Serving as an assistant coach to the U.S. women’s basketball team at the Olympics is an honor and a dream come true for Jennifer Rizzotti, the former UConn standout and now Connecticut Sun president. But while her new role with the WNBA team marks a career shift away from coaching, Rizzotti hopes that Tokyo won’t be her last involvement with...Read more

TOKYO — The competition floor stretched out behind them and tantalizing possibilities danced in front of them as MyKayla Skinner and Simone Biles smiled for the cameras on Thursday at Ariake Gymnastics Centre. On Sunday, when team qualifying takes place, they will be tumbling and twisting and flying toward medals at the Olympic Games. First, ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — In the Hmong culture, a khi tes is a ritual of celebration. When someone reaches a joyous milestone, family and friends tie white string around that person's wrists, while offering blessings, congratulations and good wishes.

Suni Lee couldn't gather with her large extended family after she made the U.S. Olympic team, so the ...Read more

TOKYO — With millions around the world watching, Rui Hachimura walked onto the gleaming white floor of Japan’s Olympic Stadium on Friday waving the country’s red-and-white flag.

The 6-foot-8 Washington Wizards forward with a Japanese mother and Beninese father led his nation’s athletes in procession, a beaming smile peeking out of the ...Read more

TOKYO — The Tokyo Olympics fired the director of the opening ceremony a day before it took place because he joked decades ago about the Holocaust.

After watching the ceremony at Olympic Stadium on Friday night in Japan, I would suggest that the organizers rehire him so they can fire him again.

It's going to be a weird few weeks, folks.

It ...Read more

TOKYO — There were deaths, near deaths and gruesome injuries.

There was a mass shooting in Las Vegas, a nightclub collapse in South Korea and a terrorist bombing at a train station in Belgium. And all that happened before COVID-19 put everyone’s life on hold for a year.

The last five years have been a series of tragedies and triumphs for ...Read more

TOKYO — In a development that makes the inclusion theme of the Tokyo Olympics seem insincere, Jesse Smith, captain of the U.S. men’s water polo team, went from a potential flag bearer for his country to being shut out of the opening ceremony.

One of the nominees for the Team USA flag-bearer role that went to Eddy Alvarez, Smith was forced ...Read more

TOKYO — At this point, the Tokyo organizing committee is the bureaucratic equivalent of the Titanic's orchestra, its members figuratively continuing to play their instruments even as the hopelessness of their situation has come into focus.

They look exhausted.

They sound defeated.

"As the person in charge of the organizing committee that ...Read more

TOKYO — Dozens of men and women run across the field in a darkened stadium, keeping their distance from each other. They symbolize all the athletes who have trained in solitude during the pandemic.

The Japanese flag comes into view, borne by a small group of young people and health care workers. The national anthem is sung as if in prayer.

...Read more

TOKYO — When there should have been cheers Friday night as athletes marched in for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics there instead was an eerie silence in a cavernous stadium that was closed to spectators because of the COVID-driven state of emergency that still grips most of Japan.

When there should have been silence during solemn ...Read more

TOKYO — Here’s what you should know about Arisa Tsubata, the woman who ran on a treadmill at the beginning of the Olympic opening ceremony Friday.

She is a nurse who worked at a Tokyo hospital throughout the pandemic.

She is also a boxing champion who was on track to make the Japanese team when COVID-19 hit and organizers postponed the ...Read more

TOKYO — The official Olympic mascot is Miraitowa, a cheerful animated character checkered in blue and white that was designed to appeal to young children in Japan.

The unofficial mascots might as well be Tommy Trojan and Joe and Josephine Bruin.

USC and UCLA have combined for 103 Olympic competitors with ties to the respective schools, ...Read more

TOKYO — Thomas Gilman wanted nothing more than to go to Japan this summer, to wrestle for the U.S. team at the Tokyo Olympics. He was much less certain about whether Japan wanted him to come.

The Iowa native had read countless reports describing the country as a reluctant host for the pandemic-delayed Summer Games. Public opinion polls showed...Read more

Winners of six consecutive gold medals, the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team has achieved a level of consistent dominance rarely seen in sports. But that won’t make their quest for gold at the Tokyo Games any easier.

Unlike other countries’ programs, the U.S. didn’t get weeks or months to play together ahead of the Games, with the ...Read more

CHICAGO — After a testing issue resulted in a brief stint in health and safety protocols for COVID-19, Zach LaVine was scheduled to fly to Tokyo and rejoin Team USA on Thursday afternoon.

LaVine should be cleared to practice with the team Friday and be ready to play in the opener against France Sunday. The men’s national basketball team is ...Read more

We’ll see her true colors shining through.

The captain of the German women’s field hockey team will be allowed to wear a rainbow-colored armband and socks at the Tokyo Olympics.

Nike Lorenz was given the go-ahead by the International Olympic Committee to wear the LGBTQ Pride colors during this year’s Games as a “symbol of sexual ...Read more

TOKYO — Roughly 30 minutes into Mexico’s first Olympic match Thursday, goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa made a diving save to keep the game tied against France.

It was the kind of save that, in previous Summer Games, would have made the crowd roar in appreciation of a big moment on a big stage. Songs would be sung, chants would echo throughout ...Read more

TOKYO — Olympic rowing and canoe races will be held on the Sea Forest Waterway, a 2,000-meter course in a narrow channel that connects to Tokyo Bay. Because it doesn’t have natural banks that absorb choppy water, organizers devised a wave dispersal system of more than three miles of special cylindrical buoys.

Like everything else at the ...Read more

TOKYO — Eddy Alvarez arrived in Japan on Thursday as the most experienced Olympian on Team USA's baseball roster. It just so happens that his experience has nothing to do with baseball.

Alvarez defied the odds by winning a silver medal in the 5,000 meter short-track speedskating relay at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi as a Miami native and ...Read more

A year delayed, the Tokyo Olympics are now upon us, and with them, a chance for Americans of all stripes to come together to celebrate that most beloved sport: politicizing the hell out of whatever’s captured the public’s attention.

The Summer Games don’t officially start until Friday (and could even be canceled at the last minute amid ...Read more