On Thursday, Russian athletes returned to the victory path.
The fifth medal was brought to the country by fencers.
The foil players confidently won the team tournament.
Akin to gold - the historical silver of Vasilisa Stepanova and Elena Oryabinskaya in rowing.
Finally, domestic athletes won three bronze medals at once: gymnast Angelina Melnikova took third place in the individual all-around, and swimmer Kliment Kolesnikov - at a distance of 100 meters in freestyle.
The judokas also climbed the pedestal.
Niyaz Ilyasov followed the example of Madina Taymazova in the weight category up to 100 kg.
The chances of a two-time world championship medalist were initially quoted quite high, although he only received the seventh seed.
In the first battle, he had no problems with the Ippon of the Hungarian Miklos Chirienich.
However, in the quarterfinals, the native of Bataysk received a truly serious opponent of the Portuguese Jorge Fonseca, who defeated him in the decisive confrontation of the last championship of the planet.
The fight lasted almost eight minutes, and as a result, Ilyasov offensively lost to the waza-ari and went to the repechage competition.
In addition, he, like Taymazov the day before, suffered an eyebrow injury.
Fortunately, it turned out to be not so serious.
There Niyaz defeated the German Karl-Richard Fry with the same technique, and in the decisive battle for bronze he met the formidable Varlam Liparteliani.
The native of Georgia needs no introduction, because he is not only the silver medalist of the OI-2016, but also leads the world ranking in this weight category.
As a result, the fate of the tense duel was decided by the same waza-ari, which the Russian performed 30 seconds before the end of the battle.
After that, he received two yellow cards, but still retained the victory and took third place at the debut Olympics.
Having won the medal, the judoka could not hold back his tears and burst into tears.
He did not want viewers to see his emotions and tried to cover the camera with his hand.
“It was a hard psychologically and morally day.
And the atmosphere is like that, so I couldn't resist.
Moreover, two months ago I lost to Varlam in the semifinals at the European Championship.
And today it was quite a principled fight for me personally.
It's good that everything turned out like this, "R-Sport quotes Ilyasov.
The Games for Russian boxers are also going great so far.
Six out of seven have already quietly made their way to the quarterfinals, and Gabila Mammadova is waiting for the 1/8 fight on the 31st.
On Thursday, Albert Batyrgaziev, Andrei Zamkovy, Imam Khataev and Muslim Gadzhimagomedov were accompanied by Gleb Bakshi and Ivan Veryasov.
The starting battles were different for them.
If the heavyweight did not leave a chance to Cameroonian Maxim Yagnong, then Bakshi, acting in the weight category up to 75 kg, with great difficulty broke the resistance of the World Cup medalist from the USA Troy Isley.
The Russian won by split decision.
Three referees gave the victory to him, and two to the American.
In general, the day was successful for domestic athletes in team events.
Volleyball players made an incredible comeback in the confrontation with China.
The extremely successful first set (25:17), apparently, had a chilling effect on Sergio Buzato's charges - they believed in their own success too early.
The representatives of the Celestial Empire, on the contrary, got angry and began to fight on the site with renewed vigor.
Wing gamer Yining Li was especially good, gaining one point after another.
As a result, the Russians resignedly gave up two games in a row (23:25, 20:25).
In the fourth, they didn't do much either.
It is enough that they lost seven points along the way - 12:19.
There seemed to be no chance of escape.
But the girls cornered managed to create a real miracle and took over - 27:25.
Well, in the decisive set, they have clearly caught the courage.
Experienced Natalia Goncharova played the game.
Irina Voronkova and Arina Fedorovtseva hammered balls into the parquet.
By the way, the 17-year-old diagonal became the most productive volleyball player in the Russian national team, gaining 28 points.
As a result, the team won the hardest victory and moved up to third place in the group.
Finally, the handball players, who came to Tokyo in the rank of reigning Olympic champions, also achieved success.
True, they did not justify the title of favorites: at first they parted with Brazil (24:24), and then devastatingly lost to Sweden (24:36).
After that, even the ex-mentor of the national team Yevgeny Trefilov could not resist, who led her to gold in Rio.
He urged the former wards to "get off the pedestal and start working."
Apparently, they heard the coach who was in Japan and beat Hungary, which is inferior in class, with a difference of seven goals - 38:31.
And the current helmsman of the team, Aleksey Alekseev, was glad that the girls, at last, "got a thrill" from their own game.
“After two matches we found ourselves at the bottom.
Let's hope now we pushed away from him and let's go up.
We really needed this victory to believe in ourselves.
The mood has changed, ”the specialist rejoiced.
