Biles will not compete Thursday night, U.S.A. Gymnastics said. Katie Ledecky became the first woman to win a 1,500-meter swimming gold. The U.S. men’s basketball team routed Iran.

Current time in Tokyo: July 28, 7:57 p.m.
LiveUpdated July 28, 2021, 6:46 a.m. ET
July 28, 2021, 6:46 a.m. ET
Biles will not compete Thursday night, U.S.A. Gymnastics said. Katie Ledecky became the first woman to win a 1,500-meter swimming gold. The U.S. mens basketball team routed Iran.
Heres what you need to know:
Simone Biles, the four-time Olympic gold medalist, will not compete in Thursdays individual all-around competition after withdrawing from the team finals because of a mental health issue, according to an emailed statement from U.S.A. Gymnastics.
Biles will be evaluated daily to see if she will participate in the event finals next week.
We wholeheartedly support Simones decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being, the statement said. Her courage shows, yet again, while she is a role model for so many.
Biles, 24, had qualified for all four event finals and was expected to win gold in at least three of those events. In the all-around, she was hoping to repeat her title from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games to become the first woman to win back-to-back titles in the all-around in 53 years.
Biles stepping back from the Olympic all-around marks the end of an era in the sport. She hasnt lost an all-around competition since 2013 when she was 16 and still wore braces. The contest tests individual athletes on all four disciplines: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor competition, to determine the most complete gymnast.
While she had come to the Tokyo Olympics feeling pretty good, the weight of expectations on her as Team U.S.A.s biggest star at the Tokyo Games became tougher by the day, and in the hours before the team final she said she was shaking and couldnt nap. In the end, the pressure was just too heavy for her to bear, she said after withdrawing from the team final on Thursday.
Credit…Photographs by Emily Rhyne; Composite image by Jon Huang
During her vault, the first event of the team final, Biles got lost in the air and didnt know where her body was in relation to the ground. She ended up performing a much simpler vault than her usual daring ones. On the landing, she bounded forward, trying to stay on her feet.
Biles told her coach and a team doctor that she was not in the right head space to continue because she was afraid of injuring herself, and also because she didnt want to jeopardize the teams chances at winning a medal.
Im still struggling with some things, Biles said after the event. It just sucks when you are fighting with your own head.
The U.S. team had dominated the sport for more than a decade before the Russians won the gold medal on Tuesday. The U.S. team, with Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles and Grace McCallum, finished the competition while Biles cheered them on. They won the silver medal.
Jade Carey, who had the ninth highest score in qualifications, will take Biless place in the all-around final. Lee, of St. Paul., Minn., will be the other gymnast in the all-around for the U.S. team. It is not clear whether Biles will compete in any of the individual apparatus finals.
In the days leading up to the Olympics, Biles had been struggling with a few skills and was trying to overcome a mental block that kept her from easily performing her routines. That mental block is not uncommon in gymnastics, Jess Graba, Lees coach, said, but it usually happens at practice, not at a competition.
I think a lot of people dont realize that its such a mental sport, Graba said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, explaining that the mental blocks take a while to work through before a gymnast can begin trusting herself enough to perform her skills again.
Regarding Lees experience with those mental blocks, he added, If you have a week or two to prepare, you could probably get her back to what she needed to do.
In Biless case at these Games, however, she did not have two weeks to spare.
Juliet Macur
Simone Biless withdrawal from Thursdays individual all-around final has opened a spot in the competition for her teammate Jade Carey, who would have qualified for the event if not for a rule that allows only two gymnasts from any country to compete in it.
Carey, who finished ninth in the all-around during qualifying and third best among the Americans, will take Biless place, joining Sunisa Lee. It is not clear whether Biles will withdraw from any of the individual apparatus finals.
Read more about Lee and Carey:
Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Sunisa Lee, known as Suni, is the second-best all-around gymnast in the United States, behind Biles, and is a strong contender for a medal in the all-around final. She also has a good chance of being the Olympic champion on the uneven bars, where she performs the most difficult routine in the world.
