SA celebrates Tatjana Schoenmaker winning the country’s first medal at the Tokyo Olympics

Kyle ZeemanDigital Editor

 

27 July 2021 - 07:54

Tatjana Schoenmaker broke the 100m breaststroke Olympic record this week ahead of the event's final on Tuesday.
Image: Anton Geyser/SASPA/SASI

Social media was abuzz with reaction to Tatjana Schoenmaker securing SA's first medal at the Tokyo Olympics, with many predicting even more success for team SA.

Schoenmaker took silver in the women’s 100m breaststroke on Tuesday morning.

She set the games alight on Monday when she set a new Olympic record in the event, but swam her slowest time in her three swims at these Games to finish behind American Lydia Jacoby in the final.

Another silver medal came later on Tuesday when Bianca Buitendag took on top seed Carissa Moore in the women's surfing final.

Buitendag caused an upset on Tuesday when she beat No.2 seed Caroline Marks and several others to make it through to the final.

Swimmer Chad le Clos won his men's 200m butterfly semifinal to book a place in Wednesday's final.

Schoenmaker and Buitendag were the toast of social media on Tuesday. Here are some of the reactions:

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A first-ever gold - and a lesson - in Olympic skateboarding

By JOHN LEICESTER and MIINA YAMADA

July 25, 2021


1 of 18
Yuto Horigome of Japan reacts after skating during the men's street skateboarding finals at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 25, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

TOKYO (AP) — Had the first-ever Olympic skateboarding champion ridden his board out of the venue where he made history Sunday at the Tokyo Games, he quickly would have come face-to-face with clear evidence that his sport still has a way to go to winning hearts and minds.

Just a quick skate from the Ariake Urban Sports Park, next to a school, a sign reads: “No skateboarding.”

Good luck telling Yuto Horigome to move on. The Tokyo native now has a weighty argument that he should be left alone: a shiny gold Olympic medal won in the city where he learned to skate as a kid and honed his derring-do skills on its teeming streets where skateboarders sometimes aren’t welcome.

“Skateboarding is still a minor sport,” Horigome said. “I want to show how skateboarding is fun.”

Mission accomplished.

Skating’s Olympic debut delivered exactly what the Games’ organizers had hoped for: a high-adrenaline show of thrills and lots of spills from athletes plugged into younger audiences.

U.S. skater Jagger Eaton, who won bronze, immediately celebrated by whipping his phone out of his pocket and broadcasting live on Instagram.

And Kelvin Hoefler, who used to sleep with his board when he first fell in love with skating as a young boy, was so giddy with his Olympic silver that he started picturing kids back in his native Brazil perhaps putting aside their soccer balls and hopping onto four wheels instead.

“It’s going to be mind-changing for them,” he predicted.

And perhaps for the Games, too.

The venerable sporting extravaganza had never seen an event quite as, well, chill as this, with laid-back camaraderie and an emphasis on fun among competitors steeped in the “life is a blast” philosophy of their counter-culture pursuit born in freewheeling California. Putting competition aside, skaters whooped and applauded when others landed tough tricks — and hoped that other more buttoned-down sports were taking notice.

“The goal is to progress each sport to the maximum and we can do that without having to bash or cheat,” Puerto Rican skater Manny Santiago said. “The other sports do need that. (At) the cafeteria last night, the majority of the countries, the skate guys, we all sat down for dinner as like, ’Let’s all sit down before the event starts.′ You don’t see that in swimming.”

Several skaters wore headphones as they competed — unthinkable in most sports. Eaton listened to rapper Dusty Locane’s aptly named “Rollin n Controllin” on his first run.

“It got me right in the groove,” he said.

But never finding his groove was skating’s standout star, Nyjah Huston of the U.S. He fell repeatedly while trying to land tricks and placed seventh in the eight-man final.

The Californian was among those who struggled with furnace-like conditions in the skatepark of rails, stairs, ledges and other urban furniture that gives the street event its name. The women’s street competition is Monday.

Blazing sun softened rubber joints on the boards’ wheel axles, making them harder to control.

“Your feet starting burning up,” Huston said. “Your board like gets so hot that it kind of flexes more. That’s kind of why I fell on one of those tricks out there.”

Still, Huston talked up skating’s Olympic debut as a win for skaters everywhere.

“Hopefully, yes, after this people will be more accepting to skateboarding in cities like Tokyo,” Huston said. “We are not out there trying to vandalize or trespass, or the way a lot of people see it. We are just out there doing our jobs, to be honest, and having an awesome time.”

