TOKYO (AP) — The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
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MEDAL ALERT
Switzerland has won the bronze medal in women’s beach volleyball.
Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland cruised to a straight-set victory over Latvia on Friday morning in the third-place match.
The Swiss edged Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka 21-19 in the first set before opening a 5-1 lead in the second and pulling away to win 21-15 and claim their nation’s first Olympic medal on the women’s side.
Americans April Ross and Alix Klineman were scheduled to play Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy of Australia in the gold medal match later Friday morning.
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MEDAL ALERT
Dawid Tomala of Poland has won what might be the last 50-kilometer race walk at the Olympics.
Tomala won in 3 hours, 50 minutes and 8 seconds in Sapporo for the gold medal.
Jonathan Hilbert of German was second, 36 seconds behind Tomala in 3:50:44. Evan Dunfee of Canada was third in 3:50:59. The race walking events were moved to Sapporo because of Tokyo’s summer heat and humidity.
The 50-kilometer walk has been dropped from the schedule for the next Olympics in Paris in 2024 and may not return.
It was first introduced at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and has been held at every Games since with the exception of Montreal in 1976.
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The International Olympic Committee says it has removed two Belarus team coaches from the Olympics, four days after they were involved in trying to send sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya back to Belarus.
The IOC says it canceled and removed the credentials of Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich.
The IOC says the men “were requested to leave the Olympic Village immediately and have done so … in the interest of the wellbeing of the athletes.”
Shimak and Maisevich continued to have contact with Belarus athletes since Sunday after the IOC linked them to taking Tsimanouskaya in a car to the airport to put her on a plane to Belarus.
Tsimanouskaya had criticized team coaches on social media and is now in Poland with a humanitarian visa.
The IOC says Shimak and Maisevich “will be offered an opportunity to be heard” by its disciplinary commission investigating the case.
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Dutch Olympic track cyclist Laurine van Riessen is recovering in a Tokyo hospital a day after a harrowing crash in the keirin semifinals at the Izu Velodrome.
Van Riessen was briefly knocked unconscious when she collided with British rider Katy Marchant at more than 40 mph. Van Riessen remained on the apron of the track for several minutes before doctors loaded her onto a stretcher and removed her from the velodrome.
She was transferred to a Tokyo hospital and diagnosed with a broken collarbone, broken ribs and a bruised lung.
A spokesperson for the Dutch track team says Van Riessen is well but can’t remember the fall. The team doctor is with her and Van Riessen was able to make clear that the pain is mostly in her shoulder.
Van Riessen’s teammate, Shanne Braspennincx, went on to win the gold medal in keirin, a six-lap race where the first three are paced by a motorized bike and the last three are a free-for-all sprint to the finish.
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