She finished third in the all-around in qualifying, behind Biles and Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, and second on the bars, behind Nina Derwael of Belgium, though she outdid herself on the bars in the team final.
At the Olympic trials, she outscored Biles on one of the two days of competition, something no other gymnast has done since 2013.
Lee, 18, who is the first Hmong American to represent the United States at the Olympics, said on social media this month that her goals for the Games were to win gold with the American team, silver in the all-around, gold or silver on bars and a medal of any color on beam.
Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Jade Carey, 21, is primarily a vault and floor specialist, though her performance on the other apparatuses in qualifying was good enough for ninth overall. She secured her own spot at the Olympics, separate from the U.S.A. Gymnastics selection process, by finishing first on vault in the multiyear World Cup series.
She is capable of winning medals on vault and floor and has already qualified for both of those finals. She placed second on both at the 2017 world championships and second on vault at the 2019 world championships.
She can also execute the hardest tumbling pass ever performed by a woman, a layout triple-double. Thats a double back flip with three twists, like Biles does but while Biles does it with her knees tucked toward her chest, Carey does it with her body straight, which is significantly harder. If she attempts the skill in Olympic competition which would be risky and lands it successfully, it will be named after her.
Maggie Astor and Carla Correa
In her third Summer Games, Katie Ledecky was finally able to swim for Olympic gold in what is essentially her best event: the 1,500-meter freestyle, the longest race contested in the pool.
Since 1904, the event had been available only to men in the Olympic Games. Women who contested the event in other meets had to settle for the 800 meters at the Games, an event that Ledecky will try to win for a third time on Saturday.
On Wednesday morning, though, she finally got her chance in the 1,500 and delivered her first gold of the Tokyo Games. Ledeckys time of 15 minutes 37.34 seconds was more than four seconds faster than her American teammate Erica Sullivan (15:41.41), who won the silver, and more than five seconds ahead of the bronze medalist, Sarah Kohler of Germany (15:42.91).
Race visualization is shown at 12x speed.
Ledecky holds the world record and had the top qualifying time on Monday. Her victory in the swimming equivalent of a 5-kilometer run a grueling marathon that requires 30 trips up and back the length of the pool came a little more than an hour after Ledecky had finished fifth in the 200 freestyle final.
But in just competing in the race, Ledecky who has won three 1,500-meter world championships and has set world records six times, more than any swimmer in the event, male or female was getting an opportunity denied to distance-swimming greats like Janet Evans, Debbie Meyer, Shane Gould and Jennifer Turrall.
Until 1968, the longest Olympic event in womens swimming was only 400 meters. Meyer won the first 800-meter Olympic race for women at the Mexico City Games that year, as well as the 200 and 400 freestyle.
Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
She held the world record in both the 800 and the 1,500 back then, and she told The Times in 2014 that she questioned why the longer race was not available at the Olympics. Meyer said she had been told that there werent enough countries with women competing in the 1,500.
It really was all about the thinking then, she said, which was, women were the weaker sex and because men were stronger people, they could last the distance.
Over the years, other discrepancies in swimming have been resolved. From 1984 to 1996, for example, the men had three relays and the women two. At the Atlanta Games, the women gained parity, with a 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
But FINA, the international governing body for aquatics, had long resisted allowing women to compete in the 1,500 at the Summer Games, despite efforts in every sport to make the Olympic experience equal for women and men.
In 2015, Julio Maglione, the FINA president, said he doubted that the 1,500 could be added to the Olympic program, which was already packed with races at multiple distances for every stroke.
Yet now, not only have women gained the 1,500, but male distance swimmers also have an 800 on their schedule for the first time since 1904. A mixed medley relay has been added, with two men and two women on each team.
The longest swim in Tokyo, however, will not take place in the pool. The 10-kilometer open-water event was added to the Olympics in 2008, with races for men and women.