While Huston melted down in the heat, Horigome was ice cool, executing the toughest tricks. His dad skated, and Horigome himself started as a 7-year-old, riding in a park 30 minutes drive from the future Olympic venue.

The 22-year-old had been among the medal favorites after he beat Huston at the world championships in Rome in June.

On his highest scoring stunt, Horigome flipped the board from under him on takeoff and slid it down a jagged rail on its nose, a trick called a nollie 270 noseslide.

That earned a high-scoring 9.5. Horigome was the only skater in the final to score nothing but nines in all of his tricks that counted.

In front of her television, in a residence that overlooks the venue, 8-year-old Ayane Nakamura yelped as Horigome sealed gold with a final trick.

A skateboarder with dreams of becoming an Olympian herself one day, Ayane said she sometimes gets told off for zipping around on her board with its Peanuts motif. Wearing a Japan shirt, she practiced ollies, a basic trick, as she waited outside the venue on Sunday morning, hoping to glimpse the skaters on their way in.

“Some people scold me,” she said. “So I have to hide.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

‘About time’: Gay athletes unleash rainbow wave on Olympics

By JOHN LEICESTER


FILE - In this July 26, 2021, file photo, Alexis Sablone of the United States smiles during the women's street skateboarding finals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. The Tokyo Games are shaping up as a watershed for LGBTQ Olympians. Openly gay Sablone says “it’s about time.” (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

TOKYO (AP) — When Olympic diver Tom Daley announced in 2013 that he was dating a man and “couldn’t be happier,” his coming out was an act of courage that, with its rarity, also exposed how the top echelons of sport weren’t seen as a safe space by the vast majority of LGBTQ athletes.

Back then, the number of gay Olympians who felt able and willing to speak openly about their private lives could be counted on a few hands. There’d been just two dozen openly gay Olympians among the more than 10,000 who competed at the 2012 London Games, a reflection of how unrepresentative and anachronistic top-tier sports were just a decade ago and, to a large extent, still are.

Still, at the Tokyo Games, the picture is changing.

A wave of rainbow-colored pride, openness and acceptance is sweeping through Olympic pools, skateparks, halls and fields, with a record number of openly gay competitors in Tokyo. Whereas LGBTQ invisibility used to make Olympic sports seem out of step with the times, Tokyo is shaping up as a watershed for the community and for the Games — now, finally, starting to better reflect human diversity.

“It’s about time that everyone was able to be who they are and celebrated for it,” said U.S. skateboarder Alexis Sablone, one of at least five openly LGBTQ athletes in that sport making its Olympic debut in Tokyo.

“It’s really cool,” Sablone said. “What I hope that means is that even outside of sports, kids are raised not just under the assumption that they are heterosexual.”

The gay website Outsports.com has been tallying the number of publicly out gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary athletes in Tokyo. After several updates, its count is now up to 168, including some who petitioned to get on the list. That’s three times the number that Outsports tallied at the last Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. At the London Games, it counted just 23.

“The massive increase in the number of out athletes reflects the growing acceptance of LGBTQ people in sports and society,” Outsports says.

Daley is also broadcasting that message from Tokyo, his fourth Olympics overall and second since he came out.

After winning gold for Britain with Matty Lee in 10-meter synchronized diving, the 27-year-old reflected on his journey from young misfit who felt “alone and different” to Olympic champion who says he now feels less pressure to perform because he knows that his husband and their son love him regardless.

“I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now you are not alone,” Daley said. “You can achieve anything, and there is a whole lot of your chosen family out here.”

“I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion,” he added. “Because, you know, when I was younger I thought I was never going to be anything or achieve anything because of who I was.”

Still, there’s progress yet to be made.

Among the more than 11,000 athletes competing in Tokyo, there will be others who still feel held back, unable to come out and be themselves. Outsports’ list has few men, reflecting their lack of representation that extends beyond Olympic sports. Finnish Olympian Ari-Pekka Liukkonen is one of the rare openly gay men in his sport, swimming.

“Swimming, it’s still much harder to come out (for) some reason,” he said. “If you need to hide what you are, it’s very hard.”

Only this June did an active player in the NFL — Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib — come out as gay. And only last week did a first player signed to an NHL contract likewise make that milestone announcement. Luke Prokop, a 19-year-old Canadian with the Nashville Predators, now has 189,000 likes for his “I am proud to publicly tell everyone that I am gay” post on Twitter.

The feeling that “there’s still a lot of fight to be done” and that she needed to stand up and be counted in Tokyo is why Elissa Alarie, competing in rugby, contacted Outsports to get herself named on its list. With their permission, she also added three of her Canadian teammates.

