will take part in the road cycling race from the general start.

All of them are successful multi-day racers, but they cannot be called specialists in one-day racing.

Who prepares for medals

Most of the athletes on the first day will just start their long struggle with medals and will participate in preliminary competitions. This primarily applies to team sports. The men's volleyball team will face the tough Argentina team in the group stage, while the water polo players will try to beat the Chinese. The first game in the beach volleyball tournament will be played by Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semyonov, while the men's and women's 3 × 3 basketball teams will have two matches per day at once.

A busy day awaits tennis players. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will be the first to go to court against Italian Sara Errani. Her teammates Elena Vesnina and Veronika Kudermetova will perform in doubles and will play with German women Anna-Lena Friedsam and Laura Siegemund from Germany. The second racket of the world Daniil Medvedev will fight with the former Russian Mikhail Bublik, who now represents Kazakhstan, and Aslan Karatsev will try to get into the 1/16 finals after the match with American Tommy Paul. Andrei Rublev and Karen Khachanov will team up to play with fellow US tennis players Rajiv Ram and Francis Tiafoe.

It is worth paying special attention to the qualifications in men's artistic gymnastics.

The Russian team, led by Nikita Nagorny, will try not only to qualify for the all-around, but also to get as many places as possible in the finals of individual exercises.

The gymnasts will perform in the morning stream, after which they will wait for the final results all day.

In the boxing tournament, the first fights will be held by two Russian women who have medals from the 2019 World Cup.

In weight up to 69 kg, Saadat Dalgatova should easily win a ticket to the 1/8 finals, and in the category up to 57 kg, Lyudmila Vorontsova will face a difficult rival in the person of European champion Irma Testa from Italy.

Several Russians will perform in the swim, but the most interesting thing will be to find out what Svetlana Chimrova will show in the 100-meter butterfly, Martin Malyutin in the 400-meter crawl and Anton Chupkov and Kirill Prigoda in the 100-meter breaststroke.

Also, the women's team will try to qualify for the final of the 4 × 100 meters relay.

Finally, the first matches will be played by the strongest Russian badminton players Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov, as well as table tennis representatives Kirill Skachkov and Yana Noskova.

In equestrian dressage, the first programs will be performed by Inessa Merkulova and Alexandra Maksakova.

They will struggle not only for personal medals, but also for team ones.