Matthew Futterman and Gwen Knapp
SAITAMA, Japan The United States mens basketball team got a morale-boosting victory on Wednesday, shellacking Iran, 120-66.
Ever since the first Dream Team was assembled in 1992, convincing victories like this one have been expected from the U.S. mens team. Just one Olympic team in that era has failed to win gold, and the bronze medal the 2004 team did win was treated as a disaster.
So there was plenty of disquiet after this years mens team lost exhibitions to Nigeria and Australia, then its Olympic opener, 83-76, to France.
But while each of those U.S. opponents had at least some N.B.A. and N.B.A.-quality players, Iran was simply overmatched on Wednesday. A glance at its roster reveals that its best players are employed by the Sichuan Blue Whales of China and Iranian teams like Chemidor Qom.
The U.S. was up by 16 after the first quarter and by 30 at the half. The Americans speed and ball rotation helped them get more than their share of open shots, particularly 3-pointers, and their defensive intensity prevented Iran from gaining any real momentum on offense.
Damian Lillard led the U.S. with 21 on seven 3-pointers, six of them in the first half. At one point in the second quarter, after Lillard swished a perfect 3, his defender, Hamed Haddadi, Irans best player, raised his hands in a gesture that said, What are you going to do?
Today we came out with more freedom as individuals and took the shots that we normally like to take, and they went in tonight, Kevin Durant of the U.S. said. And we guarded up, so it was a good step.
Irans Saeid Davarpanah said: We play against superstars of the world and we just enjoy it.
The U.S. will finish its pool play on Saturday night against the Czech Republic, a team that beat Iran by only 6 points. The top two squads in each of the three groups will advance to the quarterfinals, along with the two top third-place teams, so a U.S. berth in the knockout stage was never in doubt. And the team still has undeniably the most accomplished roster at the Games.
But matchups against some serious teams led by N.B.A. stars perhaps Spain with Ricky Rubio and the Gasol brothers, or Slovenia with Luka Doncic are still to come. And the U.S. must win three straight knockout games to take the gold medal that everyone expected.
As the U.S. team integrates the three players who played in the N.B.A. finals and did not join the team until Sunday Devin Booker, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday it should continue to improve.
But in an Olympics that has already had its share of upsets, no one is booking a sure gold medal for the U.S. yet.
Victor Mather

Tennis, an incredibly difficult game, has become incredibly easy for Novak Djokovic, or at least it looks that way.
Djokovic, the superstar from Serbia, captured his third consecutive victory of this Olympic tennis tournament without losing a set, defeating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain, 6-3, 6-1, in 83 minutes.
The win was not a surprise. Djokovic has established himself as far and away the top player in the world right now. But the ease of the victory was impressive. Davidovich Fokina is one of the better young players on the tour and has been playing deeper into the most important tournaments.
Davidovich Fokina was largely helpless against Djokovic, who pinned him toward the back of the court for most of the match. Djokovic even sent him sprawling to the ground twice, not by headhunting but by keeping him so off-balance.
Djokovic plays a hometown favorite, Kei Nishikori, in the quarterfinal on Thursday. He is now 10 more wins away from becoming the first man to win a Golden Slam the four Grand Slam tournaments and the gold medal in a calendar year.
Matthew Futterman
Hungary stunned the top-ranked United States in womens water polo, rallying for a 10-9 victory in preliminary round play on Wednesday against an American squad that has won gold at the last two Olympics.
Hungary scored twice in the final two minutes and won on a backhanded, overhead flip by its New Zealand-born star Rebecca Parkes with 45 seconds remaining. It was Parkess third goal of the game, and her second of the fourth quarter.
Hungary, which finished fourth at the last three Olympics, is only the second country to beat the Americans since they won their second consecutive Olympic title at the 2016 Rio Games.
In the five years since collecting that medal, the United States went 128-3, losing only to Australia. But after starting the Tokyo Games with a 25-4 win over host Japan, the Americans had to rally to beat China on Monday. They remain the favorites to win the group.