“It’s important to be on that list because we are in 2021 and there are still, like, firsts happening. We see them in the men’s professional sports, NFL, and a bunch of other sports,” Alarie said. “Yes, we have come a long way. But the fact that we still have firsts happening means that we need to still work on this.”

Tokyo’s out Olympians are also almost exclusively from Europe, North and South America, and Australia/New Zealand. The only Asians on the Outsports list are Indian sprinter Dutee Chand and skateboarder Margielyn Didal from the Philippines.

That loud silence resonates with Alarie. Growing up in a small town in Quebec, she had no gay role models and “just thought something was wrong with me.”

“To this day, who we are is still illegal in many countries,” she said. “So until it’s safe for people in those countries to come out, I think we need to keep those voices loud and clear.”

FILE - In this July 26, 2021, file photo, gold medal winners Britain's Thomas Daley and Matty Lee compete in the synchronized 10-meter platform diving final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo. The Tokyo Games are shaping up as a watershed for LGBTQ Olympians. Daley announced in 2013 that he was dating a man and “couldn't be happier,” his coming out was an act of courage that, with its rarity, also exposed how the top echelons of sport weren't seen as a safe space by the vast majority of LGBTQ athletes. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

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AP Sports Writers Andrew Dampf and Paul Newberry contributed to this report. Paris-based AP multimedia journalist John Leicester is covering his eighth Olympics. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/johnleicester

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Tokyo Olympics memes: Coaches are freaking out, skateboarders are wiping out

These sporty jokes deserve gold medals.

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

CNET
July 26, 2021


Like most large sporting events, the Tokyo Olympics is filled with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. But since we live in a world where the tiniest moment can go viral faster than Usain Bolt, the games are also filled with the mirth of memes and the jabs of jokes. Remember #PhelpsFace from 2016? Yeah. Social media is forever fascinated with the weird expressions, the painful-looking tumbles and the shirtless Tongan flagbearers.

We'll keep a running tally of our favorites, and the opening ceremonies deserved its own post.

Coach goes crazy

Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus won gold, beating legendary American Katie Ledecky in the 400-meter freestyle. But it was Titmus' coach, Dean Boxall, who made the meme list. When Titmus won, Boxall tore off his face mark, screamed and, uh, mimed intimacy with a guardrail. You do you, coach.

Even NBC Sports' official Twitter account got in on the joke, tweeting, "THAT'S MY SONG, TURN IT UP" with a video of Boxall's reaction.

And some people felt sorry for the poor Olympics staffer seen in the background, writing, "Thoughts & prayers to the woman trying to keep Ariarne Titmus's coach from falling over the barrier during his celebration."

This injury is nuts

Skateboarding made its Olympics debut, and Peruvian skateboarder Angelo Caro Narvaez took an early fall, landing groin-first into a rail. No medal, but lots of sympathy.

"And he made it to the finals after doing this in the prelims," one Twitter user wrote. "I would not have made it to the finals after doing that in the prelims, I'll tell you that. I would have made it to the hospital."

Air ball

The US basketball team is packed with pros but still lost to France, 83-76, snapping a 25-game win streak that it had kept rolling since 2004. And while i

t might not seem fair to make fun of amateur athletes, all bets are off when it comes to poking fun at the professionals.

Wrote one Twitter user, "American teams win an NBA championship and call themselves World Champions until they actually have to play against the world."

But as one Twitter user pointed out, it wasn't as if only the US used pro players, tweeting, "You realize these dudes on the other teams are NBA players too, right?"

The memes will keep on medaling; the Olympics run through Aug. 8.

Costa Rican gymnast pays tribute to Black Lives Matter in Olympic routine

Shawna Chen

Luciana Alvarado of Team Costa Rica competes on vault during Women's Qualification on day two of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Photo: Jamie Squire via Getty Images

Costa Rican gymnast Luciana Alvarado paid tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement in her floor routine on Sunday.

Why it matters: Alvarado is the first gymnast to compete for Costa Rica at the Olympics. 

Her historic demonstration is the "first of its kind on an international stage in elite gymnastics," per NBC Olympics.

At the end of her routine, the 18-year-old took a knee, placed her left arm behind her back and raised her right fist in the air. It's a pose that has been used by other athletes to show solidarity with the movement.

What she's saying: The pose reflects the importance of treating everyone with respect, dignity and equality, Alvarado told the podcast GymCastic after podium training.

"We're all the same and we're all beautiful and amazing, so I think that's why I love to have it in my routine."

The big picture: Alvarado scored a 12.166, which wasn't high enough to advance her to the finals. But viewers applauded her performance, expressing pride in her tribute and excitement about her future prospects.

