Tokyo Olympics Rewind, July 26: Alaska’s first US Olympic swimmer strikes gold

Despite a couple of disappointments, the U.S. had another golden day at the Tokyo Olympics. Two sharpshooting Americans set new Olympic records to take home gold. And the first ever U.S. Olympic swimmer from Alaska — so young that she can’t even vote, yet, stunned the world in a gold medal performance.

Seventeen-year-old Lydia Jacoby gave the United States a victory in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, knocking off teammate and defending champion Lilly King on Tuesday.

Jacoby was the first swimmer from the Arctic state ever to make the U.S. Olympic swimming team.

Now, she’s heading back to giddy Anchorage with a gold medal, rallying to win in 1 minute, 4.95 seconds.

South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker claimed the silver in 1:05.22, while King gave the Americans another medal by taking the bronze in 1:05.54.

For the first time since 1992, the American men have lost a backstroke race at the Olympic pool. Russia swept the top two spots in the 100-meter back. Evgeny Rylov claimed the gold medal, while teammate Kliment Kolesnikov took the silver. Defending Olympic champion Ryan Murphy settled for bronze.

Former world record-holder Regan Smith of the United States grabbed the bronze in the women’s 100-meter backstroke. Current world record-holder Kaylee McKeown of Australia won gold.

The American “A-Team” of April Ross and Alix Klineman have guaranteed themselves at least one more beach volleyball match at the Tokyo Olympics.

The U.S. women beat Spain 21-13, 21-16 on Tuesday morning for their second straight win. With one more game in the preliminaries left, they can do no worse than a three-way tie for first, which would be broken during a “lucky loser” matchup after the round-robin.

American shooter Amber English set an Olympic record to knock off reigning women’s skeet champion Diana Bacosi of Italy and Vincent Hancock became the first skeet shooter to win three Olympic gold medals.

English, ranked No. 1 in the world, hit 56 of 60 targets to bounce back from just missing the U.S. Olympic team for the 2012 and 2016 Games.

Hancock repeated as gold medalist in 2008 and 2012, but had a disappointing finish at the 2016 Rio Games.

The 38-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, hit his first 26 targets in the Tokyo final and set an Olympic record with 59 of 60 overall. He beat Denmark’s Jesper Hanen by four.

Flora Duffy has won the Olympic women’s triathlon, earning Bermuda’s first Olympic gold medal and its first medal of any kind since 1976.

Duffy is a two-time former world triathlon series champion. She’s competing in her fourth Olympics and is one of just two athletes representing Bermuda in Tokyo.

Great Britain’s Georgia Taylor-Brown won the silver medal and American Katie Zaferes won bronze.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the first gold medal for the Philippines on Monday, a triumphant result for a country that has competed at every Summer Olympics except one since 1924.

Diaz, who upset world record holder Liao Qiuyun of China with her final lift, was training in Malaysia when the coronavirus pandemic hit and has been separated from her family for quite some time.

ROC’s team total of 262.500 was just ahead of Japan’s 262.397 and China’s 261.8934 in the men’s gymnastics team final. The Russians took the lead after the third rotation, though their grasp on gold appeared tenuous when Denis   Abliazin stepped out of bounds on floor exercise. Artur Dalaloyan, competing on a heavily taped left Achilles tendon just three months removed from surgery, bounded out of bounds too.

Great Britain came in fourth. The U.S. appeared poised to come in fourth before a messy floor exercise in the final rotation, the only real mistake in an otherwise solid meet for the Americans in three-time Olympian Sam Mikulak’s final meet before retiring.

As the clock struck midnight on the U.S. east coast, the Americans were back atop the medal standings. The U.S. was tied with China with 19 total medals, but leads with eight gold to China’s seven.