Andrew Das
TOKYO A day after the softball tournament ended at the Tokyo Games, it was time for the return of another long-absent sport: baseball.
And if not for a furious ninth-inning rally, the tournament would have begun on Wednesday with a remarkable upset. Trailing 3-1 with two outs to go, host Japan, the top-ranked team in the world, came back to beat the Dominican Republic, 4-3.
At Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium, the closer for the Dominican Republic, Jairo Asencio imploded, in the bottom of the ninth inning. Japans Yuki Yanagita, Kensuke Kondoh and Munetaka Murakami each singled, the last driving in a run and trimming Japans deficit to 3-2.
Japan then tied the score when Takuya Kai bunted up the first-base line and pinch-runner Sosuke Genda slid home in time.
Dominican Republic Manager Hector Borg hooked Asencio, replacing him with Jhan Marinez, but that couldnt stop Japan. Hayato Sakamoto, the longtime standout shortstop in baseball-mad Japans top professional league, smacked a single to center field, scoring Murakami for the walk-off victory.
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, was in attendance and congratulated Japans players after the win. Like softball, baseball made its Olympic comeback after 13 years out of the Games.
Through the first six innings on Wednesday, the game was scoreless thanks to the stout pitching of Cristopher Mercedes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Japans hard-throwing 22-year-old. But after taking leads of 2-0 and 3-1, the Dominican Republic couldnt hold on.
While disappointing for the seventh-ranked Dominican team, the loss hasnt doomed its medal chances. The team plays Mexico on Friday to wrap up pool play before the modified double-elimination format begins.
Israel, the lowest seed in the tournament, plays its first-ever Olympic baseball game on Thursday, against a young South Korean squad. The last time baseball was played in the Olympics, in Beijing in 2008, South Korea bested Cuba, 3-2, for the gold medal.
James Wagner
No one could imagine the pressure. No one could understand the difficult decision she faced. After all, theres only one greatest gymnast of all time.
Simone Biless decision to leave the Olympic gymnastics team event on Tuesday because she wasnt in the right head space sparked an outpouring of support from fellow athletes, politicians, celebrities and others.
Her withdrawal follows similar decisions by other top Black athletes, including Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the French Open in May, to prioritize their mental health over competing.
Biles said after the team final that she had hoped to compete for herself, but felt like I was still doing it for other people. She added, So that just, like, hurts my heart, because doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people.
Its impossible to understand the pressure Simone Bilesthe greatest gymnast in the history of the sportand Naomi Osaka are feeling, but were lucky to live in a time where young Black trailblazers are publicly prioritizing their mental health above all else. Thats power.
— Evette Dionne (@freeblackgirl) July 27, 2021
Black women are continuously shifting the narrative on what it means to be a “strong Black woman”. To be strong is to thrive, and not suffer. There is strength in putting yourself first. Especially in these systems that do not serve us. Thank you @naomiosaka and @Simone_Biles.
— Dr. Raven the Science Maven (@ravenscimaven) July 27, 2021
Some noted that Biless decision signaled a larger shift in the culture of professional sports.
It might be nothing, but Simone and Naomi were both born in 1997, the same year that the WNBA started, Venus Williams made her first Grand Slam final, and Serena broke into the Top 100. pic.twitter.com/3nRPzufAt5
— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) July 27, 2021
Watching these Black women athletes use and navigate power over the last 25 years, Franklin Leonard, a film producer, said. What an extraordinary gift it has been.
The journalist Wesley Lowery echoed Mr. Leonards assessment.
it’s still playing out, but this new generation of young athletes setting a new set of boundaries around mental health/what they owe the public and the media//their own agency (in part downstream of them having more power but not only that) feels paradigm shifting
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) July 27, 2021
Some criticized U.S.A. Gymnastics as having placed too much pressure on Biles.