Silvia Rojas Soto

@silrojas14

Grande #LucianaAlvarado!

#blacklivesmatter

5:17 PM · Jul 25, 2021

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Brazil's Italo Ferreira wins first-ever Olympic surfing gold

27 JUL 2021


Courtesy of ISA.

The reigning world champion beat Japan's Kanoa Igarashi in the men's gold medal match to secure a historic gold.

On a day that began with eight men aspiring to win the first-ever gold medal, Italo Ferreira has been crowned Olympic champion.

The current world champion can now add Olympic gold to his impressive trophy cabinet after scoring 15.4 in the gold medal match following three days of thrilling competition at Japan's Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach. After recovering from a broken board on his first run, the 27-year-old was in irrepressible form, surging ahead of Japan's silver medallist Igarashi who finished the final on 6.60.

The hugely popular Brazilian - who has over one million Instagram followers - can now celebrate winning the ultimate prize in sport: the first-ever Olympic surfing title.

Earlier in the day, Australia's Owen Wright won the bronze medal, defeating Brazi's two-time world champion, Gabriel Medina.

Wright, who famously has a wingspan four inches longer than Michael Phelps, has made a remarkable comeback to surfing.

His career almost ended in 2015 by a traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a big wave impact. He now wears a helmet in certain conditions and has become an advocate for surfing safety and wearing helmets to protect one's head. He spoke about his life post-injury and coming back to professional surfing on our Olympic Channel podcast.

American Carissa Moore wins first-ever women's Olympic gold in surfing

Rebecca Falconer



Carissa Moore of Team USA surfs during the women's quarter final on day four of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach in Ichinomiya, Chiba, Japan, on Tuesday. Photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Team USA's Carissa Moore won gold in the inaugural Olympic women's surfing final, at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday.

Of note: Brazil's Italo Ferreira won the gold medal in the first-ever men's Olympic surfing contest.

The big picture: The surfing finals were brought forward a day due to the threat of Tropical Storm Nepartak, which caused some unpredictable surf.

Moore, a four-time world champion surfer from Hawaii, was touted as a gold-medal favorite ahead of the finals.

The other women's surfing medals went to South Africa's Bianca Buitendag (silver) and Japan's Amuro Tsuzuki (bronze).

In the men's contest, Japan's Kanoa Igarashi won silver and Australia's Owen Wright took the bronze.

Go deeper: Full Axios Olympics coverage

McKeown drops TV F-bomb after Olympic 100m backstroke gold

Australia's Kaylee McKeown celebrates after winning the women's 100m backstroke final at the Tokyo Olympics Oli SCARFF AFP


Issued on: 27/07/2021 - 
Tokyo (AFP)

Kaylee McKeown's mum says she'll have a word with her daughter after the Australian sensation dropped an F-bomb on live TV after scorching to victory in the women's Olympic 100m backstroke on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old touched in 57.47sec, fractionally outside her own world record, with Canada's Kylie Masse, the Rio bronze medallist, second in 57.72 and American Regan Smith third in 58.05.

It capped a tough lead-up for McKeown, whose father Sholto died last year after a battle with brain cancer, aged just 53.

With emotions running high, she was asked by Australia's Channel Seven if she had a message for mum Sharon and big sister Taylor back home in Australia, given the difficult time they've endured.

McKeown uttered an expletive before covering her mouth after realising what she had said.

Her mother told Australian media: "Swearing on TV! I will have to have a word to her later."

After receiving her gold medal, McKeown was informed of her mum's comments but said she wasn't worried about getting in trouble.

"I think I might be mum's favourite for a little bit now. Just a little bit," she said.

McKeown has a tattoo on her foot that says "I'll always be with you" in honour of her father, and she said ahead of the Olympics that she used it as inspiration.

She is able to see it whenever she gets up for her backstroke starts and it helped drive her to swim a sensational race and smash Smith's world record at the Australian trials last month.

McKeown admitted that getting to Tokyo had been a rollercoaster but "everyone has a journey of their own and it just so happens that mine's been a really tough one".

"I wouldn't have it any other way because I don't think I'd be where I am today without all that happening," she added.

McKeown is earning a reputation for her flying finishes and despite Masse turning first at 50m, she powerfully brought it home.

"My legs were definitely hurting in the last 20," she said.

"I'm sure it would have been pretty noticeable on the TV but I trained for that and I knew that I had a really strong back end and a really good chance to be on the podium."

She is also targeting the 200m backstroke gold, having recently set the fourth-quickest time in history.

© 2021 AFP