And domestic rugby players on Thursday had a historic event - their debut at the Olympic Games.
The first pancake turned out to be lumpy.
Russia in a tense meeting yielded to Great Britain - 12:14.
Moreover, most of the confrontation, Andrey Kuzin's team was leading in the long run, but in the end allowed the rivals to make an attempt.
But in the second match, the team defeated Kenya - 35:12.
In the morning Kolesnikov managed to bring the country another medal, and in the evening qualifying heats took place at the Tokyo Aquatix Center.
Anastasia Kirpichnikova, the current European Championship silver medalist in this event, reached the semifinals at a distance of 800 m freestyle with the fifth result (8.18.77).
The Russian national team made it to the decisive start of the combined relay race 4 x 100 m complex.
However, Grigory Tarasevich, Kirill Prigoda, Anna Surkova and Maria Kameneva showed only the seventh time (3: 43.73).
Finally, Andrei Minakov made his way to the semifinals in the 100m butterfly with a high fourth result (51.00).
In rowing, the main event of the day was the silver of Stepanova and Oryabinskaya.
However, this award may not be the only one for Russia in this form.
It seems that Anna Prakaten 'is going to seriously surprise the country.
She made it to the singles final with the best result in her semifinal (7.23.61).
And in a similar form for men, Alexander Vyazovkin will take part in the decisive confrontation.
Russian archers, who have already won silver in the team tournament in Tokyo, also retain their chances for awards.
On Thursday, experienced Ksenia Perova, for whom this is the third Olympics in her career, confidently passed two rivals in the individual championship.
To begin with, she left no chances for Alice Ingley (Australia) - 7: 1, and then - Maya Jager (Denmark) - 7: 3.
Now in the 1/8 finals she will accompany another compatriot Elena Osipova.
But Svetlana Gomboeva was eliminated in the first round.
In a tense duel, she lost to the representative of the Netherlands Gabriele Schlosser - 5: 6.
The Russian shooters were also unsuccessful on Thursday, although the fans have already got used to medals in this form.
In the trap, neither Daria Semyanova, nor Yekaterina Subbotina, nor the Olympic champion of Athens Alexei Alipov even managed to reach the final.
But the first ever Olympic medal was won here by an athlete from San Marino - Alessandra Perilli took third place.
Curiously, the 33-year-old shooter came close to climbing the podium back in London.
Then she scored the same number of points at once with two rivals, but in the shootout for silver and bronze she dropped to the most offensive fourth place.
Nine years later, the representative of the dwarf state still managed to win a medal.
Also, the next competitive day turned out to be rich in scandals.
For example, the German Olympic team announced the expulsion of the cycling coach Patrick Moster.
During the race, the specialist too emotionally encouraged the charges at the track.
To his misfortune, a call to the German athletes "to get the camel drivers" got into the lens of the television cameras.
It turns out that by them he meant rivals from Algeria and Eritrea.
Even an emergency apology did not save the man from accusations of racism.
Another German specialist, Claudiu Pusa, was also seriously criticized at home.
Before the qualifying fight in the weight category up to 63 kg, he strongly shook his ward judoka Martyna Traidos by the shoulders and hit her on the cheek.
A tough measure of influence did not help - the athlete lost to the representative of Hungary, Sophia Ozbas.
Later, she explained on her Instagram page that there is nothing wrong with the behavior of a specialist.
According to her, she herself asked the mentor to set her up for the fight in this way.
Another scandal erupted around the Olympic champion in shooting from a pneumatic pistol from 10 m, Iranian Javaj Forugi.
United for Navid, created after the execution of fighter Navid Afkari in protests against Iran's economic policies in 2018, has called for the athlete to be stripped of his medal for being "involved in a terrorist group."
We are talking about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, of which the athlete is allegedly a member.
“Presenting an Olympic gold medal to a member of a terrorist organization is a gruesome affront to athletes and Olympic ideals and casts a heavy dark shadow on the IOC,” United for Navid said in a statement.
In addition to resolving various kinds of conflicts, the organizers have to quickly resolve issues with the coronavirus.
The epidemiological situation in Japan is only getting worse, and more and more infected are determined at the OI.
At the moment, the Australian national athletics team has suffered the most from COVID-19.
She was forced to quarantine in full force (63 people) due to contact with a sick person.
We are talking about two-time world champion in pole vaulting Sam Kendrix, who passed a positive test.
Representatives of the Green Continent trained with the American.
Now they are forced to be isolated in their rooms.
Kendrix himself, who was one of the main contenders for gold in his form, will leave Tokyo. At the same time, the athlete tolerates the disease asymptomatically and feels well.