The exit of handball players to the semifinals, the incident with Shkurenev and the coronavirus at Chernysheva: what did the 12th day of the Games remember

On the 12th competitive day of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, domestic athletes managed to win only one medal.

But the only award was gold.

In synchronized swimming, Svetlana Kolesnichenko and Svetlana Romashina, as expected, won the competition in duets.

Wrestlers could also have brought medals to the country, but Artyom Surkov and Lyubov Ovcharova were defeated in the fights for bronze.

In team sports, volleyball players lost to Brazil in the quarterfinals - 1: 3.

In the men's beach volleyball tournament, Vyacheslav Krasilnikov / Oleg Stoyanovsky made it to the semifinals.

But Ilya Leshukov / Konstantin Semyonov were defeated.

Among other positive moments, it is worth noting the confident access to the semifinals of the Russian women's handball team, which beat Montenegro - 32:26.

Although the Balkan team reached the final of the Olympic Games in London, they did not achieve much success at the last major tournaments.

However, it was not worth waiting for an easy walk, especially since the 34-year-old striker Jovanka Radicevic, who was part of that silver squad, still plays in the opponents.

Largely thanks to her efforts, the team reached the playoffs.

As a result, the domestic handball players failed to completely close the veteran.

She crossed the ten goals mark for the second time in Tokyo.

Fortunately, the experienced goalkeeper Anna Sedoykina also caught the courage.

She saved 13 out of 34 shots, showing a 38% reliability rate, and parried four penalties.

As always, Anna Vyakhireva was unstoppable, hitting the gates of her rivals eight times.

Her older sister Polina Kuznetsova scored five times.

Already at the start, the Russians secured themselves a comfortable six-goal advantage and then dictated their terms to their opponents.

By the break, the Montenegrin team cut the gap threefold, but did not reach a full-fledged comeback - in the second half, Alexei Alekseev's wards returned everything to square one and achieved victory without hassle - 32:26.

However, in the semifinals, Russia will face one of the main favorites of the tournament - Norway.

The Scandinavians won the Olympics in Beijing and London, and in the semifinals of the Games in Rio in overtime they lost to the domestic team - 37:38.

In athletics, the second final was held with the participation of a domestic athlete.

Vice-champion of the planet-2017 Valery Pronkin got the opportunity to climb the podium in hammer throw.

However, the chances of this were not great, given that in qualifying he took only 11th place.

He failed to surprise fans on Wednesday.

The native of Nizhny Novgorod turned out to be extremely far from the best numbers in his career, and he completely screwed up three attempts.

As a result, the first became the best, when Pronkin threw the hammer at 76.72 m. This allowed him to take only eighth place.

For comparison, the winner Pole Wojciech Nowinski sent a projectile to 82.52 m and broke a personal record.

Meanwhile, the decathlon tournament kicked off on Wednesday.

And the first day of the competition was overshadowed by a major scandal involving Ilya Shkurenev.

In the high jump sector, the judges deprived the Russian of a clean successful attempt by 2.02 meters.

A native of Linev successfully overcame the bar and fell on the mats, throwing up his hands victoriously, and the judge raised the white flag, demonstrating that it was valid.

However, in the next instant, the bar reeled and fell.

But the data has already been recorded, and the result went into account.

Despite this, a little later it was canceled, and Shkurenev was left without 28 points in this form.

In general, after the first part of the program, the domestic decathlete is in 11th place with 4276 points in the asset.

In the 100 m race, he showed only the 14th result, but in the long jump - the fourth (7.59), which allowed him to rise to the seventh line.

And after the shot put, Ilya shared the sixth place with the representative of Grenada Lindon Victor.

Finally, in the high jump, Shkurenev, due to a controversial decision, the referee showed only 18th result.

He showed himself not very well in the 400 m race, showing the 11th time.

On the cycle track, sprint competitions for men and keirin for women started on Wednesday.

Also, among men, medals were played in the team pursuit race.

In the latter form, the Russians did not take part.

In the sprint, Denis Dmitriev managed to please the fans, who reached the 1/8 finals.

He finished the qualification with the fifth result and made his way to the next round.

Further, the current bronze medalist of the Games in Rio in this type of program alternately won races against Frenchman Ryan Helal and Canadian Nick Wemms.

