Going for gold under the cloud of COVID-19 makes the Tokyo Summer Games an Olympics like no other. This newsletter is here to help you make sense of it all, with original stories from Globe reporters in Canada and Tokyo, tracking Team Canada’s medal wins, and past Olympic moments from iconic performances. Tokyo Olympics Update is sent every Tuesday and Friday in July and twice daily during the Games, which run from July 23 to Aug. 8. You can sign up here. Let us know what you think by e-mailing audience@globeandmail.com.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the latest edition of The Globe’s Olympic newsletter.
Spectators banned after Japan declares COVID-19 state of emergency
The Tokyo Olympics will take place without spectators, organizers said on Thursday, as a resurgent pandemic forced Japan to declare a coronavirus state of emergency for the capital that will run throughout the event.
The display of emotion from Hidenori Suzuki, the official in charge of ticket sales for Tokyo 2020, came a day after organizers bowed to political pressure and rising infections in the capital, barring almost all fans from the Games just two weeks before they are due to start.
Two visiting Olympic delegation members tested positive for COVID-19, media said on Friday, in a reminder of the risk as infections rise in the capital.
“I am sorry to those who purchased tickets and everyone in local areas.” Mr. Suzuki said.
How Team Canada is shaping up
The Tokyo Games are two weeks away. Here’s how Team Canada is looking.
- Mandy Bujold has officially punched her ticket to the Tokyo Olympics. Bujold was named to the Canadian boxing team on Wednesday, a week after she won her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland to compete at the Games. The 11-time national flyweight champion was forced to appeal after her Olympic trials in Buenos Aires were cancelled earlier this year because of rising COVID-19 cases in Argentina. The 33-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., made international headlines in her battle, and earned support from numerous high-profile people including retired tennis star Billie Jean King and former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.
- Canada’s cycling team has finally come into form. Team Canada will be heading into the Tokyo Games with the largest cycling team in Canadian Olympic history. Lead by Olympic bronze medalist cross-country mountain biker Catharine Pendrel, Cycling Canada has nominated 23 cycling athletes in track, road BMX and mountain biking to head to the Games. Pendrel, 40, will be attending her fourth Olympics this year after winning multiple World Cups, world championships, Pan American and Commonwealth Games titles throughout her illustrious career.
- The Canadian men’s rugby sevens team has effectively drawn the group of death, Group B. The rugby team will play its opening game July 26, against the Rio 2016 runner-up, Britain, and mere hours later play the defending champions, Fiji. And the next day, Canada plays Japan, which placed fourth in 2016, to round out its group play. On the women’s side Canada, which won bronze at Rio, opens its tournament July 29 against Brazil before dealing with Fiji. The next day the women play France to finish their games in the group stage. The top two teams in each of the three pools plus the two best third-pace finishers advance to the quarter-finals.
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IOC turns to tiny Vancouver agency in effort to win over Olympic skeptics
Last March, as the third wave of COVID-19 washed across the globe, Ben Hulse and Greg Durrell grappled with the greatest professional challenge of their career: How to get people around the world excited about an Olympic Games amid a global pandemic, set to be staged in a country where vaccination rates were dangerously low and resentment toward the event was high?
If it seemed an impossible task, The Globe’s Simon Houpt reports, the two men from Vancouver had already beaten the odds once.
After meeting on the design team for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, they formed Hulse & Durrell, a boutique graphic-design agency, in 2014. Over the years, they developed a specialty in sport and Olympic branding: contracts for the Canadian Olympic Committee and a number of national sport federations, as well as a project for the International Olympic Committee that involved a deep dive into a century’s worth of Olympic design history.
Two Russian rowers removed from team after failing drug test, Bruce Springsteen’s daughter makes U.S. equestrian team
Two rowers from Russia have been removed from the Olympic squad after failing drug tests, Russian Olympic officials said. Nikita Morgachev and Pavel Sorin, from the quadruple-sculls crew, tested positive for the banned substance meldonium during a training camp on June 17, Russian rowing federation president Alexei Svirin said. Meldonium was widely used in Russia and Eastern Europe as a sports supplement until it was added to the banned list in 2016.
Also, Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of rock icon Bruce Springsteen and singer-songwriter Patti Scialfa, has been selected to represent the U.S. equestrian team at the Tokyo Olympics. The 29-year-old will be making her Olympic debut.
Olympic Moment
Aug. 11, 2016: In Rio, Penny Oleksiak caps record-setting games with gold
If Penny Oleksiak was already a star by the women’s 100-metre freestyle final, her fourth and final medal win at the 2016 Rio Games turned the 16-year-old into a supernova. Having already claimed bronze in both the 4x100-metre-freestyle relay and 4x200-metre freestyle relay, plus silver in the 100-metre butterfly, the Toronto swimmer won her Canadian record-setting fourth medal in six days with a tie victory alongside American Simone Manuel. Touching the wall at the same time as Manuel, Oleksiak clung to the wall for nearly 30 seconds before the scoreboard turned up the tie, a look of shock and excitement spreading across her face as the gold medal was confirmed.
Many of the Oleksiak’s achievements erased long-standing Canadian marks that predated her 2000 birth year, some by decades. Her gold was Canada’s first in swimming since 1992 and the first by a woman since 1984. Fellow four-time Olympic medalist Victor Davis won his four medals at the 1984 and ’88 Games. If she wins a medal at the Tokyo Games – which she recently qualified for at the Canadian Olympic swim trials – she’ll sit atop the record books for most medals by a single Canadian in Summer Games history.
Is there a Canadian Olympic moment you can’t seem to forget? If you do, email us at audience@globeandmail.com and tell us why.