Veteran players Carli Lloyd and Meghan Rapinoe scored a brace each for the US, securing the prestigious bronze medal.
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Day 13 of the Tokyo Olympics was an important one for those participating in team events. The bronze medal match in women’s football was one of those events in which the US survived a tough test against Australia. The men’s hockey tournament also reached its conclusion as Belgium, Australia, and India won the gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. In men’s basketball, the United States beat Australia and France beat Slovenia in the semi-finals. In singles action, wrestling saw quite a few gold medal matches, including the ones of the men’s freestyle 86kg and the women’s freestyle 57kg.
The United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) won a very tightly contested match against Australia to win the bronze medal in the women’s football event. The match ended 4-3 in favor of the US side. Veteran players Carli Lloyd and Meghan Rapinoe scored a brace each for the US, securing the prestigious medal. For Australia, Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord, and Emily Gielink scored the goals. However, it was not enough to see them bag the bronze in the 2021 Olympics.
Hockey saw two medal matches played out on the day. In the men’s bronze medal encounter, India and Germany put up a goal fest and the former won 5-4. The gold medal match could not be decided in regulation time, thus it had to be settled in a shootout. Australia and Belgium were tied 1-1. Tom Joseph Wickham scored for the Aussies while Florent van Aubel scored for Belgium. Ultimately. It was the Belgian side that bagged the gold medal after winning 3-2 in the shootout.
Shifting over to basketball, and the United States looks like the strongest favorite to win the gold medal at this point. They soundly beat Australia in the men’s semi-final event 97-78 to advance to the final of the competition. Taking them on in the final will be France. The European nation edged out a win in what was an intense game of basketball. The match ended 90-89 in France’s favor. France might have done well to reach the final, but the US team just seems far too strong for the French.
The final of the men’s freestyle 86kg event saw Hassan Yazdanicharati of Iran take on David Morris Taylor III of the United States. It was a very tightly contested affair as the two athletes gave everything they had for the gold medal. In the end, however, it was Taylor who won the match 4-3. Hassan scored one point in the first period and two in the second. Taylor did not score in the first period but managed to bag four in the second.
It was a much more one-sided affair in the women’s freestyle 57kg gold medal match. The contestants were Iryna Kurachkina of Belarus and Risako Kawai of the host nation, Japan. Risako emerged victorious by a comfortable margin of 5-0. The Japanese grappler scored two points in the first period and three in the second. Kurachkina simply had no answer for the technical skill of Risako.