Simone Biles is the greatest gymnast of all time, but USAGs strategy of not caring about team composition or lineups because Simone will save the day is not a healthy or sustainable method. Its too much to put on a person, no matter how great she is.
She deserves better.
— m!a j merr!ll (@ameliamerr_) July 27, 2021
And if anyone could relate, it was her fellow athletes.
Just a friendly reminder: Olympic athletes are human & theyre doing the best they can. Its REALLY hard to peak at the right moment & do the routine of your life under such pressure. Really hard.
— Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) July 26, 2021
Propsss to @naomiosakaa1 and @Simone_Biles for reminding us the importance of taking care of ourselves!! Grateful we get to watch how theyre gonna keep changing the game for future generations in AND outside their sports
— Jeremy Lin (@JLin7) July 27, 2021
So glad @Simone_Biles made that call tonight. As a gymnast, I can tell you, if you dont trust yourself, you cant keep going. Its no joke; you could get seriously hurt. Its not worth the risk. No medal is worth the risk. Lets normalise putting your mental health first.
— Mary-Anne Monckton (@Monckton07) July 27, 2021
Remy Tumin
There are favorites, and there are underdogs. And the favorites usually win, of course.
But with more than 300 gold medals to be awarded at these Olympics, the laws of chance say that sometimes the favorites will stumble. It has happened before. The Russian ice hockey team in 1980. The wrestler Aleksandr Karelin in 2000. The American softball team in 2008.
In just the first few days of the Tokyo Olympics, some big names are joining the list.
After Simone Bilesabruptly withdrew from the team competition Tuesday night, the U.S. took home the silver medal in an event they had long dominated and were favored to win. Russia won gold, and Britain claimed bronze.
Osaka became the face of the Games when she lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony. A gold medal in tennis would seem to have been the logical end to her story. Yet Osaka lost Tuesday to the 42nd-ranked player in the world, Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, in a third-round trouncing,6-1, 6-4. It took less than an hour.
Barty, the Australian tennis player who is the world No. 1, was eliminated in the first round after she fell in straight sets to Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, 6-4, 6-3.
The United States mens basketball team had a couple of stumbles in exhibitions leading to the Games but was still a big favorite going in. It lost its opening game to France.
The World Cup-winning U.S. womens soccer team showed little of its customary swagger in a 3-0 capitulation to Sweden. It also played Australia to a scoreless draw, although that was good enough for the U.S. to advance to the knockout round. On the mens side, the pretournament favorite Spain opened with a draw against Egypt.
Japan beat the U.S., 2-0, on Tuesday in a replay of the last time these two rival teams faced off for the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games, when Japan won and softball was then dropped from the Olympics. The win marks Japans second consecutive Olympic gold in the event.
China rarely loses in diving, and even less often in synchronized diving. Yet the mens team lost to Britain in the synchronized platform event.
Another bad day for China, as Japan ended Chinas dominance in table tennis with a gold medal in mixed doubles.
China won all four gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the team of Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen was a heavy favorite this time. But Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito defeated them.
Katie Ledecky of the U.S. and Ariarne Titmus of Australia in the womens 400-meter freestyle final.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Granted, it was foretold, as her emerging rival, Ariarne Titmus of Australia, had posted better times than her recently in the 400-meter freestyle. But it was still stunning to see Ledecky, one of the most dominant distance swimmers in a generation, out-touched at the wall to be relegated to the silver medal.
Theres a long way to go, and many more favorites. The U.S. womens basketball team. The Serbian three-on-three basketball team. The Russian synchronized swimmers. Believe it or not, the Sinkovic brothers of Croatia in the pair rowing event.
Heres a not very daring forecast: They might not all win.
Victor Mather
TOKYO Just four days after Naomi Osaka mounted the stairs to light the Olympic cauldron, an event presented as a symbol of a new, more inclusive Japan, that image was undermined on Tuesday by a backlash that followed her surprise defeat in Tokyo.
Many Japanese were stunned by Osakas third-round loss to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic after she had been favored to take the womens tennis gold medal on home soil.