His next rival will be a true cycling legend Jason Kenny from the UK.

He won the Olympic Games six times, including twice in the sprint.

Five years ago, it was the Englishman who stood on Dmitriev's path to gold, ahead of him in the semifinals.

Now their fight will take place much earlier.

But Pavel Yakushevsky showed only 25th time in qualifying and was eliminated.

In keirin, two-time Olympic medalist Daria Shmeleva took second place in her race and made her way directly to the quarterfinals.

Her partner Anastasia Voinova remained third in two races in a row and completed her performance in this discipline.

Also on Wednesday morning, qualifying swims in rowing and canoeing took place.

In three types, the Russians managed to make it to the semifinals.

In a 200 m kayak for men, Evgeny Lukantsov took two attempts - in the first he was only the third, which is why he had to go through an additional quarter-final sieve.

On a 200 m canoe for women, two domestic athletes continued the fight at once: Olesya Romasenko and Irina Andreeva, and the first managed to do this on the first attempt.

And Svetlana Chernigovskaya won her 500 m kayak race, covering the distance in 1.49.323.

True, she did this only after she failed to break through directly. 

Open water swimming did not bring medals to the country either.

In this form, women competed for 10 km.

Russia was represented by the young Anastasia Kirpichnikova, who had already performed quite successfully in an ordinary pool in Tokyo: she made her way to the finals at distances of 800 and 1500 m freestyle.

This time, the 21-year-old athlete was lost in the middle of the peloton.

She finished only 15th and lost almost four minutes to the winner Ana Marcel Cunier (+3: 46.7).

The Brazilian was literally 0.9 seconds ahead of the champion Rio Sharon van Rowendael from the Netherlands and 1.7 seconds ahead of the representative of Australia Karina Lee.

And in diving for women on Wednesday, the drawing of the last set of medals began.

The fight for them was led by Yulia Timoshinina and Anna Konyakhina.

However, the last qualification failed, taking 25th place.

But her compatriot, the current silver medalist of the European Championship, became the eighth, gaining 313.20 points, and made her way to the semifinals.

The Russian women did not succeed in making their debut at the OI rock climbing.

Yulia Kaplina and Victoria Meshkova were considered to be among the main favorites.

The first is a two-time World Cup medalist, and the second recently won three gold medals at the European Championship.

But in the end, the girls were in for a failure.

In the first type of all-around speed climbing, Kaplina made an unfortunate mistake.

She broke down and failed to complete the second attempt, after which she burst into tears.

As a result, she became the fifth, and Meshkova - the 15th.

In bouldering, Victoria is on the sixth line, and Julia - on the 18th.

The Russians failed to make it to the finals.

Of the events in other sports, it is worth noting another children's podium in a skateboard.

If the first place in the park among the girls was taken by the relatively experienced 19-year-old Sakura Yozumi, then the second and third places were taken by 12-year-old Kokona Hiraki and 13-year-old Sky Brown, respectively.

However, in this form, the performance of such young athletes is a common thing.

So, in the competition on the street, Momiji Nisiya and Raissa Leal, born in 2008, took gold and silver.

Unfortunately, not a single day is complete without news of new cases of coronavirus in OI.

Until recently, the disease has bypassed the Russians.

However, on Wednesday, karateka Anna Chernysheva, the only representative of the country in this form in Tokyo, passed a positive test.

According to the rules, the athlete will now have to spend ten days in a special hotel under the supervision of doctors.

Accordingly, she will not be able to take part in the competition.

If she feels good physically, then she is psychologically depressed.

According to coach Alexander Yudin, a psychologist should contact the ward in the near future.

Anna herself admitted that only the support of her loved ones helps her to hold on.

“Feeling okay.

I flew to Tokyo.

Passed the test at the airport.

He's positive.

Then they made another test.

He is also positive, "- quotes the TASS karateka.

If in the Russian national team one person fell ill with coronavirus, then in the national team of Greece there are five at once. We are talking about the members of the synchronized swimming delegation, including people from the service staff. Now they are all in quarantine. And on Wednesday, the IOC was completely forced to recognize this outbreak of COVID-19 as a "hotbed of infection."