The Tokyo 2020 Olympics continues on Tuesday with more spectacular sporting achievements set to be delivered on the biggest of stages as plenty of sports continue at a decent pace as we head closer to the finale of competition on Sunday.
The bulk of the action comes on the track on Tuesday but there are football semi-finals, gymnastics events and boxing medals all on another packed schedule of sport to follow over in the Japanese capital.
Gold Medal Events
- Artistic Gymnastics
- Athletics
- Boxing
- Canoe Sprint
- Cycling
- Diving
- Sailing
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
Other Sports
As well as the above giving out gold medals on Tuesday we also have the semi-final of the men’s football competition. We’ll preview those matches separately elsewhere. In addition to that we have the men’s hockey semi-finals to look forward to while we’re down to the knockout stages of the beach volleyball, the basketball, the handball, table tennis and the volleyball. Tuesday is also the day where sport climbing makes its debut in the Olympics.
Hockey
We are down to the semi-finals of the men’s hockey competition which means that by the end of Tuesday we will know the two teams which will battle it out for the gold medal on Thursday. The second semi-final between Australia and Germany is probably the pick of the matches, especially with the Aussies suddenly looking a little more vulnerable after only seeing off the Dutch on penalties in the quarter final. It is the other match which catches my attention though.
That sees the slightly surprise packages of India taking on the world champions Belgium, who have looked every bit the part in the tournament so far. The Belgians coasted to victory in their opening four matches here before drawing with Great Britain in their final group match when they had already qualified. They then beat Spain relatively comfortably in the quarter final. India were walloped by Australia in their second match in the tournament but they have grown into the competition, although Great Britain gave them a helping hand with a couple of their goals in the quarter final. Generally the best teams raise their game at this stage of the competition and I fancy Belgium will lay down a gold medal marker here and win this by two or more goals.
Beach Volleyball
The beach volleyball continues on Tuesday when the women’s quarter finals are played over the two sessions and I’m a little surprised to see the highest ranked pair left in the competition as such strong outsiders for their match as Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Heidrich, the Swiss pair. They go up against the Brazil duo of Ana Patricia and Rebecca Silva, a pairing who sit 12 places below them in the world rankings.
I’m always a little wary about opposing Brazilians in this sport but I’ve seen a bit of this pair in the pool matches and after wiping the floor with a Kenya side who were out of their depth in this competition, they then lost their last two matches and edged through as a best third placed side. Admittedly they came good in the last 16 against a Chinese pair but I’m still not sure they should be such short favourites here. The Swiss pair won their opening two pool matches and lost the third when they were already through, albeit to a pairing who are also in the quarter finals. They then beat their compatriots in the previous round. The head to head reads 2-0 to the Brazilians, both of which were in 2019 which might no longer be significant. At the prices I’m going to take the team who have played the better stuff here which is the Swiss pair.
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Boxing
We have the first gold medal bouts in the boxing arena on Tuesday with one of them seeing a Brit go for glory in the men’s welterweight competition when Pat McCormack, the number one seed in the event, takes on the Cuban former Olympic champion Roniel Iglesias for the title in a fight which should be a classic by Olympic standard after the man from Cuba took the world champion apart in the previous round.
McCormack starts as the favourite for the bout and he’ll be the fresher man too after his semi-final opponent was forced to pull out of the competition before their fight and even allowing for the fact he is the top seed and the favourite for the title, I’m not sure I would be writing off the Cuban boxer just yet. He has just beaten Andrei Zamkovoi and won all three rounds on all five of the judges scorecards which is pretty impressive. This feels a more even fight than the odds suggest so I’ll take the outsider here.
Athletics
We have a decent day of athletics inside the main stadium on Tuesday with the highlight in the morning session the Men’s 400m Hurdles final, which could be the race of the Olympic Games on the men’s side of things. Karsten Warholm looks to add the Olympic title to his world titles but Rai Benjamin showed in the semi-final that he isn’t going to go down without a fight. In the evening session the Women’s 800m final and Women’s 200m final head up the show.
It is that latter final which catches my attention over the course of the day. I think we saw in the early rounds on Monday that Elaine Thompson-Herah, the 100m champion, is going to take a lot of stopping. You would think Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce will follow her home, although that isn’t completely guaranteed but the stupid exit of Shericka Jackson and the absence of Dina Asher-Smith has opened up at least one medal spot if not two. I think the 7/4 on Shaunae Miller-Uibo could be the value for a medal. It isn’t ideal that she’s in the outside lane but she’s a class act and because she’s doing the 200 and 400 double this week I don’t think she has really gone all out yet. She will here and although the Namibian runner Christine Mboma, someone who is going to be spoken about a lot in the years to come although not necessarily for the right reasons, is emerging on the scene, the Bahamas star can secure herself some early hardware.
Tips
Back Belgium (-1.5) to beat India for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back them here:
Back A.Verge-Depre & J.Heidrich to beat Ana Patricia & R.Silva for a 2/10 stake at 2.38 with William Hill
Back them here:
Back R.Iglesias to beat P.McCormack for a 2/10 stake at 3.75 with Bet365
Back S.Miller-Uibo to win a medal in Women’s 200m for a 2/10 stake at 2.75 with Betfair
Back her here:
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