But as the face of a Summer Games riddled with scandal and anxiety over an unstinting pandemic Tokyo posted a record number of new coronavirus cases on Tuesday Osaka took a drubbing on Japanese social media, with some questioning her identity or her right to represent the country at all.
I still cant understand why she was the final torchbearer, one commenter wrote on a Yahoo News story about her loss. Although she says she is Japanese, she cannot speak Japanese very much. Several comments like that one that were harshly critical of Osaka were given thumbs up by 10,000 or more other Yahoo users.
Her selection as the final torchbearer at the opening ceremony demonstrated how eager the Olympic organizers were to promote Japan as a diverse culture. The Washington Wizards star Rui Hachimura, who is of Japanese and Beninese descent, also featured prominently as a flag-bearer for the Japanese Olympic team.
But in some corners of society, people remain xenophobic and refuse to accept those who dont conform to a very narrow definition of what it means to be Japanese.
Motoko Rich
Here are some highlights of U.S. broadcast coverage on Wednesday morning, including synchronized diving, medals in three-on-three basketball and rugby, and lots of soccer. All times are Eastern.
DIVING Andrew Capobianco and Michael Hixonof Team U.S.A. will compete for gold in the mens synchronized 3-meter springboard event at 2 a.m. on the USA Network.
RUGBY The USA Network will air the mens gold and bronze medal matches at 4:30 a.m.
THREE-ON-THREE BASKETBALL The inaugural three-on-three basketball tournaments have won over quite a few converts. In the womens semifinals, the U.S. faces off against France at 4 a.m., and the Russian Olympic Committee plays China at 5:10 a.m. In the mens semifinals, Serbia plays Russian Olympic Committee at 4:30 a.m. and Belgium plays Latvia at 5:40 a.m. Watch on NBCOlympics.com and the USA Network.
SOCCER Germany faces Ivory Coast in the group stage of the mens tournament. Kickoff is at 4 a.m. on NBCSN. France will take on the home team Japan at 7:30 a.m., also on NBCSN. Other matches to follow on NBCOlympics.com: Germany vs. Ivory Coast and Saudi Arabia vs. Brazil at 4 a.m.; Romania vs. New Zealand and South Korea vs. Honduras at 4:30 a.m.; Australia vs. Egypt and Spain vs. Argentina at 7 a.m. Telemundo will air South Africa vs. Mexico at 7:15 a.m.
CANOE/KAYAK NBCSN will air heats of womens whitewater slalom at 6:30 a.m.
FENCING Mens team sabre bronze matches are at 5:30 a.m. and gold matches are at 6:30 a.m. on NBCOlympics.com.
Remy Tumin
Tokyo 2020 organizers on Wednesday reported 16 new coronavirus infections among Olympic personnel, bringing to 174 the total number of people connected to the Games who have tested positive since July 1.
No new infections were reported among athletes. Organizers also removed two earlier cases from their tally, including of one athlete, but did not offer details.
A total of 20 athletes are confirmed to have tested positive since arriving in Tokyo, derailing many of their Olympic hopes, but so far Covid-19 has mostly been a sidelight to the Games.
That is far from the case outside the Olympic bubble, where the virus is surging. Tokyo officials said on Tuesday that 2,848 people had tested positive for the virus, the citys highest total in one day since the pandemic began. Government data also showed that 14.5 percent of coronavirus tests in the city were turning up positive, suggesting that many cases may be going unrecorded.
Tokyo is currently under its fourth state of emergency since early 2020, with bars and restaurants closing early and sales of alcohol tightly restricted. But health experts said that the continuing surge in cases suggests that the measures, which had helped subdue earlier outbreaks, may no longer be as effective as the more contagious Delta variant accounts for a larger proportion of new cases.
Shashank Bengali
So far, at least 174 people with Olympic credentials, including 20 athletes, have tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan. Others have tested positive before their departure to the Games and are not included in the chart below.
