Olympics Latest: Germany wins gold in men's kayak four 500m

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:

___

MEDAL ALERT

Germany has won the men’s kayak four 500 meters to make Ronald Rauhe the first man to medal in canoe sprint in five Olympic Games.

The 39-year-old Rauhe is also the second-oldest gold medal winner in men’s canoe sprint. Only Sweden’s Gert Fredriksson was older at 40 in 1960.

The German kayak was trailing Spain at the 250-meter mark before rallying to win by 0.226 seconds. Spain won silver and Slovakia won bronze.

The men’s kayak four 500 at the Tokyo Games replaced the kayak four 1,000, which was held from 1964 to 2016.

___

MEDAL ALERT

Hungary has won the gold medal in the women’s kayak four 500 meters. New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington missed a fourth medal of the Tokyo Games when the Kiwi boat finished fourth.

Hungary finished 0.61 seconds clear of silver medalists Belarus and Poland won the bronze. The New Zealand kayak was in medal position halfway through the race before fading late.

Carrington had already won three gold medals, in the single 200 and 500 and 500 pairs. She has five gold medals in her Olympic career and six overall.

___

MEDAL ALERT

Christian Sorum and Anders Mol beat Russia in the men’s beach volleyball gold medal match, earning Norway’s first medal in the sport.

The top-seeded Norwegians beat the reigning world champions 21-17, 21-18 in an intermittent rain at the Shiokaze Park venue overlooking Tokyo Bay. With Qatar’s victory over Latvia for the bronze earlier Saturday, all three countries on the podium -- and all six players -- are first-time medalists.

In fact, the only repeat medalist in either the men’s or women’s divisions was American April Ross, who won gold with Alix Klineman on Friday. Ross had also won silver in London and bronze in Brazil.

Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy led 8-4 before giving up six straight points, including one when Mol landed on Krasilnikov’s foot. The Russians called timeout and limped to their bench for treatment, but the match resumed and Norway extended the lead to 15-11.

The second set was tied 12-12 before Norway scored four points in a row and never trailed again.

___

MEDAL ALERT

Brazil’s Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos won the men’s 1,000 meters canoe sprint and Moldova’s Serghei Tarnovschi took the bronze medal five years after his similar result in Rio de Janeiro was stripped because of a performance-enhancing drug violation.

China’s Liu Hao, the 2019 world champion, won the silver medal.

Queiroz dos Santos was the Olympic silver medalist in 2016.

Tarnovschi was suspended for four years after his doping violation. He was able to return to the Olympics in Tokyo because of the one-year delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

___

China’s Cao Yuan is on track to become the second man to win Olympic medals in all four diving events.

Cao and his teammate, Yang Jian, led 12 men into the final of men’s 10-meter platform diving on Saturday.

Cao totaled 513.70 points for six dives. Yang was second at 480.85. The Chinese had some of the highest degree of difficulty in the semifinals.

Cao already owns Olympic medals in 10-meter platform synchro, individual 3-meter springboard, and 3-meter springboard synchro.

Russia’s Dimitriy Sautin was the first man to win medals in all four Olympic diving events.

Britain’s Tom Daley, the 2012 bronze medalist, advanced to the final later Saturday in fourth.

American Jordan Windle finished ninth and his teammate, Brandon Loschiavo, was 10th to reach the 12-man final.

___

MEDAL ALERT

China’s Mengya Sun and Shixiao Xu have won the country’s first medal in women’s canoe sprint by winning the gold in the canoe double 500 at the Sea Forest Waterway.

The 2019 world champions finished 2 seconds clear of Ukraine’s Anastasiia Chetverikova and Liudmyla Luzan. It was the second medal for Luzan, who took bronze in the single 200.

Canada’s Laurence Vincente Lapointe and Katie Vincent took the bronze medal in third. Vincent won the silver medal in the 200.

___

MEDAL ALERT

Qatar has won the bronze medal in men’s beach volleyball, the first medal in the sport for the country — or any country in the Middle East.

Cherif Younousse Samba and Ahmed Tijan beat Latvia 21-12, 21-18 in the third-place match on Saturday morning at the Shiokaze Park venue. Younousse knuckled the winning point over Edgar Tocs’ block attempt, then ran toward the stands pointing at the few fans who were there to cheer him on.

Then he dropped to his knees and planted his forehead in the sand.

Martins Plavins was trying to earn his second bronze medal, to go with the one he won in London. Instead, he and Tocs finish fourth -- just as the Latvian women did a day earlier.

___

MEDAL ALERT

Peres Jepchirchir led a 1-2 Kenyan finish in the women’s marathon, withstanding the heat and humidity while running through the streets of Sapporo.

Jepchirchir finished in a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, 20 seconds in a race moved up an hour to avoid the heat. A smattering of fans lining the course applauded as the Tokyo Games moved north for the marathons and race walks. Her teammate Brigid Kosgei was second and American Molly Seidel, a relative newcomer to the marathon stage, took home the bronze.

A race that was moved to Sapporo to avoid the extreme heat in Tokyo found little relief on a winding course through the city. The starter’s gun went off a minute after 6 a.m. local time under sunny skies and with a temperature reading of 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Celsius). It climbed to nearly 86 degrees (30) near the finish, with a humidity of around 65%.

There were 88 runners entered in the field, with more than a dozen recording a did not finish. That included world champion Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya.

___

The women’s marathon started along the streets of the northern city of Sapporo just after 6 a.m. local time under sunny skies and with a temperature reading of 77 Fahrenheit (25 Celsius).

There were around 90 runners embarking on what was expected to be a hot trip through the streets of Sapporo. The time of the start was moved up an hour to avoid some of the heat. Spectators were asked not to attend, but some showed up to sneak a glimpse of the action.

Athletes were expected to stay cool any way possible. Before the race, they could use cooling ice vests. On the course, there were plenty of water stations and crushed ice, along with towels soaked in cold water.

___

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