Scientists say that positive tests are expected with daily testing programs, even among the vaccinated. Little information on severity has been released, though public reports suggest that cases among athletes have generally been mild or asymptomatic. Some athletes who have tested positive have not been publicly identified.

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Note: Data is shown by the date in Tokyo when a case was announced. Some athletes tested positive before arriving in Japan.
Sources: Tokyo 2020 organizing committee and staff reports.
By Jasmine C. Lee and John Yoon
A Moroccan boxer tried to bite his opponents ear during a heavyweight match on Tuesday.
Youness Baallas attempt to latch on to David Nyikas ear failed while the pair were clinched together late in their 81- to 91-kilogram preliminary match on Tuesday. Nyika, 25, of New Zealand went on to win the match by unanimous decision and advance to the mens quarterfinals.
He didnt get a full mouthful, Nyika said. Luckily he had his mouth guard in, and I was a bit sweaty. While the referee missed the bite attempt during the match, it was caught on TV cameras.
According to his profile on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics website, Baalla, 22, was ranked No. 17 in the mens heavyweight 91-kilogram class at the 2019 World Championships in Yekaterinburg, Russia. That same year, according to the profile, he was ranked No. 2 in the heavyweight division at the African Games in Rabat, Morocco.
Baalla, who is from Casablanca, secured a spot on the Moroccan national team at the 2020 African Olympic qualification tournament in Dakar, Senegal.
I dont have the right words to describe really what I am feeling, Baalla said at the time, according to the Olympics live-blog that covered the African qualifiers. I am going to Olympics! I trained so hard, you cant imagine what I do for this.
After the match, officials disqualified Baalla from the Tokyo Games.
Baallas desperation move was reminiscent of Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfields ears during a heavyweight championship fight in Las Vegas in 1997. Tyson was disqualified in the third round, and Holyfield needed stitches to repair the tip of one ear.
Alexandra E. Petri
Before the pandemic, the Japanese designer who created the Olympic and Paralympic mascots predicted that they would become the face of the Games.
It hasnt quite turned out that way. The two mascots are ubiquitous in the Olympic merchandise being sold around Tokyo as the Games unfold. But in a country where mascots play a major role in corporate branding and merchandising, they have mostly been a subdued presence at the very event they were made to represent.
The Japanese public is not really swooning over them either, according to fans and experts who study the countrys mascot industry. The mascots social media profiles are modest, and a common complaint is that their names Miraitowa and Someity are hard to remember.
Miraitowa is the Olympic mascot, and Someity represents the Paralympics, which are scheduled to run in Tokyo from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5.
Within the whirlwind of all the Olympic controversy, I think the mascots were forgotten somewhere along the way, Yuki Fuka, 46, said as she walked around the Olympic Stadium with her daughter over the weekend. The Games have just started, and their existence is already an afterthought.
Every Olympics since 1972 has had an official mascot, but Miraitowa and Someity are competing in a crowded local field because Japan already has thousands of whimsical, clumsy creatures, known as yuru-chara, that were created to promote their hometowns.
Japans best-known mascot may be Kumamon, a cuddly bear from Kumamoto Prefecture that helped popularize the yuru-chara phenomenon about a decade ago. The naughtiest one is almost certainly Chiitan, an unsanctioned fairy baby mascot from the city of Susaki that was once suspended from Twitter over its violent antics.
As of Tuesday, the Olympic and Paralympic mascots had about 15,000 Instagram followers between them, a small fraction of Chiitans nearly 900,000. Miraitowa had posted just 70 times on the platform in two years.
Are Miraitowa and Someity loathed or even disliked? Not at all. Theyve just been a bit, well, underwhelming.
Theyre not hated, design-wise. They seem to be functional. They seem to be doing a good job, said Jillian Rae Suter, a professor of informatics at Shizuoka University, southwest of Tokyo, who has studied Japanese mascots. But there doesnt seem to be a lot of passion for them.
Mike Ives and Hikari Hida